Page 9 of Rejected by My Shadow Alpha (Mate to the Fallen #1)

Drew

Seven Years Later…

My boots crunched through the underbrush, the coppery tang of blood sharp in the air as I reached the injured wolf.

A young male, his ribs cracked and leg twisted.

He had been ambushed by bounty hunters who thought rogues meant weak.

Fools. Rogues had no alphas and no rules, but that didn't make them easy prey.

I had received the SOS from the underground clinic and came right away.

I crouched beside him. "Stay still."

His eyes widened. "You're…"

"Shhh," I warned, sliding my bag open. "Don't say it. Just breathe."

Because names had power, and mine was a curse.

I had buried myself in the bones of rogue life, and I had meticulously searched for the few rogue wolves belonging to the Lunaris pack.

Together we had been scheming and planning, and sure enough, we would soon strike.

It hadn't been easy, but thoughts of revenge had kept me going, often fueled by the pain of rejecting Ruby.

I healed others to escape my pain. I patched broken ribs, sealed bleeding gashes, and reset bones with trembling hands and half-slept eyes.

The supernatural underground didn't have clinics.

They had people like me—healers in shadows, ghosts working under code names, crossing borders and boundaries like mist. They called me Wolfsbane22, fitting poison to monsters like Alpha Alfred and a cure to the broken.

The underground clinic was never meant to be a calling.

It was a distraction, a place where I could drown the howling in my head and put my hands, hungry for Alpha Alfred's blood, to better use.

I was stitching up wounds instead of tearing open throats and saving rogues instead of turning into one.

The healer network had been just that—routine, necessary, hollow.

We traded clinical notes, case logs, plant-based remedies, and dosages.

For years, the healer cell was nothing but a sea of names and voices without faces.

Alias upon alias. Burnt-out doctors, witches with shattered covens, lone wolves with haunted eyes.

We shared knowledge in encrypted messages.

We sent supplies. We saved lives. We asked no questions.

Then she joined.

Moonleaf.

The name was soft and gentle. She was unlike the others, and her messages, Goddess, they were meticulous.

She had a way of phrasing things that made you listen, and not just the clinical stuff, though she knew her herbs like an ancient forest witch.

The way she explained pain, healing, and emotional trauma felt like someone who had lived every wound she was trying to treat.

I knew she was a woman. I could feel it in her words.

Her recommendations were always laced with a kind of precision and care I hadn't seen before. It was not just the usual tone on how to treat the wound, but how to speak to the soul, like the prescription she suggested in the group for some troubled wolves suffering from insomnia.

"Use elderflower in small doses for nerve pain. Mix it with lavender. They sleep easier that way, especially the ones who scream in their dreams."

The first time I tried one of her remedies on a scared rogue who hadn't slept in days. The kid fell asleep mid-sentence. No sedatives. No magic. Just Moonleaf's brew.

I sent her a message that night.

"Wolfsbane22 here. Your elderflower mix worked. Thanks."

She responded within minutes.

"Glad to hear. Trauma doesn't just sit in the flesh. It settles in the bones."

Who talks like that?

I told myself it was just professional…two healers comparing notes, but I kept going back.

Her words lingered, like the aftertaste of something sweet and strange.

Familiar and comforting in a way I hadn't felt in years.

We weren't just trading herbal formulas anymore.

Our chats stretched. Sometimes, we drifted away from medicine entirely.

There was something about her that stirred an ache in me. It wasn't attraction, not at first, just intrigue. It was more like déjà vu, like catching a scent you once loved in a dream. Every time she signed off as Moonleaf, something tugged at my memory. A pull I couldn't name.

She never shared her real name, and neither did I, but somehow, her presence rooted itself in my inbox, quiet and constant. Her thoughts, her insight, and her way of being settled into my days before I realized I was looking forward to her messages more than I should have.

And that scared me because I'd only ever felt this pull once before—with Ruby.

But Ruby was gone. I'd made sure of that. I'd rejected her, left her, even faked my own death just to keep her safe from my blood feud. I had no right to hold on to anything about her. And yet, I hadn't stopped.

There were countless nights when I closed my eyes and saw her fiery red hair and her deep green eyes staring at me, beckoning to me. Her name still carved itself into the silence between my thoughts.

So why did this stranger's words reach me?

We started messaging more often. Treatment plans became side conversations about things like how some wolves react to lavender with aggression instead of calm.

