His Rejection: Rewritten

Ch. 1

My wolf woke me before the alarm did; excitement rushed through me so suddenly that my eyes snapped open.

Today.

I groaned and dragged the blanket over my face.

“Please don't start.”

She pushed harder, filling my chest with restless anticipation.

Seventeen. Shift. Mate.

“Yes, I'm aware.”

A pleased little rumble rolled through the back of my mind. I stared at the darkness beneath my blanket for another few seconds before throwing it aside.

Today was my seventeenth birthday...

For most people, birthdays meant presents, cake, maybe a party if they had enough friends to justify throwing one. For wolves, seventeen meant something entirely different. Tonight, under the full moon, I would shift for the first time. And after my first shift, I would finally be able to recognize my mate.

My wolf was thrilled. I wanted to throw up.

“Don't get your hopes up,” I muttered, sitting against my headboard. “Have you seen our options?”

Immediate offense, not words this time. Just a sharp feeling of annoyance followed by an image of me wearing one of my enormous hoodies.

I narrowed my eyes. “Leave my clothes out of this.”

Disapproval.

“They're comfortable.”

Another image appeared—me disappearing inside a gray sweatshirt nearly large enough to reach my knees.

“You're very judgmental for someone who doesn't wear clothes.”

She disappeared with what felt suspiciously like smugness. I rolled my eyes, but a smile tugged at my mouth.

My wolf had been restless for weeks. The closer we came to our first shift, the stronger she became. Sometimes I could feel her pacing beneath my skin when I was irritated. Other times she'd shove images or emotions into my head so strongly that it almost felt like remembering something that had never happened. Lately, most of those images involved a male I couldn't see.

Apparently, she had far more faith in the Moon Goddess than I did...

There wasn't one unmated male in Pack Grimholt I could imagine spending the rest of my life with. Not one.

The boys at school either participated in making my life miserable or stayed far enough away to make sure nobody accidentally thought they liked me. Even the ones who had never personally done anything to me knew better than to risk becoming guilty by association.

That was the thing about being Pack Grimholt's favorite scandal... People didn't have to know what you'd done; they only had to hear enough times that there was something wrong with you.

I climbed out of bed and caught sight of myself in the mirror over my dresser. My long dark-brown hair was a tangled mess around my shoulders, and sleep had left one side of my face creased from the pillow. Hazel eyes stared back at me beneath thick lashes.

I wasn't ugly, I could see that. And that almost made the way people treated me worse.

I'd heard enough girls complaining about me when they thought I couldn't hear to know exactly what they saw: long hair, full lips, almond-shaped eyes, a small waist that hadn't completely decided what it wanted to do yet, thick thighs and curves softened by the weight I still carried before my first shift.

Apparently, being pretty didn't mean much when everyone thought you were cursed. Or crazy. Or possibly responsible for your father's death...

I turned away from the mirror.

That rumor was my personal favorite.

My wolf stirred uneasily.

“I'm fine.”

She didn't believe me.

I scoffed. Neither did I...

I glanced toward the clock. I had plenty of time before we had to leave, which meant plenty of time for my brain to find every possible reason today could go horribly wrong:

What if my shift didn't happen?

What if something was wrong with my wolf?

What if I found my mate, and he took one look at me and—

Ours.

The certainty behind the feeling stopped me.

My wolf didn't care who he was. To her, our mate already belonged to us, and we belonged to him.

“That's easy for you to say.”

She sent me warmth. Strength. Protection. Then something softer that made my throat tighten.

Wanted.

I swallowed. “Yeah. We'll see.”

The first rumble of thunder came the harder I thought about a mate. I looked toward the window. Another one followed. Closer that time.

“That’s weird.”

The forecast had promised clear skies all day.

I crossed the room and pulled the curtain aside. There wasn't a cloud anywhere. Morning sunlight spilled over the dense pines surrounding our property, turning the dew clinging to their needles silver. Farther beyond them, the mountains bordering Pack Grimholt rose dark and jagged against a brilliant blue sky.

Lightning split across it.

I jumped back. “What the hell?”

My wolf went very still.

I grabbed the phone from my nightstand and tapped the screen awake. Clear and warm; no storms expected anywhere near Grimholt.

