Abandoned For His First Love, I Chose The Rival Alpha Instead

The smoke in the medical station was thick enough to choke a wolf. When Kieran burst through the door with his guards, I thought my mate was finally here to save me. But he didn’t look at me. He looked at Serena, his first love, who was frozen in a panic attack. There was only one spare respirator mask left. Kieran strapped it onto Serena’s face without a second of hesitation. "You know the tunnels. Get her out," he ordered me. When the second explosion trapped my leg under the rubble, I watched him carry her to safety. "I'll send someone back," he promised, walking away as the ceiling began to cave in. I waited in the dark, bleeding and suffocating. The man who finally dug me out wasn't my mate. It was Dax Mercer, the Alpha of our rival pack. And he didn't want to leave me behind.

***

"Keep moving! Toward the rear stairwell, now!"

I shoved two terrified yearlings through the fire exit as yellow wolfsbane smoke curled beneath the doorframe. Every swallow felt like swallowing crushed glass. Blood soaked the torn sleeve of my jacket, sticky and hot where a rogue’s claws had ripped across my shoulder blade ten minutes earlier.

Behind me, someone hit the floor with a dull thud.

"Maeve... I can’t." Serena curled into a ball beside the overturned gurney, clutching her chest. Her eyes were wide, glassy with terror. "I can’t breathe. My throat... it feels like it’s closing."

"Serena, get up," I rasped, gripping her uninjured arm. "It’s a panic attack. The smoke hasn’t reached this corner yet, but it will in thirty seconds. On your feet."

"I can't walk," she sobbed, trembling violently. "My legs won't work!"

The double doors burst open. Kieran tore through the haze, two pack warriors flanking him. His gaze swept the burning triage room, skipping past the shattered windows and landing instantly on Serena. In his right hand, he carried a single military-grade respirator.

"Kieran!" Serena wailed, reaching out a trembling hand.

I exhaled in relief, stepping forward. "The north stairwell collapsed. We need to clear the maintenance conduit before the ventilation shaft—"

Kieran didn't look at my shoulder. He didn't look at the blood dripping from my fingers. He dropped to one knee beside Serena and strapped the respirator over her nose and mouth.

"Breathe," he told her, his voice low, steady, and entirely focused. "You're safe now. Just breathe the pure air."

Serena clung to his wrist, crying into the silicone seal of the mask.

I stared at the back of his neck. "Kieran. That was the last rebreather in the staging unit."

He stood up, turning to face me. The smoke was thickening between us, stinging my eyes, turning the edges of the room into an orange blur.

"You know the tunnels," Kieran commanded, his tone hard and flat. "Get her out."

"My shoulder is torn open," I said, the words scraping raw against my throat. "And Serena can barely stand. If the wolfsbane gets into my blood through an open wound—"

"You can handle it, Maeve." He cut me off without a second thought. "She can't. Serena isn't a trained fighter. She has no resistance to chemical irritants."

"I'm your Beta's daughter, not an iron wall!"

"That's an order," he snapped, his Alpha authority flaring like static in the air. "Take the lower maintenance route. I have to secure the west perimeter before the rogues circle back. Bring her straight to the evacuation line."

"Kieran—"

"Move!"

He vanished back into the inferno before I could draw another poisoned breath.

Serena looked up at me from the floor, clutching the straps of the mask Kieran had personally tightened.

"Can you stand?" I asked, my voice deadly quiet.

"I... I think so," she whispered, her voice muffled behind the plastic.

"Then stand."

I yanked her upward with my good arm. Pain flared white-hot across my back, but I clamped my jaw shut. I dragged her into the service corridor. The emergency lights flickered red against the damp concrete walls. Every step sent a jolt of fire through my collarbone. Wolfsbane residue coated the air, making my skin itch and my lungs burn, but Serena had clean oxygen pumping directly into her chest.

"Maeve, it's too dark," Serena whimpered, stumbling against my side.

"Keep walking."

"What if the ceiling falls?"

"Then we die," I wheezed. "Keep moving."

We reached the heavy blast door that opened toward the outer evacuation trench. Twenty yards. Just twenty yards to the snow and the medics.

Then the concrete beneath our boots buckled.

A deafening roar ripped through the foundation as the fuel tanks beneath the medical wing ignited. The shockwave threw us forward. I shoved Serena ahead of me as the ceiling split open with a sickening groan.

A reinforced concrete beam dropped.

