The Last Alpha Queen (The Rejected Mate Series Book 1)

buzz buzz buzz The vibration of my phone alarm slowly coaxed me out of my dream. Tom Holland was just about to ask me to marry him in the middle of a Parisian café and then the buzzing took over. I roll over with a groan, not ready to face reality. My life is nothing like the glamorous dreams my subconscious cooks up. But I'm being rude. I should probably introduce myself. Hi, my name is Scarlett Blaze. Original, I know. What can I say? My parents had a thing for fire. My brother didn't escape the flaming fate either. His name is Ignis. He hates his name and says it's as useless as the dead language it came from, so I always call him Iggy. Well, I should say I used to always call him Iggy. We don't talk much anymore. Ten years ago, there was a massive rogue uprising. My parents were lone wolves. Their packs didn't approve of their union since they weren't fated mates. That was a big deal back then. So they ran away and formed a mini-pack. Just me, Iggy, mom, and dad. We lived in this tiny cabin in neutral territory. It was small but beautiful. Mom and Iggy tended to a garden where we grew our own vegetables. Iggy inherited his green thumb from mom. I wasn't too shabby at it either, but that wasn't where my passion lay. As soon as I could walk, I wanted to learn how to fight. My father was his pack's enforcer, one of the greatest warriors in history. I wanted to be just like him. My family tried to get me interested in anything but fighting. They taught me gardening, knitting, painting, cooking, and everything under the sun, but I craved to be a warrior. I could feel it was my destiny. Eventually, my father grew tired of telling me no since he would find me training again the next day. "Come on, my warrior, princess, let's teach you how to fight." He said that to me on my fourth birthday, and from then on, I was hooked. We trained every day, and I helped him hunt. He and his wolf could have easily handled the task, but he would let me ride on the back of his wolf, Ragnar, with a bow and arrow and I would take down the forest animals while he collected them in our net and dragged them behind us home. It was a beautiful way to grow up. We were free to cultivate our passions and live happily and freely. Until the day I turned eight. Father and I were out on our usual hunt when we heard a scream from the cabin. Racing as fast as he could, Ragnar tore into the clearing to find a rogue latching his teeth into my mother's wolf, Cinder's neck. Father roared the most terrifying roar I have ever heard and destroyed the remaining five rogues. But we were too late. Mother lay too still on the ground in front of Iggy. She protected him as long as she could from the rogues. Father was heavily bleeding as he turned back to human to let out a soul-wrenching scream as his mate took her last breath. Iggy ran into my arms, bawling as I stood as still as a statue watching the scene unfold. Then, a presence so frighteningly powerful entered the clearing. The wolf had sandy brown colored fur, reminding me of the beach that Mom and Dad took us to for our birthday. But that's where the happy comparison ended. The aura around the wolf was opaque and black. It was so evil and sinister that Iggy let out a whimper as the wolf stalked closer. The wolf shifted as he got a few feet away from us, turning into a teenager. I gasped at this. He was so much younger than I thought. That's when he took his cruel yellow eyes off my father and turned them on to me. "Well, well, well, what a delightful creature you are," he said as he licked his lips and changed course toward me and Iggy. "Leave them alone, Jax," my father growled out, placing my mother's body down gently and standing to confront the menacing teen. So many thoughts ran through my head at that moment. How did my father know this rogue? Why were the rogues even here? Why did he keep looking at me as if I was the prize he was searching for? "Now, Gabriel, you can take the boy and leave. Just give me the girl, and I promise not to hurt you and your son," he grinned wildly at my father. Father scoffed. "I will never give her to you, monster." Jax let out a spine-chilling laugh. "I was truly hoping you'd say that." He launched himself at Father. They rolled around on the ground, exchanging blow after blow. But I could tell, father was losing. He was already in bad shape before the fight, and Jax seemed stronger than any regular wolf. As Jax pinned my father to the ground and changed his hand into wolf's claws aiming towards my father's neck, I stepped forward. "Wait!," I cried out, stepping towards the pair. Jax's cold gaze cut me with his claws slightly digging into Father's neck. "I'll go," I said. "I'll go with you. Just let my father and brother go." The evil rogue let a smile slowly stretch across his face. "That's my good little queen." He released Father and came towards me, looking every bit of the predator who just caught their prey. But before he could reach me, Ragnar tackled him to the ground. Father took the distraction to shift and bite into the unsuspecting Jax's shoulder. "Go!" he screamed in our mind-link, struggling to hold down Jax. "Run and don't turn back. He will never stop hunting you. Take your brother and go." Father trained me to always protect myself and never run from a fight. So if he was telling me this now, we must not stand a chance. I had to put Iggy first. I turned and grabbed Iggy's hand, and we tore into the forest. I didn't look back once. I continued to drag a weeping Iggy behind me until we crossed into pack territory and were stopped by the border guards. All the adrenaline effectively drained from me, and I passed out. Fast-forward ten years later, and you'll find me stumbling out of bed. I managed to get myself and my brother to the new moon pack. They took us in after hearing about our encounter with the rogues, and we've been a part of this pack ever since. We left out the part about a murderous rogue hell-bent on making me his queen. That's more of a second-date conversation. But after that day, Iggy pulled away from me. He blamed me for our parents' deaths, and in a way, so did I. When my wolf, Onyx, began talking to me on my tenth birthday, she told me we could not stand out. We had to lie low in this pack until the day we could shift. But in lying low, the pack took it as a weakness. They were always laughing and joking whenever I was around calling me a wolfless murderer. They'd make me take less favorable jobs, like cleaning the bathrooms and washing the dishes. They treated me as if I was less than them and my brother stood off to the side and watched it happen. So, since then, Onyx has been the only one I can rely on. And today was the day we shifted and found our true mate.