Rejected by The Beta

I didn't expect anything to come of it.

Rhea had uploaded the video with a shrug and a crooked smirk, captioned only:

"Raw session. Unknown/Nth(cover) — ft. Dwyn (someone who broke me open in two takes.)"

No flashy thumbnail. No filters. No studio polish. No tagging the label, no @'s, no hashtags engineered to game the algorithm. Just the two of us—bare voices, bare hearts—sitting in a quiet studio with too much weight in the air and one perfect song bleeding it out.

I'd watched her press Post, balancing her coffee on her knee like it was no big deal, like we hadn't just torn open the softest parts of ourselves and handed them to a camera. She laughed after, saying something about how it'd probably get buried under another TikTok trend or someone setting themselves on fire for clout.

We both expected silence.

But the world doesn't move how you expect it to.

It doesn't creep.

It erupts.

Like music. Like magic.

Like sound.

It was late afternoon when my phone started buzzing—once, twice, then five times in a row, like it had grown a heartbeat. I ignored it at first, curled up in Margot's guest room under a too-big hoodie, eating reheated pasta from a chipped bowl and pretending I hadn't just bared a piece of my soul to the internet.

I wasn't ready to be seen.

But by the time I picked it up, the screen was lit.

My lock screen was buried under a mountain of notifications—Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, email, even my Spotify artist profile, which I didn't even know was public.

Mentions. Tags. Comments. Messages.

Hundreds of them.

Thousands.

All piling on top of each other like a storm surge—loud, relentless, rising.

I blinked.

Then blinked again.

Unknown/Nth Cover – Rhea Solane ft. Dwyn

97k views.

Refresh.

102k.

Refresh.

113k.

My breath caught in my throat.

"Margot?" I called, my voice already rising like a kettle about to boil.

Her head popped around the corner, wooden spoon still in hand. "What's wrong?"

I just turned the phone toward her.

She stepped closer, squinting at the screen. Then her brows arched high. "Holy hell."

She dropped the spoon back in the pot, wiped her hands on her sweater, and grabbed the remote. The TV flickered to life, shifting through channels until she landed on a music segment. And there it was.

A still frame of me and Rhea in the studio—her guitar, my eyes closed, our voices mid-harmony. The anchor was talking fast, excited.

"—and the viral duet is lighting up every corner of social media. 'Unknown/Nth' a cover by Rhea Solane and newcomer Dwyn—yes, that's her name, just Dwyn—is already being called one of the rawest, most heartbreaking covers of the year."

And then... my phone buzzed again.

This time, the message lit up blue.

Verified.

@Hozier reposted your video.

My fingers froze before they opened it.

"There's something hauntingly beautiful about seeing your own words made new. These two voices—together? Lightning."

– @Hozier

I dropped the phone onto the bed like it burned me.

"Holy shit," I whispered, staring at it like it might sprout wings and fly away.

Margot stared too. Then she howled with laughter—startled, breathless joy—and covered her mouth with both hands. "DWYN. You. Just broke. The internet."

"I didn't mean to!" I said, which sounded so dumb the moment it left my mouth.

She picked up the phone gently, like it was a sacred artifact, and shoved it back into my hands. "Well, babe, you just got shot out of a cannon. Time to learn how to fly."

I sat there, dumbfounded, as she perched beside me and started scrolling through the comments.

"Who is she?? Her voice sounds like silk over wildfire."

"Rhea always has chemistry with her duets, but this? This is soul-level."

"I've never heard heartbreak like that."

"Her voice sounds like it remembers the ocean."

"She's gotta release something solo. I'd stream the hell out of it."

"This girl's voice hurts in the best way."

My face was hot. My stomach was buzzing.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or throw up or sing again.

Everything felt too much. Too fast. Too loud.

But it didn't feel bad.

It felt like standing in sunlight after years of living in the shade.

Like finally being seen—not for the Alpha's blood in my veins, not for the mate who discarded me, not for the siren I didn't even know I was becoming—but for the thing I made.

For a song. A moment. A voice.

My voice.

I sat back, my body still trembling with disbelief, heart pounding against my ribs.

