Rejecting Alpha Dreads

Chapter2

Chapter 2

My husband’s slap felt like hammer on the skin of my cheek. I could feel my jaws shift. I propped my face in my palms in pain, fell on my knees and increased the intensity of my cry.

Maybe I wanted to weep so loud my parents would hear me from our pack several miles away and come rescue their daughter. It was wishful thinking, yet I wished words could travel that far at this very moment. Dreads continued to stand menacingly above me. I reached out to hold his shoes as if asking them to help me speak and reason with their owner. I didn’t do anything wrong to deserve this.

I once thought of asking the second in command, Beta Rob, who was best friends with my husband, to help me beg him. But Beta Rob himself seemed like he was waiting for the right opportunity to have his turn with me. I could tell he wanted to sleep with me from the way he bit his lower lip when I was around, and how he massaged the beard underneath his chin lustfully while staring at me.

Not someone I would want to talk to about my troubles.

Dreads withdrew his feet from my grasp and walked back to his desk. For someone eloquent with words, especially around others, he was disturbingly quiet with me, choosing to communicate nonverbally with fists.

“Leave me alone,” he finally muttered from behind the desk, without bothering to look up at me, of course. “Your tantrums are bothering me.”

Next month will make it a year since our mating ceremony.

It had been the saddest moment of my life.

One I wouldn’t wish upon even an enemy.

The first time Dreads made love to me, the candles had been burning in his room. The ambiance was intentionally set up like it was Valentine’s Day, even if it was the end of the year and it was snowy. Everywhere had been cozily warm with candlelight shifting like dancing ghosts amidst the well-blended combination of red artificial lighting.

Dreads fcked me like he was getting revenge. He wouldn’t even look into my eyes. It wasn’t love-making but raw, unfettered cruelty. At some point, I wanted out but there’d been no safe words, no redline we had agreed upon, and in the middle of the assault, he sank his canine into my neck and marked me right there. Thinking about it now, I figured he did it to completely own me, just so he could keep me here as an object of ridicule while he horsed around with other girls.

That sad night was the last time I felt his touch.

Right now in his study, while still on my knees and crying, it suddenly dawned on me that nobody was coming to save me. Perhaps that slap gave me the reality check I needed. I stood on my feet and wiped the fcking tears from my eyes.

I tightened my fists in a fresh resolve. No matter what happened, no matter what he did, this would be the last time Dreads would see me cry.

The following morning was breezy, cold and damp, but I needed to take a walk. I wore a turtle neck gown, a thick, blue jacket over it, and a shawl around my neck. Usually, I’d ask for Dreads’ permission, but he currently wasn’t around in the pack-house. Even if he had been, the new me wouldn’t have asked. I had hit rock bottom with my tolerance. What was the worst the beast could do after that smack? Sleep with more girls? Hit me with more blows?

I stepped out of the pack house holding a book.

On the street, many werewolves recognized me as the Luna and looked disgusted. This peace between my original pack and theirs appeared fragile, still. Just something inconsequential in the future might be enough to reignite the tension. The stares at me were mean.

But I ignored them and kept sashaying ahead. The sky above was eerily gray. It looked like there would be a downpour, but that was the least of my concerns. To prevent further stares or any potential attack, though, I untied the shawl from my neck and wore it loosely around my head to shield most of my face. Within minutes, I was in a private, well-secured park with fresh green lawns, taking the shawl off my head and settling down on one of the many empty benches around.

The moon goddess was about to change my life forever without me knowing.

An hour into reading, two persons walked up to me. The moment I looked up, it was George and Benson with big smiles on their faces. They were childhood friends, two cousins from my original pack, the Piercing Scream.

George and Benson! They started to giggle as I sprang to my feet and lunged at them. Both boys caught me like I was featherweight. They smelt so nice and full to touch with their new, manly bodies.

“Oh goodness,” I said almost in tears. My face was nestled into one of the boys’ neck. “What are you two doing out here? When did you arrive?” They felt like the breath of fresh air I hadn’t had for close to a year, the only familiar things in this cold, unforgiving place.

“Pris!” they chorused as I lowered myself from their bodies.

“Don’t call me that,” I laughed. “I’m a pack’s Luna now. Show some respect.”

