Her Rejection's Revenge

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: UNLIKELY COMPANION

The fire turned into hot molten lava inside me, as I welcomed that old emotion like a long-lost friend. Anger which I have been suppressing ever since the wedding came rushing back in my veins.

All thoughts of revenge also followed the anger which seized me, dark thoughts that I had managed to somehow combat the evilness of it all. But it was now all coming back to me. An eye for an eye.

Fuming, I looked at Miriam, silently asking her to teleport us to the thief, and before Mama Juanita could even blink, we were replaced by a puff of air as we disappeared. Once I adjusted through the nausea, I blinked to focus on my surroundings, and my nostrils flared when I caught sight of a retreating back wearing the same clothes as that charlatan.

“Wait!” I screamed while Miriam followed me as I took over once I’d caught sight of that scumbag. Without giving myself time to think, I grabbed the back of his collar, and he flashed a surprised look at me. I figured the exact moment he recognized me because his turquoise eyes flashed with recognition. Then, before I could even breathe, he slipped out of my hands with a deft movement.

Irascible fury gripped me as I groped in the emptiness, but he was faster. Much faster. I could only glimpse his blue shirt as he tried to escape. Miriam grabbed me and we caught up with him easily.

“What? H…how did you manage to do this?” he stammered in stupefaction, and this time we stood each at his side to block his exit.

“Not so fast, thief!” I exclaimed in accusation, dancing along when he tried to move in another direction. “Give us our money back.”

“Money? What money?” he spluttered in feigned ignorance which only serve to fuel my wrath. I wanted to kick him in the shin.

“Wooooah!” he cried when I grabbed him once again. He tried to shrug my hold on him, but this time I held on more tightly. “I don’t have your money. You must have lost it somewhere!” he protested cheekily.

I flashed him a look which said that he didn’t fool me in the least. With my free hand, I felt his pocket, and jerked back when he flashed me a wolfishly suggesting grin. Flinching back from his highhanded arrogance, I gasped lightly as I fought to keep my anger right in place.

“I don’t mind,” he whispered conceitedly in my ears, causing shivers running down my spine. I winced from the closeness, even more peeved with his attitude.

“Get away from me you bastard!” I shouted angrily.

Miriam who wasn’t that enamored with him took the opportunity to search his pockets, and she came up with the waddle of green bills that we’d folded right before visiting the town. That tricky bastard.

“I got it!” Miriam cried and I shoved that deceiver out of my grasp.

“Liar!” I seethed in an intense emotion outburst. “You cheap liar. You stole from us! And how dare you think we’re just silly schoolgirls who you can betray like some vulgar…”

He raised his hands upwards in submission. “I swear I don’t know how your money got in there!” He sounded so innocent that I was almost tempted to believe him.

Zee, he’s lying right through his teeth. Don’t fall for his pretty looks!

For once, I was glad that Miriam could barge into my thoughts without warning. Had she been in my life during the Braxton period, maybe my life would have been so much easier. Imagine me reading through the mind of that bastard right in time, knowing that he hated me while he raped me?

Uggggggh, stop it Zee! Now’s not the time.

I winced as I realized that Miriam must have known my whole sob story by reading in my mind. I would have her hide later for the breach of privacy. For now, I would have to tackle that bloody thief and liar which fate had dumped into our laps without warning.

“What’s your name?” I asked, calming down as I looked into his unusual blue eyes and caught something as the colors shifted.

“Charles Sinclair,” he replied immediately, so quickly that I instantly knew it was a lie. I sighed and turned towards Miriam with a resigned exasperated quizzical look. Miriam only grinned at me with a wink.

He goes by the name Ajax – I am not sure if Sheffield is his actual last name. That’s all I can get from his complicated mind. He doesn’t come from here, but he’s been hanging around here for quite a while. Plus I can smell an animal from him, I’m not too sure if it’s a wolf though.

“So, Ajax Sheffield, what do we need for you to speak the truth?”

He gasped and bought me closer. “How do you do that? How do you even know my name?”

The smell of his minty cologne caught up my nostrils, and I denied myself the luxury to take in a deep breath. “My friend there can read minds. And can travel over distances at a very fast speed. So you’d better beware of us.”

He immediately stiffened. “Vampires?” There was no appearances of fangs which would have instinctively sprouted which made me confirm that he was not a lycanthrope.

I smiled at how terrified he looked now. There was no sign of his earlier cockiness, and the blue of his eyes darkened to horizontal slits that made me wonder whether he was also a shifter like us. Definitely not a werewolf.

