The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

The Five Packs, Book 5

De: Cate C. Wells

Narrado por: Natalie Eaton, Scott Rose

My mate called me weak and walked away.

Annie

I try not to think about mating the wild wolf from the Last Pack. It happened. He left. The witch sorted me out and life kept going.

I’m anxious all the time—every moment of every day—but I’m not worried about him. He hates me, and he’s not coming back. He made that perfectly clear.

I should have worried.

After all, everyone like me knows the first rule of anxiety—if you don’t worry about something, it will happen.

And the mate who left me is now trespassing on my pack’s territory, and this time, when I run, he chases.

Justus

My mate is damaged.

She’s beautiful, but she smells wrong, and she’s messed up like all the other wolves who pretend to be human.

Our mating was a disaster. I left her, but I couldn’t keep away.

And now—things have changed. I can’t keep my distance anymore, but she’s still as skittish as a rabbit.

She thinks I’m a monster, and catching her isn’t enough—

I have to figure out how to make her stay.

The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate is a shifter romance about fated mates finding their way back to each other. No cheating. HEA guaranteed. Intended for adult listeners only.

©2024 Cate C. Wells (P)2024 Cate C. Wells

My emotional support wolf shifters

When Annie was a child she witnessed the men in the pack commit an act of sexual violence against the women in the pack, sanctioned by the alpha, resulting in one death. Annie has carried that trauma and the attendant anxiety since. Men aren’t safe, and men from the Last Pack are even more dangerous because they steal women away from the more civilized packs. So things don’t go well when Annie, at 18, finds out that Justus, from Last pack is her fated mate. Her trauma is triggered and Justus is too immature and inexperienced to understand that her fear is not weakness. He speaks unkind words that stick in Annie’s mind. When he approaches her again years later, he carries her off to his pack.

This is where The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate gets really good. Justus has done a lot of growing up and has become a thoughtful mate and leader. Justus rejects the alpha structure of the “civilized” packs, pointing out that it’s based on observations of wolves in captivity, not wolves in the wild. Justus is sweet, thoughtful, and playful. He learns how to support Annie as she works through her anxiety and trauma. Annie talks about having a voice in her head. She calls it her “pecking voice” because it pecks at her about everything that can go wrong. I have something like that, but it’s more like a hyper vigilant part of my brain sends me a constant stream of memes. Sadly, I can’t shift into a wolf and be carried off by a mate who is willing to fight my devils (which would either be barking at the news, or disabling a whole bunch of cars).

I’ve read too many of Wells’ books to still be gobsmacked by how she gets me to read subgenres I don’t like. At this point, if she writes it, I’ll read it. There’s a yearning for community and belonging in her books that resonates with me. I don’t know if she’s trying to point us somewhere, or working through ideas in her own head. Either way, many of her books have become part of my emotional support library.

Phew

Grab your Xanax and buckle up for Justus and Annie! Amazing story by Cate (as usual) and the narration made it 100x better!

The back story of the lost pack and their love story

Loved all of it, great way to end the series with a complete history of the all the packs

It’s all in the writing

As usual, Cate C. Wells' writing is absolutely enchanting. I read this "5 packs" installment in some kind of bittersweet delirium. I don't always love this author’s plots or characterizations, but from a technical perspective she is the best romance writer currently on the market. This book was full of pack lore, the trauma of the main characters, rejection (of course) and an HEA. Although IMHO the rejection didn't sting as much in this one as the four other books. And (although opinions may differ) I think it was a rejection role reversal. The h (Annie) was the one who rejected the H (Justus).

This book is about the 'Last Pack' (which is kind of a pejorative term used by all the other packs). As in: the last uncivilized pack. THEY call themselves "the First Pack" because they were the pack all others broke off from, and they call everyone else 'the lost packs'. They are the only pack who never left the dens, and have remained as close to their intrinsic wolf natures as their ancestors. You’ll remember them from the end of ‘Tyrant Alpha’ book 1 (when some Quarry Pack traitors aided an attempted 'female stealing' by Last Pack).

Anyway, this h and H meet when they're 18, which is when the rejection occurs. Then they meet again when they are 24. And the rest of the book takes place over a 3 or 4 day period when they reunite, and work their way toward what fate already knew. Justus is the first Alpha we've seen in this series who is just plain goodness ♥️ through and through. Still flawed, but SO decent. And Annie is a bundle of anxiety and toxic negative self-talk due to trauma. Brace yourself, the voices in her head are same level of intrusiveness as a schizophrenic or person with bipolar disorder. The spice in this book is very low.

This was not my favourite couple of the series, but I was still riveted by this deeply insightful glimpse into human/shifter nature.

The absolute BEST series of books…

Please please please release the rest of the books! These books are my all time favorites to listen to whenever I’m in a reading slump. I just need to own them all.

Cate is the Queen of Shifter Romance

✨R E V I E W✨ of The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate by Cate C. Wells

This book series is so special to me. I swear I reread it like every 6 months bc I miss the characters and the world so much. And now that the books are on audio I’m gonna reread them even more!!

But for real, no one is doing wolf shifters omegaverse like Cate. This series has the perfect balance of plot, character arcs, and spice. If you want to dip your toes into the omegaverse world then this series is the one! The narrators did a fantastic job with the audio. I’d love to see them do more books together.

This book follows Annie, a character we haven’t seen since the first book in the series and it felt like a warm hug coming back. The books in this series can be read in really any order, but I do recommend reading the first book, The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate, before reading this one. Just so you have all the context!!

What to expect in The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate:
🫂 found family
🥈 second chance romance
🌟 fated mates
🪢 knotting
🪓 “who hurt you?”
🤫 secret romance

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁠⭐️⁠
Genre: paranormal romance
Spice: 🌶️

Justus is the reason.

I've listened to this 4 times now. Annie's anxiety does get grating over time, but Justus makes the book. His patience and personal revelations about his own reactions hit me hard. Sweet, tender and strong. He's what everyone should have in a partner.

Own them all!

I have listened repeatedly to the first three and was waiting for this one. it was worth the wait.

This was such a beautiful story

Finally a look into the last pack. This was such a beautiful story. I can't wait for more.