Pain crushed down across my thighs and shins. The impact slammed my face into the gravel, driving all the air from my chest.

"Maeve!" Serena screamed from beyond the dust cloud.

"Go..." I clawed at the rubble, but the stone slab weighed hundreds of pounds. My legs were completely pinned. "Serena, push the door bar! Go outside!"

Heavy footfalls pounded through the dust from the opposite side of the breach. Kieran shoved through the broken drywall, his tactical vest scorched, smoke clinging to his dark hair.

"Serena!" he bellowed.

"Kieran! I'm here!" she cried out. "The roof fell!"

"Kieran," I called, my voice cracking under the dust. "Over here. I'm pinned under the support beam."

Kieran scrambled over the broken drywall. He dropped down beside Serena first, cupping her face in his hands, checking the seal on her mask. "Did anything hit you? Are you burned?"

"No, but it was so loud—my ears—"

"You're alright. I've got you."

"Kieran!" I slammed my open palm against the concrete slab trapping my legs. "Lift this. The ceiling is coming down again!"

He finally looked at me over Serena's shoulder. His eyes flicked to the slab, then up to the groaning rebar hanging above us. Dust rained down in sheets.

"The structural integrity is gone," Kieran said, his breath coming hard. "If I shift that beam without a jack, the whole cross-section drops."

"Then find a lever! Don't leave me under here!"

Serena coughed, a ragged, dramatic sound that rattled against her plastic mask. "Kieran... my head is spinning. The smoke... it's getting through..."

Kieran didn't hesitate. He slid his arms beneath Serena's knees and back, lifting her off the ground in a single fluid motion.

"I have to get her to the medical transport," Kieran said, backing toward the exit hatch. "Her oxygen levels are dropping."

"What about me?" The words tore out of me, stripped of pride. "Kieran, look at me! I can't move!"

"I'll send someone back," he said.

He didn't wait for my answer. He turned his back, shielded Serena's head with his chest, and kicked the exit door open into the winter gale.

The heavy steel door swung shut behind him.

"Kieran!"

Silence answered. Just the crackle of burning wires and the rumble of a mountain giving way.

My vision began to fray around the edges. Black spots danced across the red glow of the emergency lights. The wolfsbane was in my blood now, freezing my veins, turning every breath into a shallow, useless gasp. My cheek rested on the cold, dirty floor.

*He left me.*

He had taken the only mask, handed me the burden, and walked away when the ceiling fell.

The darkness closed in, heavy and cold. My eyes drifted shut.

A sudden scrape of stone jolted through the floorboards.

"Clear the rebar!" a voice snapped—deep, resonant, vibrating with authority. "Get the hydraulic spreaders out of the rig, now!"

"Alpha Mercer, the inner chamber is compromised!" another voice shouted from further away. "The whole ridge is coming down!"

"I didn't ask for a weather report," the first voice snarled.

Footsteps crushed through the gravel. Boots stopped inches from my face. Strong hands gripped the concrete slab pinning my legs. With a harsh, guttural heave, the suffocating weight lifted off my lower body. Metal groaned as the slab was thrown aside, crashing into the wall.

Cool air hit my skin. A pair of calloused hands slid beneath my shoulders, pulling me free of the debris.

I forced my eyelids open. A face hovered above mine—sharp jaw, ruthless pale gray eyes, a jagged scar cutting across his high cheekbone.

Dax Mercer. The Alpha of Frosthaven.

"Can you breathe?" he demanded. His voice was gravel and ice.

"I'm..." I swallowed, the reflex of a Beta's daughter trying to maintain protocol even while choking to death. "I'm fine."

Dax's eyes narrowed, dangerous and sharp.

"I didn't ask if you were fine," he said bluntly.

He slid one arm beneath my back and the other beneath my knees, lifting me against his chest with effortless power. He turned and kicked through the remnants of the doorway, carrying me straight out into the blinding white of the snowstorm.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Flashing red lights painted the snow.

Over Dax's broad shoulder, through the falling flakes, I saw the main medical transport twenty yards away.

Kieran was standing by the open doors. He was leaning over Serena, gently wiping the soot from her forehead, his head bent close to hers as the paramedics swarmed around them.

He never once looked back at the collapsed tunnel.

Dax adjusted his grip on me, his gray eyes tracking my gaze toward Kieran, then looking down at my blood-streaked face.

"Don't waste your breath watching him," Dax said, his tone chillingly cold. "He made his choice. Now you're going to make yours."