I looked back outside; the trees weren't moving, not even slightly as another flash of lightning tore across the sky. This time, the lamp beside my bed flickered with it.

Once.

Twice.

Then went dark.

I stared at it. “Okay.”

A few seconds passed before it blinked back on.

My wolf pressed closer.

Curious.

I wasn't...

“Electrical problem.”

The explanation sounded ridiculous even to me, but I accepted it anyway.

Little things like that normally happen around me. Lights blowing when I got upset. Water running from faucets I could have sworn I'd turned off. Windows rattling when there wasn't enough wind to move a leaf.

Once, when I was nine, every flower in the garden outside my bedroom had bloomed overnight even though it had been cold enough for frost.

Griffin said weird things happened all the time... and I believed him because Griffin usually had an explanation for everything, or at least he pretended he did.

I let the curtain fall and crossed to the stereo case where I'd left my music player charging the night before.

Empty.

I frowned.

Checked the charger.

Nothing.

My desk.

Nothing.

Under the bed.

Still nothing...

There was exactly one thief stupid enough to steal from me on my birthday.

“Griffin.”

My wolf brightened.

“Don't encourage him.”

I threw open my bedroom door, music was already pounding from the other end of the hallway, bass vibrating beneath my bare feet.

Of course, I thought.

Griffin's room.

I marched toward it; our house was large enough that we could technically go hours without seeing each other, although Griffin made that impossible. Photographs covered the upstairs hallway, most of them showing the two of us at different ages.

Griffin holding me as a baby. Griffin glaring at the camera while I sat on his back. The two of us covered in mud after he'd convinced me jumping across a creek was “easy.”

There were very few photographs of our parents, especially our mother... she had died bringing me into the world, so every memory I had of her belonged to someone else. Griffin, on the other hand, remembered her in pieces. Her perfume. Her voice; the songs she used to sing to him.

I had photographs... and a father who had never figured out how to look at me without seeing the woman he'd lost.

I stopped outside Griffin's door and pounded on it.

“Griffin!”

Nothing.

“Griff!”

The music got louder.

“You're such an ass!”

I reached for the handle just as the door flew open.

“Damn, Nova!”

I stumbled backward.

Griffin caught my arm, laughing.

“You should've seen your face.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don't.”

Unfortunately, he was right.

Griffin was eighteen, only a year and a half older than me, although he acted like the difference was closer to twenty years whenever it suited him. We shared the same warm golden-brown complexion and hazel eyes, but Griffin had gotten the height I apparently wasn't going to get. He stood several inches taller than me, his body lean and muscular from pack training, with thick dark curls still damp from his shower.

He was wearing gray jeans and no shirt, because apparently modesty was a burden Griffin Lucas refused to carry.

His grin widened, dimples appearing adorably. Half the girls at school lost basic reasoning skills whenever those dimples showed up.

Me? I mostly wanted to punch them...

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE SIS!”

He grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the floor.

“Put me down!”

“Seventeen!”

“I know!”

“My little genius is all grown up.”

“Griffin!”

He finally lowered me, laughing.

“I can't believe they let you skip a grade. You clearly don't have the emotional maturity.”

“I skipped because I'm smarter than you.”

“You skipped because the school got tired of you correcting the teachers.”

“That happened twice.”

“Seven times.”

“Three.”

“Mrs. Varel cried.”

“She was wrong.”

He stared at me for a beat before nodding.

“She was definitely wrong.”

I laughed.

That was Griffin, the only person in Pack Grimholt that I never had to worry about thinking before I spoke. At school, I measured everything. Where I sat. Who I looked at. Whether laughing too loudly might draw attention. Whether answering another question correctly would give someone something new to say about me, but around Griffin, I could just exist.

He had been doing that for me for as long as I could remember...

When our mother died, Griffin had been too young to understand why she wasn't coming home, but old enough to remember loving her. When our father fell apart, Griffin somehow learned to become the steady one, and after Dad died, Griffin became everything. My brother. My protector. My best friend. The person who checked the locks at night even though Grimholt territory was supposed to be safe. The person who learned how to cook because I once lived on cereal for four straight days. The person who sat on the bathroom floor outside the door when I had nightmares so bad I couldn't stand anyone touching me afterward...

