Luna Of The Bloodmoon Alphas

Chapter 9

EMILY'S POV

“My God, you've got to be kidding me, it's happening!”

It was Helena's shrill voice, and just then, it hit me. I was suddenly awake, I was alive. It felt like I was leaving reality behind and I was becoming something else, a ghost, a spirit, a primal, wild animal. I could perceive the scent of everyone from a mile away, and I smiled when I perceived Helena's scent.

She smelt so good, like oranges and lemons mixed into one, and I knew that her fated mate was going to cherish that scent for a long time.

At that moment, my nose seemed to catch a scent from a distance. It smelt of the earth, of bark and wood. It smelt manly, it smelt strong, it smelt beautiful and at the same time, it reeked of mystery. Who was he?

I set off, deciding to look for him and not wait for him to find me instead. I followed my nose, allowing it to lead me as I made my way past the pool and past a couple that were already cuddling. Was it supposed to be that fast? As soon as you found your fated mate, cuddling followed.

I hoped not. The opposite s*x made me clammy and uncomfortable, and I hoped that my fated mate was just the opposite. I hoped that he made me feel at home, I hoped that his hands felt like home.

When I saw him, I stopped. Sitting on top of a bench, he was focused on eating the steak in his hand and not finding me. His dark hair fell in a mass next to his shoulders, like the mane of a lion.

His jaw was set and firm and his eyebrows looked as if they could slice through the air and come at me. His eyes were the color of the forest, a vast pool of green, and as soon as he stared at me, I knew I would be lost in them no matter how hard I would try to find my way.

Striding, I met him as he was about to start eating another part of his steak, his eyes uninterested in everything that was happening around him, the hustle and bustle of activity and life.

“What?”

He growled, staring at me like I was disturbing him. Yes, I was disturbing him, but I was disturbing him because I had a purpose. Disturbing him wasn't my fault, it wasn't my doing. It was something that was out of our hands, something we would never understand.

“You don't perceive it too? I perceived you from a mile away, it has to be you.”

Opening his mouth, he laughed, the steak a mass in it. I wanted him to close his mouth because I hated to look at the insides of one's mouth while eating, but he continued laughing, opening it wider than usual, as wide as it could go.

“You've got to be kidding me. Are you telling me you believe in this s**t? In two strangers meeting each other and suddenly falling in love?”

I looked at him, surprised. At that moment, I knew that he had perceived me too, but he had ignored it. He was staring at me, a twinkle in his eyes that told me that if I was smart, I was going to figure things out without him explaining it to me.

“What do you mean? The moon goddess chose us to be together. If you didn't want to be a part of it, then why are you here?”

I stared at him, startled. I knew him from somewhere. I was trying to place it, but I couldn't. The dark hair that fell in waves across his shoulders was too familiar, those eyes and that jawline didn't seem as strange as they had been when I had first seen them. He looked way too familiar for a stranger, for someone I was about to refer to as my chosen mate.

Who was he? I asked myself for the umpteenth time.

“I'm here to witness the foolishness of a pack as great as ours. Why wait for someone who we don't know, someone we have never met to choose our partners? Why wait for a being we don't know to choose who we spend the rest of our lives with?”

I bit my bottom lip, trying to make sense of what he was saying. I was interested in him, and I acknowledged the moon goddess for even finding someone as handsome as he was to be my fated mate.

What was he trying to say?

That he wasn't in the least interested in me? That he wasn't struck by my features as I was struck by his? Folding my arms, I found the anger in me starting to ascend to a crescendo, and the scent around him now was beginning to get stronger than ever.

If the moon goddess was a fluke, then why did I perceive him so? Why was he so alive, so imminent in the hollows of my nostrils? Why was he in front of me now, why was I able to trace him so fast and so swiftly?

No, the moon goddess wasn't a fluke, I reassured myself. He was the fluke, with his arrogance and his childish pride.

“Are you saying the moon goddess is wrong? Or she's fake for choosing us to be together?”

He laughed again, standing up and coming closer to me. He was huge in stature, and all of a sudden I found out that I was much smaller when I was near him. His handsomeness was more evident when he stood, his body as perfect as that of a Greek god's.

He smiled at me as he approached, his scent getting ever stronger, and my knees buckling and getting weaker with each step he took towards me.

“I'm saying we're not meant to be together, whatever your name is. I don't know you, you don't know me. We're both strangers, we don't know each other and you expect us to bond? Who does that?”

Wolves that had found their mates were beginning to gather, hand in hand, staring at the drama unfolding before their eyes. It made me annoyed, it made me irritated. It made me angry that he was making a scene instead of accepting what we were. He was trying to shift the blame to the moon goddess instead of saying the truth as plainly as it was.

He didn't want me to be his mate, and that was it.

I could see it in the green of his eyes, his features as he stood before me. His hands were trembling slightly, and I knew they were itching to do something to me, anything.

Anything to remind me that he was in control here.

“I accept whatever the moon goddess has chosen for me. And I expect you to do the same too.”

I piped in, staring at him full in the face, daring him to do his worst.

“In that case, I reject you as my mate. I don't want to ever see you near me again, I beg of you.”

When he turned his back on me, the crowd gasped in the horror of what was unfolding before their eyes. Embarrassed and moved to tears, I dragged his hand in a bid to convince him, and instantly I regretted it.

The push was swift and straight to the point. And until I landed in the pool with a splash, I didn't know. The air had been knocked out of my lungs, and I splashed around in the pool, my now splayed hands crying for help.

I was about to drown when I felt Helena's arms around me, dragging me out of the pool, wet, battered, and rejected.