Page 4 of Broken Rejected Mate

“Good morning,” my father mumbles, taking his seat and immersing himself in his notes. Months went by during which he was banned from continuing his role on the council. Dorian waited for Leta to conduct a thorough investigation into him.

The result was conclusive. Kellen Argent had no idea his wife was secretly betraying him for years. I thought that would be pretty clear to anybody who took one look at his face.

My father—who for years had been driven, focused on nothing but getting ahead and sucking up—is now quiet. Turned inward, like he has something to pay penance for.

Maybe he does.

The next person to walk through the door is Aidan Grayhide. He raises a hand to Dorian, who raises his eyebrows in return.

“Relax, boss,” Aidan jokes, grabbing the back of a chair and leaning on it. He’s the kind of kid that’s just bursting with life. His hair—which is unusually gray for his age—stands on end, tousled in different directions because he can’t stop running his hands through it. His eyes are bright, something determined in them.

He showed up in Ambersky territory, telling Dorian he was the true heir to the Grayhide pack, and would be getting his revenge by killing the current alpha.

Although Dorian let him into the territory, gave him space to train and prepare to take down the Grayhide alpha leader, that doesn’t mean Aidan has a seat at the council table, where we discuss sensitive information, make plans for what to do next.

Dorian isn’t suspicious of Aidan, but he also doesn’t trust him. Ironically, Aidan exists in a gray zone.

“I’m just here to get the details about that—”

“Oh,” Dorian sits up straighter, grabs a pad from the table and scribbles something out, and slides it back over to Aidan, who takes it, nods at him, folds the paper and sticks it in the little pocket on his shirt.

Although he spends most of his time training—weightlifting, running, sparring—Aidan also spends a significant amount of time completing side quests for Dorian. Taking care of a couple of lone wolves that rolled into town, fixing the hole in an old woman’s porch, running messages.

It’s resulted in two things—one, Dorian is starting to like him more and more. And two, people in the town are warming to him, getting to know him by name.

Even if he is a Grayhide.

Aidan leaves, and the others arrive. Leta, the shifter in charge of intelligence. Claire, a caster who imbues our stones with shifting magic. I raise my hand and palm the necklace that holds the stone hanging around my neck—a gift from my mother—and think about that first shift I had to do without it. The worst kind of growing pains, bone against bone, a slow, stretching torture.

Once was enough. With the Amanzite, the pain of shifting is gone. It also allows me to communicate with other wolves while in that form. Magic takes care of all the details.

“Good morning, everyone,” Claire says, once everyone is seated and listening. “As I’m sure you are all aware, today marks one full year since we first discovered the severe and sudden decline in our stores of Amanzite, so we wanted to review some of the consequences and our plans to avoid it in the future.”

Leta stands, her voice no-nonsense, her hands clasped in front of her. “Our investigation revealed a theft of the Amanzite. The store room was accessed through Kellen Argent’s access card, then re-programmed to hide initial evidence of the access time. Since then, my team has re-configured the room so any shifter wishing to access it must also have the Alpha leader present.”

“That should help us protect Amanzite in the future,” Claire says, pointing up their presentation. It shows a list of consequences for the lack of Amanzite. Turning back to us, Claire says, “Obviously, you’re all aware of the immediatethreats we’ll face without the gems, but there are several other, more minor effects, as well.”

Leta stands straight and tall, her eyes darting to the Alpha leader’s when she says, “The obvious threat to our security at the border, but also an increased stress on mental health in the pack, due to shifters completing their transitions without the stone.

“There are threats to casters, too,” Claire glances at a woman beside her, whom I assume is another caster. “Without Amanzite, our casters can’t continue practicing imbuing. Our casting is like a muscle—when we don’t use it, it will atrophy. Which will cause a longer slowdown of production when we finally do recover the stones.”

They run through the rest of the list, which makes my stomach feel tight—the consequences range from minor physical pain to the overall downfall of the pack.

When I glance over at Dorian, he looks even more exhausted than before. Of course, he’s probably already thought about all this, but it can’t help to have it written out and color coded in front of him.

“As of right now,” Claire says, clearing her throat and turning to face the table. “Our stores are back to a reasonable level.”

“Do you have projections for how long it will last us?” Dorian asks, leaning forward.

Claire nods, and Leta clicks to a new slide, showing a graph that trends definitively down. “At our old consumption rates? At least year. But with the rate of shifting rising—with there being more patrols along the borders—we’re looking at more like two months, maybe three, without replenishment. .”

I grab another bagel as Dorian asks, “And what are we looking at for replenishment?”

”We’ve been attempting a synthetic generation of the gem,” Claire says, her chin dipping. “But so far, we have not had any viable results.”

Synthetic generation? I glance at Dorian—he hadn’t told me about that. They’re trying to make Amanzite withmagic? I’ve never heard of something like that, and want to ask about it, but before I can speak, Leta jumps in, tapping on her tablet.

“But there’s good news from my end,” she says. “We have a contact from the Llewelyn pack that’s willing to meet at the market tonight. They want the pranxath powder, and have Amanzite to trade for it.”

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