The Alpha Who Wants Me Back

Krista’s POV: "I, Zevaric Leonhart, Alpha of the Nova Stone Pack, reject you as my fated mate.” His jaw clenched in disgust, as he spat those words in front of me, with a voice laced with venom. ----------------- I was dancing relentlessly in the club. The bass thumped through me just like a second heartbeat, incessant and feral. Lights danced over the ceiling, with flickering luminescence, like wild spirits. I wasn’t drunk, just lost in freedom. After months of scraping through entrance exams and university admission, this night was mine. “Krista, spin again!” Aizal yelled over the music, shoving a whiskey shot in my hand. She is my only friend who supports me even in my crazy moments. I snickered, letting her push me back onto the dance floor. Hair scourged around my face, as I threw my hands in the air and wobbled on the beat. Tonight, I was just…alive. “Last spin!” I shouted, turned my head in the trance, and tripped. “Whoa!” Someone caught me before I tumbled on the floor. Strong arms. Tall frame. My eyes snapped open as I felt a sudden electric surge in my body for a brief moment. I gawked at the man holding me. “Goddamn!” I spoke to myself. He towered over me, sharp jawline, eyes icy blue, colder than the nights of December. I was staring at his features shamelessly when my eyes fell on the stain that my drink left on his white shirt. I stumbled backward and heaved myself up. “Oh My God!” I gasped. “I’m…I am sorry. Are you…” He didn’t even flinch. Just stood there like an ice sculpture. “Are you always this…careless?” He asked, looking straight dead into my eyes. What the hell! “I said I’m sorry”. I blurted out. He looked down at me, his gaze turning from cold to burning in an instant. “You…” He slightly murmured. “Do I know you?” I asked confusingly. He didn’t answer, kept staring, like he was thinking of burying my body in the woods. Okay. That was enough. I backed away, “Look, again, sorry about your shirt. But I think…” “I can’t believe it. How’s this even possible?” He interrupted. I blinked, “Excuse me?” He coiled his fists tightly, “I, Zevaric Leonhart, Alpha of the Nova Stone Pack, reject you as my fated mate.” A painful ripping sensation hit me in the heart, with a sudden feeling of crushing emptiness, like my soul was being shattered. I was unsure of what exactly was overtaking me. What was that? What on earth just happened? He kept glaring at me for a few more seconds, turned around and vanished in the crowd. “Kristaaa!” Aizal called, grabbing my arm. “What did you do? Who was that hot guy?” “No idea” I muttered, still staring in the direction he disappeared. But a part of me wasn’t convinced that I didn’t know him. It wasn’t an attraction. Not exactly. It felt like recognition. But that didn’t make any sense at all. ------------------ Zevaric’s POV: “O God, it reeks in here”, I mumbled. The vileness of alcohol, sweat and imprudence clung to the air like a bad omen. “I hate clubs”, I grumbled, while having a sip of soda, “so flashy, so blaring, so crowded, sooo…alive”. I leaned against the farthest corner of the Ivory Noctis Club, the most over- hyped club in the city. “Why a club, of all places, to celebrate a little promotion?” I questioned my own thoughts. My colleagues were already on the dance floor, drunk from both alcohol and fake praise. And me? I was waiting for the end of this sentence, until my wolf started blurting, “Mate…mate…our mate is here.” My instincts awakened as I started to feel it, the recognition, the mate bond. I was still trying to process when my legs moved on their own accord with a sudden instinct, “Go to her. Now!” I started moving through the crowd. People bumped into me. I didn’t care. I closed my fists tightly as I would punch any soul coming my way to her. I kept moving forward till my eyes landed on her. Dancing insanely, like there is no tomorrow. Sparkling top with a seductively short leather skirt, perfectly complimenting her jet-black hair flowing straight like an alluring ink. Eyes deep like the Pacific Ocean, black as the Obsidian stone and intensely addictive than any kind of alcohol. Any kind of sedative would fail in front of those mesmerizing eyes. “She’s going to fall”, I smirked. But then her top lifted slightly, and I saw a peculiar thing at her lower back which froze me in place. My heart slammed into my mouth, “No way…” It was the whispering bloom mark that haunted me for years. An outlined five-petaled flower clasping a crescent moon in its center. The same symbol mentioned in the Book of the Moon, the mark of the Flower Maiden. I told myself, “No, no, it can’t be…” Every cell in my body screaming, “This can’t be real”. I was continuously assuring myself, “This is probably just another dream”. Just a few steps towards her felt like an eternity, and then my feet stopped moving, as I was standing right behind her. “This was the girl who ruined my life”, I realized. She turned around and stumbled. My hand moved unintentionally under her back to save her from hitting her head on the floor. The moment my hand touched the mark on her back, a lingering shock surged within me. I stood frozen. She gasped. Her eyes widened with jolt. Our gaze met. One of the club lights hit her eyes at a certain angle and those orbs shined like an Akoya pearl. “You…”, I was looking at her in disbelief, “How can you be my mate?”. Dumb. Clumsy. Loud. I was consistently looking at the girl I was cursed to protect, who made my life a living hell. And now, she was my mate? For whom I had waited for years. I won’t be bound to someone like her. I’d rather die than be with her. I gritted my teeth to hold back the frustration, but all in vain. I composed myself, didn’t think another second and rejected her as my mate, right then and there. She blinked twice, snapped her eyes open again and asked confusingly, “Do … I know you?” Hah. The audacity, the insolence. It’s not like she couldn’t recognize me. She must have made it up to cover up the embarrassment from rejection. I played along, “No. But soon…you will… And then I’ll make sure you wish you had never known me”.