Page 2 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

“You don’t even know which new guy I’m talking about.”

“I know enough.I hate him already.”

“You hate everyone before seven.”

“That’s because people insist on existing before seven.”

I turn back to my dough, because dough I understand.Dough is simple.Flour, water, yeast, salt, and sugar.Give it warmth, give it patience, and it becomes something soft.Something useful.Something people want.

People are more complicated.Wolves are worse.Mates are the worst.

Not that anyone asked for my expert opinion, but being fated to someone is the cosmic equivalent of having your life hijacked by a drunk wedding planner with trauma and a superiority complex.Everyone romanticizes it until you’re the one standing there with your soul cracked open while the person fate supposedly handpicked for you looks you dead in the eye and says no.

I shove the thought down so hard it nearly cracks a rib.

Nope.Not today.

Today is about cinnamon rolls, sourdough, lemon tarts, and pretending my life is a charming little small-town success story instead of what it actually is ...a rejected wolf shifter living off pack land, running a bakery, and absolutely not thinking about the bond that once tried to kill her.

Very wholesome.Very marketable.And it probably looks great on a business card.

Maisie softens in that awful way people do when they almost remember my past out loud.I hate that look.Pity has a scent.Sour and sticky, and it clings to the air and crawls under my skin.

“I’m fine,” I say before she can speak.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to say the croissants need egg wash.”

“Liar.”I give her a look over my shoulder.

“Fine.I was about to say you need help.”

“I need coffee.Help is for people with support systems and healthy coping mechanisms.”

“Holly.”

I sigh and lean my hip against the counter.The bakery is warm around us, glowing gold in the soft light above the display cases.Outside, the town is still mostly asleep, the street washed in pale dawn and silence.Inside, everything smells like butter, sugar, yeast, and the faint burn of electrical failure.

Sweetique Bakery is small, but it's mine—every inch of it.

The front has little round tables with mismatched chairs I refinished myself, because I’m cheap and stubborn.The walls are painted sage green, the shelves stacked with jars of cookies, honey, and homemade jams.There is a chalkboard menu above the counter written in my handwriting, which is mostly legible if you squint and believe in miracles.

Behind the counter, the kitchen is controlled chaos.Stainless-steel surfaces.Cooling racks.Flour bins.Ovens.A sink that drips when it feels emotionally neglected.And now, one dead mixer lying like a fallen soldier.

This place is the first thing that ever belonged to me.Not my pack.Not my bloodline.Not my mate.

Mine.

I built it after I left Ash Hollow with two suitcases, one scarred wolf, and exactly enough pride to make terrible financial choices.I slept in the storage room for the first three months because rent for an apartment and a shop would have required either a miracle or a sugar daddy, and I don’t have the personality for either.

Now, two years later, people line up for my apple fritters.

Survival is weird like that.One day you’re certain the pain is going to hollow you out forever.Then suddenly you’re yelling at a mixer while wearing an apron that saysHot Buns Served Daily.Healing is not graceful.Anyone who says otherwise is selling journals on social media.

Maisie’s phone buzzes on the counter.She snatches it up, reads the message, and smiles.