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- Herausgeber: BookRix
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
Kayleigh Berry has survived her whole life by staying invisible—an unranked omega with no pack ties, no protection, and no place in the Alpha stronghold beyond the work no one else wants. But the night her mate bond awakens, it doesn’t complete the way it should.
It goes quiet.
When the Alpha King returns at dawn, the stronghold tightens with tension…and Kayleigh’s dormant bond stirs like a warning. Collin Perez is everything an Alpha King should be: controlled, ruthless when needed, and bound to a council that expects obedience. What they don’t expect is the way he reacts to Kayleigh—or the dark trace of blood magic branded into her past.
As unrest spreads across the borders and whispers of rebellion ignite the outer packs, the council demands a solution: a public claim, a symbolic mate, a show of “stability” under ancient law. Kayleigh refuses to be anyone’s leverage. Collin refuses to use her as a weapon.
But someone has been shaping mate bonds for generations… and the truth they buried is waking up.
A rejected mate. A king trapped in tradition. A bond that was never meant to be gentle.
When the blood moon rises, Kayleigh will have to decide what love, power—and choice—really mean… before the world decides for her.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026
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The Lost Mate of The Alpha King
A Rejected Mate Shifter Romance
LAURA DUTTON
Copyright© 2026, LAURA DUTTON
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information
storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by: LAURA DUTTON
DISCLAIMER
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, settings, organizations, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to real events is entirely coincidental.
It contains themes of passion, power, supernatural conflict, and emotional intensity that may not be suitable for all readers. Reader discretion is advised.
The opinions, emotions, and actions of the characters are purely fictional and do not represent the beliefs or perspectives of the author.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Prologue
The pain arrives before the sound.
Kayleigh Berry is reaching for the latch on the barn door when her knees buckle, breath tearing out of her as if something inside her has been yanked sideways. The wood scrapes beneath her fingers. Dust lifts from the packed earth. For a heartbeat, she thinks she’s been struck—an arrow, maybe, or a falling beam—but there is no impact, no wound she can touch.
Only heat.
It floods her chest, sharp and wrong, spreading outward like fire beneath skin that doesn’t know how to burn. Her heartbeat stumbles, then races, loud enough to drown out the cicadas screaming in the fields beyond the fence.
“No,” she whispers, because some instinct older than language has already understood.
The moon hangs low and broken above the valley, split by fast-moving clouds that drag its light across the land in uneven slashes. The air smells of hay and iron and something sweeter that makes her stomach turn. Her legs tremble as she forces herself upright, fingers curling into her dress as another wave rolls through her—pressure this time, heavy and pulling, like an invisible thread tightening around her ribs.
Her body reacts before her mind can catch up.
Her breath shortens. Her senses sharpen. The night snaps into focus with painful clarity: the rustle of mice in the grass, the distant rush of the river, the faint heartbeat of someone far away—too far to see, but close enough to feel.
That heartbeat calls to her.
Kayleigh presses her palm to her sternum, nails biting through fabric. The heat there pulses in time with that unseen rhythm, each thud echoing through her bones. Fear slides cold and fast beneath the warmth.
This isn’t sickness.This isn’t panic.
This is the thing every omega is warned about in whispers, the thing elders speak of with reverence and caution and envy all tangled together.
The bond.
Her vision blurs as the pull strengthens, tugging her attention east, toward the mountains where the Alpha stronghold rises like a scar against the sky. She has never been there. Has never been invited. Orphaned, unranked, tolerated at best—she has lived her life learning which spaces are not meant for her.
But something there knows her.
Her feet move without permission, carrying her out of the barn and into the open field. Grass brushes her calves, cool against skin gone too warm. The clouds thin, moonlight spilling down in fractured pieces, and for a terrifying moment, it feels as if the light itself is reaching for her.
She stumbles again, gasping as the pull tightens suddenly, violently.
Images flash behind her eyes—too fast to hold. Stone corridors. A crowd holding its breath. The sharp scent of pine and steel. A man’s presence, vast and restrained, like a storm held behind walls.
Her chest aches with it. With him.
Tears spill before she realizes she’s crying. She sinks to her knees, fingers digging into the earth as if she can anchor herself to something solid, something known.
“I don’t want this,” she says aloud, voice shaking, because want has never factored into her life before and she doesn’t expect it to start now.
The heat spikes in answer.
Not comforting. Not gentle. Just there—demanding awareness, recognition, connection.
The pull sharpens again, no longer distant, no longer vague. She feels the direction clearly now, as if a line has been drawn through her body and tied tight on the other end. The thought slams into her with dizzying force.
He’s close.
Not here—but awake. Alert. Surrounded by others. Standing somewhere high, under that same fractured moon.
The bond stretches toward him like a held breath.
And then—
It stops.
The sensation doesn’t fade. It doesn’t soften or recede the way instinct insists it should if answered, if accepted.
It snaps.
Not cleanly. Not completely.
The pressure vanishes so abruptly that Kayleigh pitches forward, palms slapping into the dirt. The heat collapses inward, leaving behind a hollow ache that feels worse than the pain ever did. Her lungs burn as she drags in air that doesn’t seem to reach far enough.
Confusion crashes over her, sharp and disorienting. She lifts her head, blinking at the moon as if it might explain itself.
Nothing answers.
The thread that had tied her to the world beyond the valley is gone. Severed. The night feels suddenly empty, flat, ordinary in a way that makes her chest hurt.
Her body reacts again—this time with nausea, with a deep tremor that rattles through her bones. She curls in on herself, arms wrapped tight around her middle, as if she can hold everything in place by force alone.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.
She knows that much. Even with no training, no guidance, no one to walk her through the changes creeping up her spine, instinct tells her that what just occurred is wrong.
A bond doesn’t awaken only to disappear. It doesn’t reach so far, so fiercely, only to leave nothing behind.
Unless—
A sound cuts through her thoughts.
Voices. Carried on the wind from the direction of the stronghold. Too distant to make out words, but loud enough to reach her heightened hearing. Many heartbeats layered together. Tension thick in their cadence.
She pushes herself to her feet, legs weak, and turns toward the mountains again. The pull is gone—but something else lingers now, faint and unsettling.
Awareness.
As if the bond, whatever it is now, has folded itself inward rather than breaking apart.
As if it has learned.
Her chest tightens as another sensation creeps in beneath the ache—shame. Sharp and sudden, though she doesn’t yet know why. The echo of dismissal brushes her nerves, cold and final.
Somewhere far away, a voice speaks—firm, controlled, carrying the weight of command. She cannot hear the words, but the intent hits her like a closed door.
Rejection.
Her breath stutters. Her fingers curl into fists at her sides as something inside her recoils hard enough to make her sway.
He didn’t feel her.
The realization lands quietly, devastating in its simplicity.
Whatever reached for her tonight did so alone.
The bond didn’t vanish because it was answered. It vanished because it was denied.
Kayleigh swallows, throat tight, and forces her spine straight. The valley feels too open, too exposed. She suddenly wants walls, shadows, anything that will hide the way her body still hums with a connection that has nowhere to go.
She turns back toward the barn, each step heavy, as if the earth itself resists her retreat.
Behind her, the clouds slide fully across the moon, dimming its light until the field is swallowed in gray.
She does not see the movement at the tree line.Does not sense the attention settling on her like a measured breath.
But as she reaches the barn door and rests her shaking hand against the wood, a single thought settles into her bones with unsettling clarity.
The bond didn’t end tonight.
It went quiet.
And somewhere in the dark, something has already taken note of the omega who should not exist.