Outside, the sea whispered against the rocks.

Inside, my world had cracked open.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I didn't feel like I was running from the life I'd left behind.

I felt like I was running toward something.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The living room was quiet.

Not empty. Not cold. Just... waiting.

The fire popped once, sending a flicker of light across the dark wood panels. Rain tapped steadily at the windows, filling the silence with a rhythmic hush. Somewhere upstairs, the old pipes groaned. The scent of cedarwood logs mixed with the faint trace of Mera's perfume—sugar-sweet and cloying.

The flat screen over the mantel was tuned to a local music segment. Background noise, mostly. Something Beta Parker liked to leave running, probably to fill the silence he didn't want to admit was there. But this time, the sound didn't just fade into the backdrop.

This time, a name cracked through the quiet like thunder through fog.

"A surprise viral hit dropped last night—a raw cover of Hozier's Unknown / Nth by indie artist Rhea Solane, featuring an unknown voice that's already turning heads. 

Her name? Dwyn."

Time. Stopped.

My stomach twisted. The air caught in my chest, a pressure I hadn't felt since the mate bond snapped like bone. Across the room, Beta Parker straightened sharply, his glass forgotten on the side table. Mera's body stiffened beside me, her fingers tightening imperceptibly around the throw pillow on her lap.

On the rug near the hearth, the triplets sat cross-legged with their coloring books, crayons scattered like wildflowers. Viora gasped first.

"Did she say Dwyn?"

"She did!" Fiora squealed, dropping her crayon.

"That's our sister!" Liora crowed, jumping to her feet and rushing to the screen.

Cecil leaned forward, hand rising to her chest. Her mouth opened slightly, but no words came—just awe. Duskthorn stood by the hearth, one hand on the mantel, his back straight and still. The TV bathed his face in soft blue light, but it couldn't dim the fire kindling in his eyes.

The screen cut to the video.

Studio lights. Two stools. Two microphones.

And Dwyn.

Her curls framed her face like a crown of shadows and stars. Her eyes, half-closed in focus, opened as she turned toward Rhea and took the second verse.

"Funny how true colours shine in darkness and in secrecy..."

Her voice didn't just fill the room. It claimed it. Clean and aching. Soft but unbreakable.

I couldn't breathe.

Mera flinched.

The girls stood mesmerized.

Cecil's hand trembled slightly against her lips.

And Alpha Duskthorn's silence became a kind of thunder. Reverent. Absolute.

"Unknown/Nth Cover — Rhea Solane ft. Dwyn"

97,000 views.

102,000 views.

The numbers rolled upward in real time. A scroll of comments flooded the screen.

"Who is this girl?? Her voice is like velvet knives." "Dwyn. Her name's Dwyn. I want an album NOW." "The harmony? The pain in her voice? This is what truth sounds like."

Then the anchor smiled, her voice rising slightly with wonder:

"And if that wasn't enough, Hozier himself reposted the duet to his official Instagram, writing: 'There's something hauntingly beautiful about seeing your own words made new. These two voices—together? Lightning.'"

My heart dropped to the floor.

Mera's eyes widened, lips pressed tight. She stood abruptly and crossed to the window, her arms crossed and tense. She didn't say a word.

Cecil reached out for Duskthorn. Her fingers brushed his arm. "Did you know she could sing like that?"

His answer was quiet, but unwavering. "I knew she had a storm inside her. The world's just hearing it now."

The triplets began bouncing and clapping, singing fragments of the song with childish joy.

"She's gonna be famous!"

"She already is!"

"I wanna be just like her!"

Cecil laughed, eyes brimming. "She's going to break the world wide open."

Beta Parker's expression was unreadable—tension at the edges, pride souring to bitterness. He sipped his drink and said nothing.

But I saw it.

In Duskthorn.

In the way he looked at that screen. At her.

He wasn't proud because she was going viral.

He was proud because she'd survived.

Because she was no longer just a daughter.

She was an heir becoming legend.

And I?

I had thrown that away.

She didn't need me.

She had become.

The whole room glowed in the light of that voice.

And all I could do was listen.