Then came stories, dreams, and fragments of pain shared in late hours.

She never asked too much, and she never crossed the line, but she made me feel seen, and that was dangerous.

I never told her about Ruby. I couldn't. I still couldn't say her name without tasting ash. I hadn't earned the right to speak about it, not after what I did. Each year reminded me of what I'd thrown away in my crusade for revenge, and the grief only grew heavier.

Then one night, she said something that shattered me.

"I had a bond mate once, but he marked and rejected me. Some nights, I still feel the mate bond, even though he's gone. Isn't that crazy?"

I stared at the message for a long time, my hands numb and my breath caught in my throat. She had been rejected, too, abandoned by someone meant to protect her.

Just like I had done to Ruby.

"Did you ever want to reconcile?" I typed, my heart racing and aching all at once.

She didn't reply until hours later. Maybe she'd cried. Maybe she wasn't comfortable sharing how she felt..

"No. He died, and that squashed any possibility of reconciliation. So, I made peace. I survived, and now, I have something better than love. I have a purpose."

I read that last line over and over, until the words blurred. Better than love.

She survived.

And me? I was still clawing through the ruins of everything I destroyed.

Part of me wanted to close that chat, never return, and pretend I wasn't drawn to her. I wanted to pretend I wasn't betraying what little was left of Ruby in my heart.

She didn't say how and didn't say what the rejection cost her, but something about the way she worded it, like she had carved her own way out of hell, made my chest ache.

I wanted to say I was sorry and that I understood because the bond still haunted me, too.

How could I say I had a mate, too, but rejected her?

I was afraid my admission might make her hate me.

I didn't ask Moonleaf for more. I couldn't. It felt like betrayal to want to know.

I just sat there in the dark with my fingers trembling over the screen, feeling like I was mourning a woman I'd never met and grieving one I'd lost years ago.

Suddenly, I couldn't stop thinking about Ruby and her voice the night we held each other.

I thought about the way her hand clutched mine when I marked her and the agony in her eyes when I severed the bond.

"I'm sorry." I typed in reply, "That kind of pain changes everything. I'm glad you are strong enough to survive it."

I had convinced myself it was mercy, but hearing Moonleaf's quiet sorrow reminded me what rejection really meant. It wasn't protection. It was abandonment. Had Ruby cried the way Moonleaf spoke, soft and steady, like someone used to pain?

Moonleaf's words felt like home, like someone whispering my name through the fog of grief. It was the strange pull I now felt, like a voice on a screen that comforted and challenged me, that reminded me I was still human and still hurting.

And maybe…still worthy of connection.

Whoever she was, Moonleaf was more than just a medic in the network.

She was the one voice that made the ghost in me pause.

Somehow, that terrified me more than any war I'd ever fought or the incoming war my pack was planning against Alpha Alfred.

Still, I waited for Moonleaf's next message like a man waiting for air.

I sealed the young wolf's ribcage and wrapped his leg.

"Will it heal?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Yes," I said, pulling him to his feet. "But your wolf is weak, and you will need a lot of rest to recover fully."

He gave me a shaky nod. "Thanks."

I watched him limp into the trees. Another life saved. Another day spent not hunting Alfred. My comm device buzzed.

Jay.

Only one reason he'd page me during a mission.

"Wolfsbane," I answered.

"You'll want to see this," he said without preamble.

"Alex got into one of Alfred's offshore vaults.

We have paper trails. Accounts. Money trails tied to money laundering, illegal mining in some African countries like the Congo, and the sale of ammunition to terrorist groups to instigate tribal rivalry and unrest. This could bury him. "

A slow fire started behind my ribs. I gripped the device tightly.

"Good," I replied. "I'll be back before midnight; I need detailed information on this."

"Copy that."

The line went dead.

I stared at the trees for a moment, then pulled out my encrypted device. Moonleaf had left me a message.

"Hey, were you able to locate the young wolf?"

"Yes, I did. Your valerian root idea worked on the fractured limb. You have a gift."

I hit send before I could stop myself. Moonleaf will remain my secret place of comfort and peace. She replied while I was still packing my surgical bag.

"Glad it helped. Some of us were made to break. Others were made to heal the broken."

I shook my head and grinned in disbelief. Who talks like that? Moonleaf's manner of expression would always be an enigma to me.