Rejected, not broken

Chapter two

Elara’s pov

I made it exactly three hours before I started questioning the biggest decision of my life. The sun was going down at a rapid pace and my feet hurt. My feet really hurt. I had been walking for hours with no destination and no plan.

I kicked a stone off the road and watched it disappear into the bushes. What exactly had I been thinking?. One minute I was standing in front of the entire district, telling Kevin Blackwood he meant nothing to me.The next, I was wandering toward the human world with no money, no clothes, and no idea where I was going.

A shaky laugh escaped me, maybe Kevin was right. The thought made me stop walking. I hated that it hurt so much, that despite everything he’d done, some pathetic part of me still wanted to turn around and run back.

Maybe if I apologized…

Maybe if I admitted I had overreacted…

Maybe he would forgive me.

The moment the thought crossed my mind, my chest tightened.

Forgive me?

For what?

For embarrassing him after he humiliated me in front of thousands of wolves?

For crying after he told me I was never enough?

I swallowed hard. No, I couldn’t go back. Not now. A car horn startled me from my thoughts, I turned around and there a black SUV sat parked a few feet away.

I frowned, I knew for sure it wasn’t there a few seconds ago but I watched as the driver’s door opened and a man stepped out. At first glance, he looked ordinary but then he looked at me, and suddenly he didn’t.

His eyes were strange and he looked at me like he knew me. I took a step backward.

His gaze flickered over my face before settling into something almost sympathetic.

“Tough day?”

I stared at him.

Was he serious?

A laugh bubbled out of me before I could stop it, it sounded bitter.

“You could say that.”

“You left.” He said he eyes softer

The words sent a chill down my spine.

“How do you know that?”

Instead of answering, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Most people spend their entire lives believing the things others tell them they are.”

“What?” I asked blinking repeatedly

“They are weak, ordinary” he took another step closer “ like they are nothing.”

Something about the way he said it made my stomach twist, because those were the exact words I’d spent my entire life believing.

The stranger smiled.

I stared at him.

“Who are you?”

“Someone who knows you’re stronger than you think.”

For some reason, that answer scared me more than if he’d threatened me, but before I could ask another question, a familiar voice cut through the evening air.

“Elara!”

My blood ran cold, it sounded like Kevin. I turned around and there he was.

Breathing hard, looking annoyed no remorse as though I’d created an inconvenience for him.

His gaze shifted from me to the stranger and immediately hardened.

“What is this?”

I almost laughed. He always used that tone, one that assumed he had every right to question me, control me, to decide my life.

“None of your business,” I said.

His jaw clenched.

“Stop being ridiculous.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Because for years, I would have listened, I would have apologized, I would have done anything for him to take me back. But I wasn’t that girl anymore, maybe she finally broke or better yet died during the ceremony either ways she was gone.

“You have nowhere to go,” Kevin said. “You’re not strong enough to survive on your own stop overreacting and come let’s go home.”

I looked at him, like really looked at him. And suddenly I realized something, Kevin had never seen me, not once had he bothered to know the real me, only the version of me he’d convinced himself existed.

The weak omega.

The girl who would always come running back, the poor girl who needed him.

“Come home, Elara.”

Home? He said that like he was doing me a favor. The same place where everyone laughed and nobody chose me, even as I begged for scraps of affection.

My eyes drifted to the stranger. And no I didn’t trust him not even a little bit but strangely enough … something in me chose the unknown future he represented, a future where Kevin Blackwood wasn’t the center of my world. Without giving myself time to think, I opened the passenger door and climbed inside.

The stranger started the engine.

Outside, Kevin stared at me in disbelief, and for the first time in years, I didn’t look away. Then the car pulled onto the road. I watched as Kevin disappeared in the rearview mirror my heart empty.

The first few minutes of the drive passed in uncomfortable silence, it made me painfully aware that I was trapped in a car with a man whose name I didn’t know and from the looks of things he apparently knew mine.

I shifted in my seat and glanced at him from the corner of my eye, up close, he looked younger than I had first thought maybe in his mid twenties, late twenties at most. His dark hair was slightly too long,it was an outgrown wolf cut, brushing the collar of his black coat, and there was something unfairly handsome about his face. The kind of face that belonged on magazine covers. Yet something about him seemed to be centuries older than his beauty let on. ridiculous I know still I couldn’t shake it.

“Are you planning to stare at me the entire trip?” He suddenly asked. I jerked, tearing my eyes away as heat rushed to my cheeks.

“No.”

His lips twitched.

“Good.”

“You still haven’t told me your name.” I said folding my arms stubbornly.

“Because you haven’t asked the right question.”

I groaned.

“Do you always talk in riddles?” I asked and he offered a small smile.

I kept mute and for a while, the only sound was the hum of the engine. I kept my gaze outside the window, the familiar forests slowly gave way to paved roads and distant city lights.

The human world.

For years I’d dreamed about seeing it, now that I was finally here, all I felt was terrified. As vif sensing my thoughts, the stranger spoke.

“You’re wondering whether leaving was a mistake.”

I stared at him.

“Can you read minds too?”

“Not yours.” He said unbothered, gaze fixed on the road. “But you’re quite predictable.”

I frowned.

“Thanks?.”

A faint chuckle escaped him, the sound startled me. It was the first genuinely the first laughter I had heard in so long.

“So who are you?”

“Someone your mother would recognize.”

My heart skipped.

“You knew my mother?”

“Knew of her.”

Before I could stop myself, I asked,

“How did you know my mother?”

The smile disappeared from his face, and just like that the atmosphere inside the car shifted. I noticed his fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel. Interesting.

“I didn’t say I knew her.” He muttered after a while.

“You implied it.”

“I knew of her.”

My heart skipped.

“What does that mean?”

“It means your mother was not who you think she was.”

The words landed like a stone in my chest.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

His expression softened.

“For now, it means nothing.”

“For now?”

“There are truths you aren’t ready to hear.”

Frustration bubbled inside me, what was it with people and deciding for me. But before I could argue the suv slowed. I looked outside the window at the small cluster of houses at the edge of the town.

“ your friend lives there” he said pointing at a house at the end of a narrow street.

My mind raced thinking of a friend “ Adelaide?” I asked sitting up. He nodded.

He nodded.

A genuine smile tugged at my lips for the first time all day.

Adelaide.

I hadn’t seen her in years, not since her family left the pack and settled among humans, We’d promised to stay in touch but life had gotten in the way.

The stranger parked along the curb and for a moment neither of us moved. Then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a black business card. It had nothing save for a name and a phone number.

I stared at it.

“That’s it?”

“That’s enough.”

I slipped it into my pocket.

“What if I never call?”

And for the first time, his smile reached his eyes.

“You will.”

The confidence in his voice was infuriating, still I I believed him. Huffing I opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. And by the time I looked back, he was already driving away.

Within seconds, the black SUV disappeared into the darkness, Leaving me alone.

I turned toward the small house at the end of the street. Light spilled from one of the windows as I made my way I wondered. Would Adelaide even recognize me? Would she accept me?

I took a deep breath and climbed the porch steps stopping in front of the door.

Then I raised my hand and knocked.