The Alphas Mate

10.

Layla'h

Oh crap!! This is not good. If Luke knows that Lexi is talking to me, it's not going to be long before the rest know. I hear the dominating growls from Luke echo down the line as he must get closer to Lexi, freezing me in place on the sidewalk. Small whimpers ring through my ear letting me know that Lexi is trying to fight against the command that it is. It's only seconds later that I find out she lost the battle of wills. Luke is a more dominant wolf than Lexi. I can't be mad with her because I've ended up frozen on the spot and I'm a million miles away from him.

"Layla'h where are you?" Lukes growl comes down the line.

"I...I.. Can't" whispers through my lips so quietly that I'm not sure he even hears me.

"Guys, guys. Layla'hs on the phone!" Luke yells out. "Layla'h, girl, where are you? We're all worried about you." Luke speaks to me again, but his voice sounds like it's coming from a slight distance. I hear shuffling and other noises in the background. He must have put the phone on speaker so everybody can hear. A small whimper is the only thing that comes out when I open my mouth.

"Tiny. Layla'h. Baby. Please tell me where you are." Chris's pained voice is the next to speak. Hearing his voice has tears rolling down my cheeks. I don't want to talk to him, I don't want to hear his voice. It's all too painful. Reminding me I'd lost everything. I don't know what they can hear from my end of the phone. But I can hear them talking over each other in the background. Lexi having pulled herself together again, demanding what they said to me to make me cry, that I was fine minutes ago when we were talking. Rhys questioning if I'm okay, if I'm safe. Then an almost musical sound is heard over all of them.

"Give me the phone." Alpha Xaviers' voice. I don't know what it is about his voice that makes it sound better than the others, but just hearing it starts to calm me down.

"Sweetheart, just breathe for me. A deep breath in...... and out." The deep timber echos around my head. My body doing exactly what Xavier tells me to. Mimicking his deep breaths, I hear through the phone. In, out, in, out. My tears slowly dry out on my cheeks. My eyes close with the peace his voice and instructions bring me. Calming the storm of emotions that were rioting around my body and mind after hearing Chris.

"That's it. Good girl, keep breathing slowing for me. In, out. Nice deep breaths." He smooths out all the sharp edges. I'm helpless to do anything but listen.

"I've taken the phone off speaker and there's nobody else around now. It's just you and me, sweetheart. Okay?" Xavier asks after a couple more minutes of just breathing together.

I nod my head a couple of times before I remember he can't see me. "Okay" I finally breath out.

"Good. I need to see that you're okay now sweetheart, so I need you to change to facetime for me." His voice is still gentle when he says it, but I can hear the command behind his words. It's only seconds before my phone starts to make a beeping noise alerting me to the incoming facetime and I pull the phone away from my ear. It takes a minute for it to connect before Alpha Xavier's face shows on the screen. I watch as his eyes run over everything he can see. Taking me in, checking over my face before his eyes flick off to the side of me. I still stood frozen and silent in the middle of the sidewalk, just watching him. I note his eyes flicker off over the top of the phone in his hand like he's looking at someone else in the room with him. I don't know if anyone is there or not. He told me there wasn't, but what else could he be looking at?

"Layla'h." He breathes out, like we're long lost friends. It's almost like there is relief in his tone, but that doesn't make any sense. We don't know each other. We've never met before. We aren't friends or lovers. My brain is trying to puzzle it all out when he speaks again, but he's angry now.

"Layla'h why are you outside in the middle of the night!" the feral growl is sharp, twisting his lips to pull back in a snarl showing his teeth. "Where the f**k are you! I'm coming to get you. It's not safe outside at night by yourself!"

This finally snaps my mind back together. The angry building inside of me.

"No! I'm not telling you. I'm not coming back and I don't want to talk to any of you. You all just need to leave me alone." My own snarl is as angry as his.

"I don't care about all that other s**t Layla'h. I just want to make sure you are safe." Xavier grits out between his teeth.

"I'm safe. I'm fine. Now go away." I spit back before hanging up on him once again. I switched my phone off so he can't ring me back. Deciding then and there that I will use it as little as possible, to try and stop them ringing me non-stop. Finally, I pull my eyes away from the phone to look around me. I must have aimlessly wandered while I was talking to Lexi because I don't remember seeing any of the buildings around me. s**t, now what am I going to do? It's the middle of the night, I'm in a city I've never been to before and I've just decided to switch my phone off and leave it that way and I have no idea where I am and how to get back to my hotel.

Spinning around in a circle a few times, my eyes take in every detail, looking for something, anything really that could help me. There's not a single person on the street with me, so I can't even ask anyone for directions. I can feel my heart start to beat faster as my eyes continue to dance around trying to find anything. I know I'm starting to panic, my mind is telling me that's what is happening, but I'm not listening to any of the signs. I don't care, I just need to get back. Why did I ever think I could do this, could come to a new place with nobody and be able to function by myself when I never had my whole life. There's always been someone to help me.

