THE HEIR APPARENT’S REJECTED MATE
Series: The Five Packs
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Author: Cate C Wells
Release Date: April 22, 2022
He rejected me for “reasons.” Too bad for him. No take backs.
Rosie
Fate made a huge mistake when she mated me to Cadoc Collins. He’s the heir apparent. I’m a scavenger. My people are so low in this pack, we don’t even rank.
I should have known better, but for one night, I let myself forget the facts of life in Moon Lake. Cadoc Collins might be powerless to resist me, but he’s not going to claim me, either.
A pink line on a stick makes it a much bigger problem than my bruised heart.
I’m eighteen, knocked up, and publicly rejected by the future alpha. And this baby in my belly? It might as well be a target on my back.
Lucky for me I’m a scavenger. My kind are good at finding things, but we’re great at getting lost.
Cadoc
The fate of Moon Lake rests on my shoulders. I can’t claim the scavenger female.
The pack is on the verge of a revolt, and a mating so controversial could push our warring factions into open conflict.
All I need is time. I’ll do what’s expected of me as our future leader, and when the politics are sorted, I’ll do right by the odd little scavenger.
I’m the heir apparent. She’ll be there when I’m ready.
Right?
The Heir Apparent’s Rejected Mate is a wolf shifter romance. No cheating. HEA guaranteed. Intended for adult readers only.
Rosie isn’t the scavenger who is my mate, the female who I can’t claim—she’s air.
After riding the high that was The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate, I was giddy with excitement for more in this series. And while this hit the spot, I can’t help but feel that my expectations also got the best of me here too.
Rosie is a scavenger. Which in her pack, they’re the lowest of the low on the totem pole. With little respect and zero recognition, she’s used to going unnoticed and overlooked, until the moment she realizes her mate is Cadoc Collins. As the heir apparent, he’s the next one in line to take over the pack, if he finally manages to flip shift in order to beat his known challengers.
There was a lot of world building here, and even though I enjoyed it, I couldn’t help but feel the romance came in secondary. Add into it how young the two of them were, I really wished we got more of the romance. Additionally, I’m not a fan of surprise pregnancy trope in general, but I can overlook it for the right story. I think Rosie’s age here just really made this not work for me. I don’t even know how to explain it, but it didn’t feel pivotal to the story. Rosie is just 18, and I wanted something else to bring them closer. But it is what it is.
Cadoc places his duty to the pack above all else, and so he rejects Rosie. Rosie of course doesn’t take this lightly and writes him off so he has some groveling to do. And while he does work for it, it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. I loved the history of the secondary characters that we got here, but also couldn’t help but feel that some things went unanswered. Perhaps we’ll get that in future books, but it felt a bit left in the air.
This series is seriously addicting though and I can’t wait for the next installment. While I didn’t love this one, I didn’t dislike it either. It hit the spot nicely and I’m looking forward to my next hit.