The Abandoned Alpha

Meeting Leo

Elise

As soon as my alarm rings I spring out of bed. My plan today is to get to the city and see if I can find him. My wolf will not shut up about him, and I just need to know for sure that he is my mate. I get ready quickly and head downstairs to the kitchen and I'm surprised to see my mom and dad already sitting there.

"Where are you off to so early on a Sunday?" My mom asks me, and I quickly fabricate a story about spending the day with Sammi, but I can tell something is up. They both look so serious.

"Everything okay?" I ask, and my dad gets up to get another cup of coffee.

"Everything is fine, just some unpleasant rogue activity overnight. Have fun with Sammi." He says and kisses me on the top of my head.

I grab my keys and as soon as I get to Sammi's house she is already waiting for me. As my car pulls in she flings the front door open and approaches me, already shaking her finger at me.

"You are not seriously going through with this?" She asks.

"I absolutely am. I told my parents I'm spending the day here, you'll cover for me right?"

"Elise, the tunnels aren't safe. Do you even know how to navigate them?" She asks, and she has a valid point. I've never been down there by myself, and the tunnel to the city hasn't been used in years. They built the tunnels over a hundred years ago, to travel quickly during the war, but there hasn't been trouble like that since my great-grandfather took his position as the Alpha King of the North. He signed peace treaties with the surrounding territories. Covens, Dens, and the Fay are all peaceful here. The rogue community is still there, but we don't see them often anymore. Most of the rogues actually come up from the south now.

"I'm going to shift and Lily is going to run there. I have an old map, it looks like a straight shot to the city. Don't worry. Be excited for me, I'm hopefully going to find my mate!" I say with a flutter in my stomach.

"What if he's human, Elise? Did you think of that?" She has her arms crossed and is tapping her foot at me, still displeased with what I'm about to do.

"Impossible," I say, but not fully convinced of it.

"I want you to text me when you get there, and before you leave to come back, and when you get ba.."

"Okay, I know, I'll text you. I'll be fine!" I give her a big hug and then make my way to the tunnels. The entrance is hidden deep in a cave and my flashlight does little to light the way, but I find the staircase and cautiously make my way down. I get out my map and I see that the route I need to take should be easy to navigate. I get undressed and stuff everything into a duffle bag and I shift, letting Lily take over. She takes my bag in her mouth and runs as fast as we ever have. The tunnels are barren and filthy, and it's a good thing I have a map. It is a maze down here. But after an hour of running, we come to the other end, and once I shift back and get dressed I'm relieved that the opening is well hidden in the woods on the edge of the city.

I make my way into town and head straight for the pawn shop. I open the door and my nerves are tight with excitement to see him, but instead, I see that awful man. He looks up at me and shakes his head.

"No returns kid. You bought that piece of junk fair and square." He says, and I shake my head and go closer to him.

"No, I'm not here for that. I'm looking for the boy that was here the other day." I say as nicely as I can, trying to hide my anticipation.

"Leo?" He looks at me and c***s his head to the side. "Hmm, well he isn't here."

"Can you tell me where I can find him? I'd like to thank him properly for helping me get the locket." I say. It's a weak excuse, but it's all I got.

"You can probably find him at the coffee shop around the corner. He does his homework there on Sunday mornings." He answers and doesn't even look at me.

"Thank you," I say and I start to walk out. I take another glance back into the shop and I'm startled to see this man standing in the middle of the store. And now that he's closer to me I notice that his smell is off, different. He doesn't smell human.

"Don't give Leo any trouble girlie. His life is s**t enough without some girl coming in to make it worse. Got it?" He says, and I find it somewhat endearing that he cares about him.

"I understand. Thanks again." I say and I leave the store and head around the corner. When I get to the coffee shop I see him through the window and my heart literally flutters.

He is our mate.

I smile at Lily and I study him for a minute. He's listening to headphones, but they are old ones, the kind my parents had and he has a cassette tape player on the table. He's flipping through papers and taking notes. I walk in and the little bells go off over the door. I notice him look at me, but I go to the counter first and grab two coffees before I walk toward him. He's in a grey hoodie that looks fairly tattered, his raven hair is a mess of wavey and unruly curls on top of his head, and he has a pair of Oakleys on.

Those damn sunglasses. I want to see his face! Lily pouts and curls up in the back of my mind.

