Fated to the Royal Beta

Patricia’s POV When I reminisce about my life and why I rejected my fated mate, my story begins on a rainy day in early October when I was 14 years old. The day I met the one wolf who was supposedly destined by the moon goddess to love and care for me above all others, although we were both too young at the time to know it. It started as just an ordinary Monday, but within an hour my dislike of my future mate was complete. I was at school, and Lycan King Leonard of the Emerald Kingdom entered our classroom with an announcement. “Good morning, class!” Lycan King Leo was saying in an overly bright and cheerful tone for so early in the morning. “Good morning, Lycan King Leonard,” the class intones back to him, as is only proper. Even if more than half of the class are his own family members. Including my brother George and I, since my father is an adopted cousin of the Queen Luna. “We have two new students joining the Royal Lycan Academy today,” Lycan king Leonard was then telling us as he ushered two unknown young wolves into our first period science class. Meanwhile, two burly omega wolves were bringing in more desks for them. “This is Tara and Gavin Mason, who are the daughter and son of your computer programming teacher, Mr. Mason. I hope you will all welcome them both warmly to the academy.” I could hardly keep my eyes off of the two new students. The girl, Tara, was older than most of the students here, as well as very unique looking. She had strawberry blonde hair, freckles, soft green eyes, and was somewhat scrawny looking. Although with shifters like us, looks can be very deceiving. Tara Mason wouldn’t be joining the Royal Lycan Academy unless Lycan King Leonard thought she would become a powerful Lycanthrope someday. One of the new desks was placed next to my best friend Princess Janette, and Tara made her way over toward us and sat down in the empty seat. Izzy, Jan, and Lucy all greet her warmly. I, too, give her a small and friendly greeting, as I’m not sure yet whether I should form any sort of relationship with the as yet unknown she wolf. And besides, my attention is being inexplicably drawn towards her brother, Gavin Mason. Other than sharing the same soft green eyes, Gavin looks nothing at all like his older sister. Although he does look strangely familiar with his dark wavy brown hair, tan skin tone, distinctive Roman nose, and rather muscular build for such a young shifter. I can hardly take my eyes off of him as he takes the desk in front of his sister Tara, next to that of Crown Prince Alex. “He looks just like Grandpa Alexander, doesn’t he?” Lucy leans in and whispers in my ear, shocking me. “They moved into the palace yesterday and we had dinner with them both last night. Their dad is apparently the half brother of my mom, Aunt Izzy, and Aunt Jan!” I am shocked by this revelation, but I have no time to think of a response to that. The science teacher Mrs. Martin was requiring our attention while writing our newest assignment down on the blackboard. “Alright, everyone!” Mrs. Martin calls out. “Let’s settle down now and open our text books to page 47. Once everyone has read about the five different types of basic chemical reactions, we will work in groups of three on the lab work.” The whole class becomes very quiet as we read through the assigned chapters, although I can barely attended to the words on the page. I couldn’t seem to keep myself from glancing frequently over at the new guy, so curious to know about this unknown wolf in our midst. It’s true that he does seem to look a lot like a younger version of the old Lycan King, but why had I never heard of these wolves before? If Mr. Mason was the son of the old Lycan King, why is Mr. Mason not the Lycan King now and Gavin the Crown Prince? It doesn’t make any sense to me! Thanks to my inattentiveness, I was only half done reading the chapter when the teacher started putting us all into four groups of three wolves. I crossed my fingers hoping to be in Gavin’s group. Or if not him, then with Jan. Tara is paired up with Alex and Felicia in the first group. The second group was made up of Lucy, Jan, and Jordan. Izzy, Reggie, and a video feed of Lance and Johnathan from Bull Run pack make up the third group of lab partners. So that put me in the last group with Gavin as well as my twin brother George. I am excited and disgusted all at the same time. “Hi,” Gavin says in greeting as he joins us at the lab table we three had been assigned to for the experiment. “Hey! What’s up?” George