“Unlucky you,” George, the older one, said. “I’m surprised you’re still alive. No one has thought to poison you or thereabouts?”

“Well I’m not sure I’d be alive for too long,” I jested as we three went to sit on the same bench I had stood from. The cousins sandwiched me between themselves like some favorite pet. Their transformation was crazy. They currently had arms as thick as warriors and had grown so tall and burly.

“We’re currently lodged at that hotel,” Benson the younger cousin said, pointing at a high-rise building several lawns away from us. “We came around looking for you, just to know that you’re okay. Your number stopped working after they took you off.”

“Dreads had me change my line to a new one, so I’ll be out of reach. He called it ‘focusing on my new family’.”

If the cousins had marked me a year ago, we certainly wouldn’t have needed phones to communicate across distance. Our mind link would have sufficed. Benson funnily rolled his eyes, making me chuckle. “Now what’s the use of all that gatekeeping?” he asked. “We’re getting your new number now, aren’t we?”

“Sure,” I replied. “How did you two know I was going to be here?”

“Instincts,” George said. “We rented out a hotel close to your pack house and just asked around. A couple of people said you come to this lawn almost every Wednesday morning. So decided to bet on that and now look, here you are”

“Never knew people had been monitoring my schedules,” I replied.

“You’re their Luna,” Benson sneered.

“Hey, we have good news for you?” said George.

“What’s it?”

“So we’ve been having border issues with this park lately. My dad the alpha will be here to discuss with your husband Alpha dreads about drawing up clearer boundaries to nip that problem in the bud.”

My eyes lit up and became giggly. “Will my parents be coming?” I asked.

“Not this time, but George and I will. We just decided to come days before the meeting day. We planned to see you outside your pack house.”

“You look good, Priscilla,” Benson quipped. “Doesn’t look like you’re suffering. Look at your skin!”

I snorted. "All I have access to is food, servants, and plenty of unnecessary manicures.” I held out my fingers and wiggled them before me. “Look how soft my hands have become." I stretched my hands both ways so each boy could have one to observe.

They held my hands gently and massaged it with their thumbs to feel for its texture. It had been a while since anyone touched me that lovingly. I relaxed into it and let time pass. We weren’t just physically connecting, we were feeling our mate bond, the mate pull despite Alpha Dreads' mark on me was acting as a barrier. I didn't want them to stop. The universe knew I had missed this kind of attention to my body, this kind of worship.

I had to find something to say to break myself from the spell. I withdrew my hands from their grip and pointed to a folded umbrella that George was carrying. "You’re that prepared for the rain?"

"It’s going to be damn heavy," he said.

"Of course," I grunted, not at the dark clouds but at the amount of control I had lost, how easily it was for me to fall to ordinary touch. Was I that attention-starved? It was embarrassing. What if someone had been watching?

"We figured it might rain heavily before we left the hotel," George continued. "So I brought the umbrella along to protect Benson who almost drowned as a child and has developed a fear of water ever since."

"Oh shut up," Benson said over my hair while the strands were waving in the gathering, moist evening wind. "I have the fear of large bodies of water, not the fear of water itself." He held up his open water bottle and drank from it to emphasize his point.

"I bet we're about to witness a large body of water," George replied. "The downpour is going to be as heavy as hell and I'll love to watch how you react to it!"

He was still speaking when we heard the first rumbling of thunder easing through the sky. That was a warning. The rain was truly going to be heavy. I should prepare to leave for my pack house and let the boys head back to their hotel.

When was I going to see them again?

The thought made me panic like I was about to say goodbye a second time to loved ones.

They placed a fifteen-thousand-dollar bet to see me. We hadn't even spent up to thirty minutes here, and I was going to just part ways, not knowing when I'd ever set my eyes on them. Never.

Not going to happen.

"I'll stay with you in your hotel until the rain subsides," I said to them.

They looked at each other. "We were going to ask!" Benson screamed. "Good thing we're vibing to the same thoughts. We have a lot to catch up on."

In no time, I felt the first drops of rainfall on the open skin of my arms.

"We probably should get going boys," I said to them, and we three sprang up on our feet, on our way to the hotel.