As I make my way over to him he watches me closely and a slight smile cracks on his lips.

"Mind if I sit?" I ask, hoping that he accepts my company. With those sunglasses on I can't tell if he's even looking at me, but to my relief, he pulls the chair out and motions for me to join him.

"Uh, sure, yeah." He says cautiously.

"I saw you in the window and I just wanted to thank you for the other day. The pawn shop. That locket belonged to my parents. I'm Elise, by the way." I start with some common ground, but inside my wolf is dancing in circles. I had him the other coffee and he looks at me curiously.

"Thank you. Leo." He points to himself and grins a beautiful smile with the most gorgeous dimples. "No biggie. Frank can be cranky, but there is a sliver of good in there somewhere." He chuckles. "I hope your parents liked it."

Touch him, Elise please, just touch his arm. Lily can barely contain herself.

"Do you wear those all the time?" I point at his glasses, I desperately want to look into his eyes.

"Uh, yeah. Sensitivity to light." He points outside not realizing how overcast it is, but he doesn't make any moves to take them off.

"So, where are you from? You don't look like most people from around here." I ask, desperately wanting to know his background. He is my mate, and there is no way he can be human, but he acts as if the bond isn't there at all. It's unusual, to say the least. What if he rejects me? A sick feeling overcomes me at the thought of it and I push it down deep into my belly.

"Um, here, in the city." He answers simply, but it just doesn't make sense. How can he be born and raised in the city, in the human territory? I need to know more.

"How old are you? Do you go to school around here?" I ask taking a sip of my coffee.

"I'll be eighteen in a few weeks. I actually go to school outside the city, at Fairview. What about you? I haven't seen you around before."

His voice is like velvet. Make him talk more. Lily can't get enough of him and I have to push her to the back of my mind again so she stops distracting me.

"I'm just visiting. I live several towns over, and my parents sent me to a private school, so I don't get into the city much." I say, which is kind of true. "So, Leo. That's a nice name. I like it." I try to flirt a bit, but I think I'm making him uncomfortable. I take another sip of coffee and the little bells on the door sound and a big burly kid walks in.

"s**t," Leo mutters under his breath and he shrinks a bit into his chair. I watch this big oaf turn and he clearly recognizes Leo and gets a devious grin on his face as he approaches the table.

"Hey there Ellis," He says and I watch Leo shift uncomfortably. "What ya doin' here?" This creepy kid looks at me like he wants to own me and I instantly hate him. "Who's this? Is this loser bothering you, sweetheart?" He squats down and folds his hands on the table and stares at me. "You're way too pretty for a freak like Leo."

"Leave her alone, okay? I don't want any trouble." Leo's voice is a bit shaky but he sits up tall when he says it. I can tell that he's intimidated by this kid.

"Awe, this your girlfriend?" He gets up and stands extremely close to Leo. "Na, she wouldn't go with someone like you." He reaches out and rips Leo's glasses off his face and tosses them in the corner of the cafe. Leo squeezes his eyes shut instantly, but I see the bruises now and I'm certain that this ass hole is the one who gave them to him. When Leo opens his eyes he is looking directly at me and I am completely mesmerized. He has the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen and I gasp at the sight of them.

"Donavan, please just give me a f*****g break, what are you even doing here?" Leo asks, and as I look at him my wolf is howling with excitement, but she is also getting angry and I have to tell her to calm down before she rips this Donavan kid to shreds.

"Dad's at the precinct around the corner. I'm just grabbing a coffee. I guess your little girl here knows why you're down here though."

"We just met actually, but I hope to get to know him better if he lets me," I say and give Leo a smile. But the asshole kid just starts laughing.

"Let me save you the trouble darling. See, Leo the freak lives in the slums down here, probably in the gutter by looking at him. He is nothing and has nothing. Why don't you tell her about your parents Leo? Oh, that's right, they took one look at your sorry ass when you were born and ditched you."

"Shut up," Leo responds and I see that his fists are balled tight.

"Abandoned you so they didn't have to raise trash probably." The kid pauses with his verbal assaults and picks up the walkman. "Wow, how old is this?" He pops it open and pulls out the cassette and pulls all the tape out of it and piles it up on the table. It's then he notices the papers that Leo was looking at.