“Not vampires, no,” I replied evasively, just to taunt him. A snarl escaped him, and I c****d my eyebrows at him in a very haughty manner. For some reason, I wasn’t at all scared of him. I was the one who got closer then, my breath almost touching his in collision. “Wolves,” I whispered in a seductive voice.

“Werewolves?” he answered back in the same melodramatic voice. “How come werewolves have the power of teleporting and telepathy?”

My lips turned into a snicker. “Make an educated guess,” I taunted cruelly before I caught a furious Mama Juanita catching up with us. She was walking in our direction, smoke coming out of her nostrils, and did not look pleased. “Oh-oh,” I said peskily. “I got to go.”

“Not so fast,” he grabbed my arms, and Miriam snarled at him with animosity.

“Now, now, kids,” Mama Juanita was quick to grab us both in each hand and pulled us away from our new acquaintance. “Remember what Mr. Kapadia said about not being too conspicuous?” she hissed savagely at us.

We both produced a scowl but kept quiet as she dragged us back to the camp.

He’s following us, Miriam told me when we’d almost reached the secret passage which led into our world. What do we do with him?

I wasn’t able to communicate to her via our mind link because my wolf was dead, so I threw her a desperate look. I knew she could read my thoughts, so I processed them carefully. Despite Ajax being a charlatan, there was an aura of vulnerability around him which suggested that he was on the lookout of friends. I wished that Miriam could read his mind to find out about his intentions.

Then, without warning, Miriam’s morphology started to change, and I could catch a glimpse of a beautiful white wolf, so huge that it towered over me by several inches. Her eyes were sparkling blue, as she looked at me with a deep and intense glare.

“What’s going on?” Mama Juanita shrieked by looking behind her back, and I held my breath as two pair of legs peeked through the trees. They didn’t belong to a werewolf, but a coyote.

With pointed ears, an elegant slender muzzle and a bushy tail, the coyote appeared much smaller than Miriam’s majestic wolf. It was of grayish brown color with subtle tinges behind the ears. It was cute.

Mama Juanita shifted to her wolf form as well and I just stood there transfixed and unsure of what to do. It would be stupid of him to envisage an attack.

Relax, he’s just happy to have discovered other weirdos exist like him. He though he was the only one with shifting abilities.

Yeah but a coyote? I was curious to discover how he’d become one. I’ve never heard of a coyote before.

Same, Miriam answered back in my mind, and I sighed as I threw her wolf Kiri a warning look.

You really should stop messing with my mind, Kiri. I really don’t like you learning my personal thoughts without my permission. Isn’t there a rule something which should prevent you from breaching other’s privacy?

Her white wolf actually shrugged defensively, and I would have laughed had the situation not been so serious. My brother made the rules and he’s not around.

I rolled my eyes at her but turned to the coyote. “What’s your name?” I asked tentatively. The animal had the same turquoise eyes as its master, but they were so sad that I instantly guessed that something bad must have happened to him as well. Another refugee, although his scars were not physical.

“Zen,” the coyote answered in a husky voice, and I nodded at him in a friendly movement. Feeling less threatened, he shifted back to his human form, his wonderful sculpted body taking shape right in front of me. Naked.

I gulped back in fear at his large frame feeling intimidated. Flashes of a naked Braxton appeared in front of my eyes which made me take a few steps back in my panic.

“Don’t be scared,” he rapidly intervened taking an instinctively stride in my direction. “I mean no harm. I didn’t know that there were any shifters in the area.”

“What are you doing here?” Mama Juanita snarled with hostility. “Don’t you have a pack?” I wasn’t very versed with the coyotes world, so I wasn’t even aware that they lived in packs just like us.

“I don’t remember ever having one. I was raised by humans until I discovered that I was an animal. They rejected me saying that they wanted a normal boy and that they didn’t want to entertain a monster in their home.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Miriam and Mama Juanita appeared in their human forms when they confirmed that Ajax was not a threat. “Have you ever tried to find a home?” I asked gently, seeming to feel his pain as my own. Homeless rejects – we were all the same in the end. Unwanted and spurned by our own people.

Each one had a different story though – like mine was betrayal and Miriam’s was greed. Ajax also would have an interesting one.

“No pack has ever accepted me. I am too different to fit in any conventional pack,” he replied with a wry smile. I could read hope in his beautiful eyes as he watched us with an expectant expression. It was almost like he’d given up any chance of ever belonging to any sect, and we were the misfits that he’d been looking for his whole life. Like an answer to his prayers.

My lips smirked into a semblance of a crooked smile. “Well, isn’t it a good thing that ours is an unconventional one?”