The short answer: in the rejected mate trope an alpha turns away the mate fate chose for him, but refusing the bond does not end it, so the rest of the book is him earning back what he threw away. Below are nine wolf shifter romances built on that break, including A War of Hearts and Fate, where the rejection lands after the couple has already fallen into each other.
Fated mates is a promise. Rejected mates is that promise broken on purpose, which is why it hits harder. The bond doesn't go away when he refuses it. She still feels it. He still feels it. He just has to live inside a decision he can't take back, usually while she builds a life that doesn't include him.
These are sorted roughly by how much the hero suffers.
Cate C. Wells · Five Packs, Book 1
A she-wolf is rejected by her powerful alpha mate and builds a life anyway, while he slowly understands what he did. The book most often named when readers ask for this trope, and the one the rest of the category gets compared to.
Jen L. Grey · Wolf Moon Academy, Book 1
A shifter hiding what she is enrolls at Wolf Moon Academy, where the powerful heir who turns out to be her fated mate rejects her outright. Academy setting, series-length arc.
Elizabeth Briggs · Moon Touched, Book 1
A half-human wolf is rejected by her fated mate and then claimed by a more dangerous alpha with revenge on his mind. Good pick if you want the rejection to open the door to someone else.
N. E. Henderson · Fated, Cursed, and Claimed, Book 1
Kate rides into enemy territory carrying her brother's urn because she refuses to believe the ashes are his. Kane Orion has spent twenty years searching for the mate stolen from his pack as a child. Then a blood moon rises, his wolf claims Kate, and at dawn he throws her off his land believing she deceived him. The structural difference here is that the rejection lands after they've already fallen into each other, so it costs both of them more.
Formats: Free to read in Kindle Unlimited. Also in paperback, hardback and audiobook, with the audiobook sold wide.
Ivy Asher & Raven Kennedy
A heroine forced to shift too early is rejected by a cruel alpha and thrown into rival pack territory. Darker and meaner than most of this list.
Roxie Ray & Skye Wilson
An abandoned mate is reunited with the man who denied her when he needs her help. Forced proximity doing the heavy lifting.
Savannah Rose & Amelia Gates
A half-blooded outcast finds the bond only grows stronger after the rejection, until she becomes something the pack is afraid of.
C.R. Jane & Mila Young
A rejected mate leaves to escape the heartbreak and finds a hidden town and two dangerous men. Reverse harem leaning.
E.M. Moore
A rejected mate lands at a brutal academy for misfits and finds an unexpected bond with a dangerous alpha.