"What are these?" He lifts up a folder and Leo tries to snatch it back but fails. "Lookey here," he flips through the papers. "Colleges? That's funny. How exactly do you plan to pay for that? You can't even afford a shirt that doesn't have holes in it." He drops the papers on the floor and then walks towards me and I stand. I will not be bullied by this prick, and I don't know why Leo would put up with it. He stands an inch from my face and I won't budge, but I notice Leo is now standing and looking like he wants to rip this kid apart.

"Maybe you should leave with me, I'm a way better choice than that loser. I'll be killer in bed too, you won't be able to get enough of me." He says and wraps his arm around my waist.

I rip his arm off of me but still hold my ground. "I've already had enough of you. Why don't you go home and f**k yourself." This kid has the nerve to come at me, but Leo is between us before I can react. He stands in front of me and takes his hand and pushes Donavan away.

"Please, please I'm begging you to just leave us alone." Leo makes one more plea, the restraint he is showing is remarkable. So many boys that I know would have already beat the crap out of this kid. I'm shocked that the next thing Donavan does is slap Leo upside the head. He does it again and again, taunting him and Leo is just taking it.

"That's enough!" I yell and the cafe owner comes out from the back room.

"Leo, what's going on here?" She asks and he looks up at her as if he is the one to blame.

"Nothing, I'm sorry, everything's fine Ms. Miller. I was just leaving." Leo grabs his backpack and looks at me with the most beautiful and sad eyes. "Nice to meet you, Elise, I'm sorry about this." He says and then dashes out the door.

"Fuckin' i***t," Donavan says and I turn and slap him in the face.

"Ms. Miller, trash like this shouldn't be allowed in your place, stinks it up." I point to Donavan after I pick up the papers that were dropped and the sunglasses in the corner. I rush out the door and search the street, finding Leo turning a corner about a block away.

I run to catch him. "Leo, Leo please wait. Please." He keeps walking until I reach out and grab his arm. Shocks fly straight up into my body and he stops in his tracks and looks at his arm.

He feels it too. Lily says and smiles. We found him. I love him already but our mate is sad. I don't want him to be sad, you need to fix it. Lily says softly in my head.

Lily, we need to move slowly, okay? She agrees and can't help but stare into his eyes.

"Did he do this?" I reach up and point to the bruises on his cheek and he flinches away before I can touch him.

"Yeah. It's kind of our agreement, he kicks the s**t out of me most days and I get to graduate if I keep my mouth shut."

"That sounds like an unfair agreement," I say as I hand Leo the folder that he had and he thanks me and puts it into his tattered old backpack.

"Can we go somewhere and talk?" I ask, wanting to be by him longer.

"Uh...sure." Reluctantly he agrees and has me follow him to a nearby park. He points to a bench that is hidden mostly behind the trees. "Is it too cold for you to be out here?" He asks as we sit down.

"No, I'm good." Just then I remember that I have his sunglasses, and I hand them back to him. "Please, don't. Don't put them on, I mean unless the sun really bothers them." I say, sad that he hides them from the world.

Leo

I grab the sunglasses and go to put them on but she asks me not to. I look at her, and I don't know what's gotten over me, but everything about her is perfect. She has curly long brown hair and her beautiful brown eyes have shimmering gold flecks in them. When she touched my arm it was like an electric shock tingled through my body and left me craving more.

Because she is our mate. She is our destiny. The goddess chose her for us. Acknowledge me Leo so that I may meet her other half.

I shake off the voice in my head and try and focus. Of all the days for Donavan to come to the city, what are the odds that he would come today? I'm so f*****g embarrassed. If I wasn't so entranced by this girl I would've bolted.

"I'm sorry I left you back there with that jerk, but I can't afford to get into another tangle with him. I knew Ms. Miller wouldn't let anything happen."

"It's okay. So, what's your story, Leo?" She asks me and given that Donovan already gave his version, I decide to just be honest.

"Donavan summed it up pretty well," I say flatly. "My real parents dumped me off as a baby at the fire station down the street. I guess the name Leo was pinned to me. I was adopted by a woman, but I don't remember her. She gave me up when I was about two. Apparently, she didn't want to be stuck with a kid that might go blind and has a freak blood disorder."

"Blind? Blood disorder? I don't understand."

"My eyes, there is obviously something very wrong with them. That's why I wear glasses all the time. When I was little I was sent to a doctor and they said that they were abnormal and that it was very likely I would lose my sight. I had blood drawn too, and they found something wrong there as well, said I had some kind of disease and it was abnormal. They tried treating me for a million different things but nothing fixed any of it. In the end, I bounced around different foster homes, but no one wants a kid that is most likely to become a burden.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." She says, and I twist my hands together and stare at the ground.