My heart is racing, muscles starting to lock up, a ringing in my ears blocking out any other noise around me. Eyes franticly darting around. I just need something, I just need something. I repeat over and over in my head and that's when it happens. A flash caught the corner of my eye. What the hell was that? I whip my head back to the right and there streaking along the sidewalk a white light heading away from me and around the corner. My breath freezes in my lungs. What the hell is that? The light sparkles and shines, almost pulsing like it's alive. I'm sure it wasn't there before. There is no way I could have missed this before. I stared at the line of pulsing light, wondering what it was, what it meant.

My feet start moving towards the line before I know it. I follow the line around the corner, noting it continues on down the road. Down the street, around corners left and right, I walk following the light. 30 minutes later, I'm standing in front of my hotel where the light fades away at the door. Wow! I walk inside in a daze, not sure what that was or even why I followed it, but it led me back to where I wanted to be. The lovely lady who helped me earlier is still sitting at the front desk. She waves and calls out to me when she spots me coming through the doors.

"How'd you go? Did you find the store?" she calls across the empty lobby to me, snapping me out of my daze.

"Yes, thank you for your help." I nod as I hurry passed her to the elevator, wanted to get to my room as fast as possible. I make it to my room, collapsing into bed, my head still swimming with everything that's happened in the last 48 hours. I lay there not moving, trying to stop my mind for hours before falling asleep.

I wake up feeling in a daze still over everything that's happened to my life, but also energized to get things sorted so I can find my new normal. I don't want to be waking up like this day after day and I know I need to keep my mind active on anything else to stop thinking about everything that's happened. I need to move on, get out in the world and see if I too can find my mate. Chris isn't my mate, we were never mates. He isn't mine and we knew this months ago. I can't think of what made us think we were better than the moon goddess or that we somehow knew better than her to tempt fate the way we did. It was dumb. I was dumb, thinking I could somehow get away with it. That I could somehow keep something, just this one little thing for myself. My life doesn't work like that and never has. I was stupid, so so so stupid.

My thoughts run this course while I shower and dress for the day, all through the room service breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, toast and orange juice that I ordered. Right up until I spot my phone sitting still and lifeless on the bedside table where I dropped it last night. Come on Layla'h we are better than this. Stupid broken heart. We don't need it. What we need to do is find a short-term stay and get out of this hotel. That in mind, I pull out my laptop and started looking for places to lease around here. I have my car so it doesn't matter how close or far from the college buildings I am. I will just have to pay for a parking pass when school starts.

I spend the rest of the morning looking at properties before ringing and making a couple of appointments tomorrow to view some of them. Feeling like I've slowly started to take control of my life again and a little less out of control, I open my emails to write to Lexi. I let her know I'm okay, that I'm sorry if I got her into trouble last night with everyone. That I've decided to keep my phone off at the moment until things calm down, but I will email, text or call her every day so she knows I'm doing okay. I tell her about the appointments to look at properties tomorrow and that I'll keep her updated on whether I find something or not and promise to take photos of each place so she can see them. The last bit made me feel a little better, it would be almost like she was there with me if she could see photos of them too, then she'd know what I'm talking about when I get to talk to her about them.

Feeling happy with myself, I leave my laptop on the table and decide to head outside to have a proper look around the new city I will now be living in. The faster I can learn my way around, the better off I'm going to be and I know sooner or later Lexi is going to ask me if I've found a new media/pedi spa.

After hours outside in the sun, I feel more like my old self again. I found a cute little bakery/cafe. They have the most amazing white chocolate muffins I have ever tried. I did what any normal person would and brought two. I already know Lexi would love the place and made a mental note to tell her about it next time I'm talking to her. I walked to the edge of the city closest to the hotel and found a couple of hiking trails that I'll have to try out once I've found somewhere to live and have unpacked my clothes. It was actually a really good day and by the time I got back to the hotel I had something for dinner and fell asleep happy and tired.

The next day is much of the same. I shower and dress, have breakfast before heading out. I explore the city, finding a day spa and get my nails done before looking at the properties for lease. I fell absolutely in love with one that's in the heart of the city the second I laid eyes on it. It's a cute little two-story townhouse and right across the street is a massive park. If you look out the second story bedroom window, you can see across the tops of the trees in the park. They stretch out into the distances for miles. It's beautiful and homely. Like the forest behind my little house back on pack lands. I sign the lease on the spot and cancel the rest of the appointments I had. I get back to the hotel feeling like I have accomplished so much all by myself. I found a house and get to move in tomorrow, my nails look amazing and I didn't think about anything else all day. I can do this, I can be by myself and it's a great feeling. Tomorrow I will check out of the hotel and moving into my new place and then I get the last couple of things sorted for school. I will give me a whole week before school starts to get out and explore a little more. I email Lexi again before going to bed for the night. She hasn't replied to my email from yesterday so I don't even know if she's read it or not. I hope she has so she's not worrying about me. I let her know I found a house and that I move in tomorrow and I will facetime her so she can see it. Signing off without reading any of the other emails in my inbox, I fall asleep quickly.