says, trying to sound cooler than he really is. “I’m Prince George Worthing, and this is my stupid twin sister, Princess Pretty Worthless!” “It’s Patricia, actually!” I grind out angrily, unamused by my brother’s stupid joke while he and Gavin laugh uproariously. I begin setting things up for the experiment while George and Gavin chat. I listen to them while I place beakers and start measuring the ingredients for the experiment we are supposed to conduct. I learn that Gavin was going to turn 16 in December, so he’s more than a year older than us. Also, he’s been living off pack and going to human schools all this time. “I didn’t even know that we were werewolves until after we went on a family vacation and my sister ended up being knocked up by some Alpha on the Olympic Peninsula,” Gavin says quietly. “So you’ve been living like a human all this time?” George says loud enough to attract attention. “Sounds pretty crazy to me! I don’t know why any wolf would do such a thing, unless they aren’t a REAL wolf…” Everyone was staring at us, and Gavin was looking like he wanted to punch my i***t brother. A feeling I heartily shared. “You should all be finished setting up for the experiment by now,” the teacher calls out, and everyone turns back to their own work. Including George. “Move aside, Princess pretty worthless!” George says with a laugh, taking over the experiment now that I had everything set up and ready to go. I had even lit the Bunsen burner already. “You’re just a brainless blonde she wolf. You shouldn’t be anywhere near a science experiment, unless you want to kill us all!” “Your hair is also blonde, Prince Georgie pie,” Gavin points out with a smirk. “So that must make you even dumber than her to go around saying stupid stuff like that.” My earlier infatuation with the handsome newcomer disappears at Gavin’s careless words. George looks like he wants to punch Gavin, but not only is he more than a year younger than his rival, he’s also significantly shorter and sort of scrawny for his age. And we are surrounded by witnesses. Several tense seconds go by before George shakes his head, apparently defeated. “Whatever, loser,” George mumbles, and starts adding vials of chemicals together. The wrong ‘chemicals’, apparently, as we find out a few minutes later when the experiment was completely ruined. “See, you stupid moron!” Gavin complains loudly. “You and your worthless sister are too dumb to check whether she measured out salt or sugar. Now we’ll probably fail the assignment.” “We have enough time to grab fresh materials and start again,” I suggest, trying hard not to be hurt by Gavin’s harsh and insulting words. I know I was at fault, though, since I had been listening to them talk and grabbed the wrong things. I couldn’t really blame him for being angry with me. “Fine,” Gavin agrees, but with a hard look on his face that I don’t care for. As if he hates me. “Just stay out of my way. I don’t want it all screwed up again!” Soon Gavin had finished the experiment, which turned out to be nothing more than peanut brittle! Very tasty peanut brittle. “I don’t think I should have to share this with the two of you at all,” Gavin says, giving each of us a much smaller piece of the peanut brittle than he had taken for himself. “But seeing as how it’s my first day here and I don’t want to leave a bad impression, I’ll be generous with you.” And I watch as he breaks another chunk off of his own piece of candy and gives it to my brother. “Don’t I get another piece, too?” I ask, eying the tasty treat. “What for?” Gavin asks with a sneer. “You’re the one who messed it all up the first time! If you want more, eat the salty one.” “I’m sorry!” I apologize, trying not to sound too distressed. “It was an honest mistake!” “She looks like she’s going to cry, doesn’t she?” George says with a grin, popping the last piece of candy in his mouth. Then he turns towards me and says the cruelest, nastiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. “You’re already fat enough, don’t you think?” “Fatty Patty,” Gavin agrees with a laugh. “The name kind of fits. Doesn’t it?” Thankfully it was near the end of class. I ran into the bathroom and cried all during English class. I was used to my brother being an asshole towards me. My parents just tell me it’s sibling rivalry, and to ignore him. But being ganged up on by him and a wolf who doesn’t even know me was just too much to take! I decided on that day that I hated Gavin Mason. Nor would the next few years do much to improve my opinion of that horrible jerk!