"It's okay. My case worker put me in middle school in the suburbs, better education he said. That's where I, unfortunately, met Donavan. I didn't always take his s**t. One day I got so mad I punched him in the face and broke his nose. His dad, who is also the chief of police, found a way to find me to blame and I was charged with assault. Ended up in juvie for a while. When I was discharged they moved me to a group home about two blocks from here. I put up with Donavan's s**t because I need to graduate. Once I do, I have enough money to get out of town and that's about it."

I can't believe I just told this beautiful girl the horrible truth, but what's the use in pretending to be something I'm not? Now she knows and can just forget about me. But I have to admit that the thought of her rejecting me is painful. How on earth can I be feeling so connected to her?

"Leo, please look at me." She says and hesitantly I do. "Leo, you're eyes are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. There is nothing wrong with them. They are stunning, you should never hide them away."

I swallow hard and try to not look away.

"And you know what, your birth parents must have loved you to give you a name. It meant something to them, you meant something to them." She says and I'm shocked. Of everything I just told her, she found something good in it. Something I had never thought of before. I can't help but just smile at her.

"Thank you, I never looked at it that way." She takes my hand in hers and the buzzing that starts to rush through me is like a drug, it calms me and makes the empty hole in my chest fill with warmth and light.

Please, Leo, acknowledge me so that I can come forward. Please. We are one Leo.

The voice slams me back to reality. I look at our hands intertwined, mine is rough and warn out and hers are beautiful and soft, manicured perfectly. What am I doing? I look at this girl and she is way out of my league. Not to mention that there is a very real possibility that I am losing my mind.

She leans in to kiss me but I back away and take my hand and stick it into my pocket.

"Sorry, um, you just met me and I'm not sure what's going on but I look at you and I know I can't be what you want."

"Leo, stop. Don't you feel it? The sparks? The bond? Surely you feel it?" She asks and I do, I feel all of that, but this girl is going to need someone way better than me.

"Elise, I look at you and you're dressed perfectly, you obviously come from a good family and have a life that is completely different from mine. It's only a matter of time before you realize I'm not what you want. I've had a lot of rejection in my life, I'm not sure I'm ready for another one."

"Maybe you could let me make up my own mind?" She stares a hole right through me and I want to be near here more than I've ever wanted anything.

"I like you, Leo, I haven't stopped thinking about you since I saw you in the pawn shop. I want to get to know you, please, let me get to know you." She moves in closer and the voice starts up again.

Do not let her go, Leo. She is the one the moon goddess selected. I love her already. Stop being such a coward. You are so afraid of everything. Kiss her, Leo. Grow a set of balls and kiss the girl!

I don't know what comes over me but I gently put my hand behind her head and pull her close to me, and when our lips meet it is the most heavenly feeling. It also terrifies me, how can I be drawn to her this fast, it doesn't make sense. When are lips part she looks deep into my eyes and runs her hand through my hair.

"I'll be careful with you Leo, I promise."

Elise

I could get lost in this boy's eyes, he is so beautiful, and he seems to have a good heart. I want to stay with him all day, I want to curl up in his arms and let him just hold me.

We both flinch when my phone starts peeping. I pull it out and see a text message from Sammi.

SAMMI: Code Red. You need to get your ass back here ASAP. Some s**t's going down. Alpha Roman has called an emergency meeting for this afternoon.

"s**t. Leo, I have to go. Can I see you again?" I ask, knowing that wild horses couldn't keep me away from him.

"I-I'd like that. Yeah."

"Give me your number and I'll text you." He c***s his head at me and twists up his face.

"Just call the pawn shop, I'll get the message there. I um, I don't have a phone." He says, looking a bit embarrassed.

"No problem. I'll call the shop." I smile at him and he reaches down and kisses me again. Another spark rips through me that nearly brings me to my knees, and his body reacts too.

Elise, something is wrong. I can't reach his wolf. I can sense that he's there, but it's like he's stuck behind a wall. I can't communicate with him. He is our mate, I should be able to reach him. Lily doesn't want to leave but we have no choice. I will make sure to meet up with him again, and next time maybe I can try and make sense of this.