Curse of the rejected

CHAPTER 2

We all stood up, ready for the attack and waiting for the wolves to make the first move so that we could defend ourselves.

“Mom?” I whispered, and she held my hand in assurance, pulling me back so that I would stand behind her and she could shield me if things went wrong.

The air was tense, everybody holding their breaths. Finally, the man in the midst of all the other wolves stepped forward and into the light with open arms and a cheerful grin on his face.

“Happy blue moon!”

Shoulders sagged in relief, and people started to take their seats again as the man led his people to an empty spot for them sit around him.

“I hope I’m not too late,” he addressed, bowing to Alpha Logan of our pack. “It’s quite nice, seeing a neighboring pack host something this grand. I hope I’m allowed the honor to host the next one.”

“Alpha Ethan,” Alpha Logan called out to him. “You are welcome, although that dramatic entrance could have gone unexpectedly bad.”

I had heard about Forestclaw pack, our neighboring pack in the east, and their leader; Alpha Ethan, but I had never seen him before.

I didn’t know what it was, but I found myself staring at him, unable to look away. Just then, his peculiar scent of cinnamon and vanilla hit my nostrils, each coming in different blows of their own as if fighting for which one I would notice and like better.

I took a deep breath as my mother and I sat down with the rest of the pack and the wolves from other packs, allowing myself a longer whiff of his scent before looking away and watching the next fight.

“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Mom teased, nudging me with her elbow. “Enjoy it. Tonight is all about having fun.”

I wondered what she meant by that, but I didn’t ask. More than half of my mind was still on the Alpha who had crashed through the ceremony at the wrong time to make an entrance.

I craned my head to look at him, only to find that he was staring back at me.

I gasped softly when his lips curled upwards in a wicked smirk, leaning into my mother as if she could save me from myself and what I was feeling within my chest.

“Mom?” I called out to her, my tone urgent and begging for her attention.

“What is it, Blair?” she asked.

“How do you know if you have found your mate?”

“Well, when I first met your father, my heart swelled and popped open. I don’t know if it’s the same experience for everyone, but I could smell him better. Everyone else was like background noise, and I could only hear him.”

Just as she said that, her voice faded into the background as I stared at the man sitting on the other side of the field. I could hear the thump-thump of his heart, how steady but unstable it was.

I started to panic at the fact that he could probably hear mine. My heart was erratic and messy.

“Blair?” My mom snapped her fingers in front of my eyes, causing me to jump and lay my attention back on her. She was staring at me with narrowed eyes, suspicious.

“Who were you staring at?” she asked, looking into the crowd of people sitting across from us and trying to see who it could have been.

She knew.

“Mom, I—”

“You have found your mate, Blair! Do you know just how amazing it is?” she laughed. “Tell me who it is, come on.”

Before I could whisper the name in her ear, he stood up from his seat, his wolves parting the way for him as he walked forward.

I hated that he was an Alpha in that moment, because all eyes were now on him, everybody wondering where he was going, and I knew exactly where he was going. I just didn’t know what he was going to do when he got here.

“Oh, no,” I muttered to myself as he crossed the field and finally reached where I sat with my mother.

I could hear my mother sucking in a deep breath in surprise at his identity when he stretched his hand out for me and silently urged me to take his hand and come with him.

I looked at my mom, unsure, but she slowly blinked at me in encouragement.

I took his hand, standing up and suddenly wishing I could hide in the shadows as half of the crowd stared at us and the other half was more interested in the next fight that was to come.

“Come on,” Alpha Ethan said, taking my hand and leading me away from the open field to the shade of a tree in the dark, and I really hoped he couldn’t hear my heart beat in that exact moment.

“What’s your name?” he questioned.

“Blair,” I answered, holding back my tongue as I almost asked him what his name was and realized just how stupid I would sound if I did.

“Blair,” he said my name in a soft tone as he took a lock of my hair and toyed with it. I moved back, creating distance between us, but I only found my back against a tree.

“So, Blair,” he offered, “how would you like to come with me to my pack?”

I perked up at the suggestion, a part of me celebrating the fact that I wouldn’t have to see my father and my mother fight each and every day, but the other part of me in anguish that I would have to leave my mother behind for that. If I did, I wondered just how many horrible things would happen.

Alpha Ethan’s fingers stopped grazing through my hair as I shook my head in response to his offer.

“I can’t leave my mother behind.”

He chuckled as if it was the easiest thing in the world as he said, “She can come with us. If she ever feels homesick, she can come back here. My pack and yours are not very far from each other, you know.”

I wanted to agree, to say that I would tell my mother to come with us, but I knew better. If she couldn’t run away all these years, who was I to make the decision that she would come with me to a neighboring pack? Who was I to think that my father would agree to that?

“You don’t understand,” I said. “She wouldn’t want to come. My father won’t even let her. I have to stay back and help her. He…”

I suddenly had no idea how to feel about revealing my family’s business to anyone else, even though it was widely known in the pack that the war general hit his wife and his daughter like it was his daily dose of sanity.

“You can tell me, Blair,” Alpha Ethan encouraged, cupping my cheeks and getting me to stare at him.

He was so full of assurance that in that moment, I trusted him more than I had ever trusted anyone else, so I opened my mouth and told him the truth.

“My father hits me and my mother a lot. If I go, he could kill her.”

I could see Alpha Ethan’s face morph into a frown.

“Who is your father?” he questioned, but he asked me so softly that it didn’t cross my mind how dangerous his eyes looked.

“He’s the war general of the pack,” I admitted.

In one swift motion, he turned around and walked towards the field.

“No!” I called after him, running forward and trying to stop him, but it was too late. He was already standing in the middle of the field, peering into the crowd as he roared:

“Who is the war general of Silverbane Pack?!”