There were days when I wondered what would've happened to me without him; I usually stopped wondering before I found an answer.

Griffin's smile faded slightly.

“You good?”

“Why does everybody keep asking me that?”

“I'm everybody now?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Your first shift tonight,” he asked.

I shrugged.

He watched me.

“Mate?”

I shrugged again.

Griffin's jaw tightened, it was small; almost nothing. But I knew him too well.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That wasn't a nothing face.”

“I have a nothing face?”

“You have several.”

He reached over and flicked my forehead.

“Go get dressed.”

I slapped his hand away. “I would, except something seems to have disappeared from my room.”

His eyebrows lifted innocently.

“My music player.”

“Tragic.”

“Griffin.”

“Have you reported it?”

“Give it back.”

“Wow. Accusing your only brother of theft on your birthday.”

“You're my only suspect.”

He pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “After everything I've done for you.”

I folded my arms, he lasted five seconds.

“Fine.”

Griffin crossed to his bed and pulled a rectangular box from beneath his pillow. It was wrapped in deep green paper with a silver ribbon around it, my favorite color.

My irritation vanished. “You didn't.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said nonchalantly.

“Griff.”

“Open it.”

I took the box and tore through the paper, a brand-new Vexa music player sat inside. The newest one and the most expensive one.

I looked up. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Griffin!”

I threw myself at him and he caught me easily.

“Thank you!” I shouted.

“Don't cry.”

“I'm not crying.”

“You're doing the face.”

“What face?”

“The ugly one.”

I punched his shoulder. He laughed while I turned the device on, the screen lit up and my smile softened. The background was a photograph of us standing ankle-deep in the brilliant blue waters of the Aurelian Coast, both of us laughing while waves broke around our legs. The trip had been two summers ago, just us.

No Grimholt.

No school.

No whispers.

No Maxon.

No Sable...

For one glorious week, nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew who my father had been. Nobody stared at me as though tragedy could somehow be inherited. I'd been just Nova...

I ran my thumb over the picture.

“You put everything on here?”

“All your music, pictures, games, school files.”

I looked at him.

“How?”

His expression turned offended.

“I have skills.” he scoffed.

“You asked me yesterday how to reset the house router.”

“Unrelated skill set.”

“You took it somewhere.”

He sighed. “I had Dax at the tech shop transfer everything.”

“Knew it.”

“Ungrateful.”

I grinned and hugged him again.

“Thank you.”

His arms tightened around me, and for a moment, he didn't let go.

“Always, Novi.”

Something about his voice made me pull back.

“You're being weird.”

“I'm always weird.”

“Weirder.”

He looked at me for a moment, and there it was again. Something behind his eyes. Something he wasn't saying. But before I could understand what it was, it disappeared and then his usual grin returned.

“Get dressed. We have people to pick up.”

My happiness died so quickly it should've made a sound.

“Oh.”

Griffin knew exactly what that meant.

His expression hardened. “If anybody starts with you today—”

“Don't.”

“Nova.”

“I mean it. I don't want you fighting everybody because somebody says something stupid to me.”

“They shouldn't say stupid s**t then.” Griffin shrugged unapologetically.

“Then you'd have to fight ninety percent of Grimholt.”

“Sounds like a productive morning.”

I laughed despite myself.

“Go.”

He nudged me toward the door.

I made it halfway into the hallway before thunder cracked over the house so violently that the floor seemed to tremble.

Griffin stopped.

I turned.

His attention wasn't on the window. It was on me. More specifically, the necklace hanging against my sleep shirt.

The thin silver chain had belonged to our mother. A small pale stone rested at its center, cloudy enough that I'd never been able to decide whether it was white, blue or gray. Suddenly, it was hot against my chest.

I gasped and grabbed it, and the heat disappeared instantly.

“What the—”

Griffin crossed the room so quickly that I barely saw him move.

“Let me see.”

“I'm fine.”

“Nova.”

His fingers closed gently around the stone and for a second, something like fear crossed his face.

“Griff?”

He released it.

“Static.”

I stared at him.

“Static made my necklace hot?”

“Apparently.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Neither do you.”

He pushed me into the hall and shut his door.

“Asshole!”

“Love you!”

I stood there staring at his door.

My wolf stirred, she was uneasy. And so was I...