Chapter Seven:
Caleb's POV-
The moment the words left her mouth, they sank into my chest like silver blades.
"I, Hazel Alice Thorn, reject Caleb Benjamin Blackmoor as my mate."
For a heartbeat I couldn't breathe. The world tilted. Adam staggered inside my head and released a sound so raw and broken I thought it would rip me apart.
"No. No. NO!" his howl rolled through me, shaking every bone. He clawed at my insides, fighting me for control. "She cannot—she cannot reject us! She is ours!"
I clenched my fists until my nails cut crescents into my palms. My breath came out in ragged snarls. "You think it's that easy, Hazel?" I hissed, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. "You think you can reject me and walk free?"
She stood there, chest heaving, eyes blazing with hate. But I saw it — the tremor in her fingers, the flutter of pulse at her throat. She felt it too. The bond. The goddess's cursed gift.
Adam whimpered, grief tearing at me, begging me to take her, to beg her to take it back. I couldn't. I wouldn't.
Not after everything. Not after what her family did.
My father's voice — harsh, cold — echoed: "The Thorn bloodline is poison. They will destroy us if we do not destroy them first."
And here she was: the last Thorn. My mate. My curse.
The pull between us was unbearable. Every fiber of me screamed to go to her, to kiss her, to claim her. My wolf slammed into my mind like a storm, demanding control.
"Mate! Fix this! Take it back! Don't let her leave us!"
"She rejected us!" I roared back at him, voice full of iron. "She chose her fate. She sealed it."
Hazel's eyes flickered for the smallest second — I felt it. The rejection had cut her too. A faint whimper slipped from her, but she straightened and masked it with a glare.
I wanted to tear the world down.
Instead I forced a bitter smile. "You should thank Selene I haven't handed you to the royals yet." My voice dripped venom, but inside I was bleeding. "You'll stay here, Hazel. Not as my mate — as my prisoner. And you will pay for every drop of blood your family spilled."
Her jaw clenched. I turned before I could falter.
I slammed the door so hard the wood splintered.
---
By the time I reached the training grounds, Adam was on the edge of madness.
"Let me out!" he snarled. "Let me fight. Let me kill. Let me—"
"Shut up!" I barked, but he didn't quiet. His grief was a constant throb. Warriors sparring under the moon froze when I stomped in. Silence fell like a heavy blanket.
"Alpha," my Beta murmured, careful.
"Fight me," I growled.
He hesitated. "Alpha, you're—"
"NOW!" I roared, and Adam surged forward.
The fight was ugly and brutal. I didn't hold back. Every blow I landed tasted like pain and grief and the edge of something darker. I ripped into my Beta first, slammed him to the ground. He coughed blood and tried to rise. Another warrior lunged and I met him with an uppercut that cracked bone — teeth and blood flew. I tore, I pushed, I broke.
One by one they came. One by one I destroyed them.
The earth drank sweat and blood. Men crumpled, groaned, spat red foam. My knuckles split open and dripped dark. Still the ache in my chest burned like a brand.
Nothing quieted Adam's howls.
"She's ours! Don't let her go! Take her back!"
"She doesn't want us!" I snapped inside, landing another brutal strike that sent a man rolling, face broken and bleeding. "She rejected us!"
Even as I said it the bond tugged at me like iron chains sunk into bone. I felt her — Hazel — upstairs in my chambers. Her heart still beat. Her breaths came uneven as she fought Flora in her head.
And I hated it.
I hated wanting her. I hated that she had power over me. I hated that the goddess cursed me with her.
At last the warriors couldn't get up. My Beta knelt, nose bleeding, lip split. "Alpha…" he rasped. "Enough."
I stood there, chest heaving, fists shaking with the need to keep hitting something until something broke. To kill. To make the world hurt less. There was nothing left to destroy.
I staggered back, wiping blood from my face. My Beta met my eyes. "This is about her," he said quietly.
I didn't lie. I didn't answer.
His jaw tightened. "What will you do?"
I didn't know.
All I knew was Hazel Thorn — my mate — would never walk free. She would never take that rejection and turn it into freedom.
If she thought she could reject Caleb Blackmoor and live, she was a fool.
I would make her regret it.
But Adam — broken and desperate — murmured what I had refused to admit: "You love her. Even if you hate her, you love her."
I let out a guttural snarl and punched the stone wall. The stone cracked under my fist.
No.
Love is weakness. Weakness gets you killed.
Hazel Thorn would pay. Even if it killed me to make her.
I would mark her.