Waking up this morning, I'm excited to get out of here. I take the time to eat breakfast here at the hotel, not knowing when I'll eat again today. I'll have to make time to go to the supermarket and stock up on food. I write it down in the little notebook I have next to me. I decided yesterday it might be best if I started a list of things I need to do that I can add to anytime I think of something new and cross things off as I go. Sort of like a visual way of showing myself I can do everything on my own. To keep this momentum going. After breakfast, I pack the few things I brought with me back into my suitcase. Checking around the room making sure I hadn't left anything behind before heading down to the front desk.

The lady from the first night is sitting behind the desk this morning. She smiles when she sees me before her eyes drop to the suitcase next to me.

"Checking out I see. I hope you had a wonderful stay with us." Her smile stretches wider across her face as she looks at me.

"Yes and I did thank you. I managed to find a townhouse pretty quickly and am moving in today." I let her know as she goes about getting me checked out.

"That's wonderful, so you're staying in the city then?" she asks handing over the bill for me to sign.

"Yeah, I'm starting school here in a couple of weeks."

"Well you definitely pick a nice place to go to school. I hope you enjoy it here." she smiles again, waving goodbye as I leave.

It's only a couple minutes later that I'm in the car driving down the road toward my new home. There's no driveway, so it's street side parking only, but I don't mind. I manage to get a park right in front of the house. I take my handbag and a couple of suitcases out of the car as I head to the front door. There's a couple of boxes and another bag that I need to bring in as well that I with have to get on the next trip. One step inside I drop the suitcases and handbag right there next to the door before walking further into the house. So over enjoyed a massive smile stretches over my face. The whole house is empty, it didn't come with furniture but I don't care. I can buy whatever I need over time. It has a fridge and washer/dryer so I'm good for now. I slowly walk around the bottom floor and open the windows to let the fresh air blow through before heading back to my car to bring in the rest of my stuff. It's not like I have anywhere to put anything but it's a job on my list and once it's done I can cross it off. Afterwards, maybe a couple of days afterwards I'll worry about where to put everything. The only job today is to get it all in the house.

Carrying the last box inside, I kick the door closed behind me before dropping the box on the floor with the rest of my stuff, then dropping down right next to it so I'm lying flat on my back staring up at the ceiling. My smile is still plastered across my face as I pull my notebook and phone from my handbag. I cross off the job as I switch on my phone and wait for it to connect.

Message after message comes flooding in once my phone has connected, most from Lexi but there are ones from unknown numbers, along with notifications letting me know I've missed calls and have new voicemails too. I ignore them all not wanting to f**k up the good mood I'm in today and hit Lexi's phone. I lay there smiling to myself while waiting for her to answer. I hear the click of the call being answered and start talking before she can even say hello, not being able to keep the excitement to myself anymore.

"Oh my goddess Lexi! I found the best place in the world. You are going to love it."

There's a second of nothing, a heart beat of time, where there's nothing but silences and it's that heart beat that tells me straight away that it's not Lexi who picked up.

"Tiny baby. We have been trying to ring you for days. Hang on a second, let me get the others."

It's Rhys's strong, deep voice that comes down the line.

"WAIT! No Rhys, don't!" I yell down the phone in panic. f**k, I've messed up again. Why does Rhys have Lexi's phone. Oh goddess, why does this keep happening. All I wanted was to talk to my best friend and show her my new place not deal with all the crap I'm trying to leave behind.

"Layla'h, I've got to get the others. Everybody is worried about you." Rhys speaks over my internal worrying.

"I'll hang up." I warn, hoping he listens.

"Okay. You win. I won't get them, yet. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Rhys. Surely you understand why I had to leave."

"Yeah I get it Tiny. I just don't understand why you didn't tell us, you didn't even say goodbye." I can hear how upset he is as he talks. I hurt him by not letting him know I was leaving, by not saying goodbye.

"Rhys, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you by leaving I just..... after everything I couldn't...." I sigh hanging my head. I don't even know how to explain it to him to help him understand. I'm not sure anyone can truly understand what I'm going through. They'll all say they do but until it happens to them, they really won't. After a couple minutes silence Rhys speaks again.

"Are you safe at least?" came from him on a heavy sigh.

"I'm safe Rhys. I promise."

"Do you want to talk to anyone else?" he questions and I know he's really asking if I want to talk to Chris but that is still at the very top of my NO!!!! list. It's even underlined in red ink so show how much I mean it.

"Just Lexi. I just wanted to talk to Lexi please." I whispered, feeling guilty.

"Let me see if I can get the phone to her without anybody else catching me, I can't promise anything so if I hang up on you it's because one of the others was around. I love you Tiny, ring me, my phone if you ever want to talk."

"I love you too Rhys and I miss you. Thank you."

I wait silently on my end of the phone waiting to see what happens. I listen to the sound of his footsteps, I can hear a door open and voices in the background, before one voice rings out louder than the others.

"Rhys, has she rang yet? Let me......." Chris's voice. That's all I hear before the call ends and I quickly scramble to turn my phone off again.

Damn! I smack my palm to the floor next to me before flopping back down and staring up at the ceiling. This is becoming my new hobby. It seems to be something I'm doing a lot these days. Sighing, I'm not sure what to do now. I didn't even get to talk to Lexi. I didn't get to tell anybody about my new house. It's my fault really. I could have told Rhys, he would have been excited for me about it. Goddess! Why is my life such a mess.