The Unwanted

Darla

Darla

My brothers are driving me crazy on our first day of our first year of high school. They hate the fact that we don’t all have the same classes. But I am my own person, and I may take classes I feel will benefit me. Do I think I will be a head beta of a pack one day? No. Do I want to be just a beta mate? No. I want a purpose. I want to either go into healing or teaching. I want to be something other than a Jacobo triplet. I understand they are just being overprotective, but Daryl is in the same boat as me. Mother says it is nothing to be afraid of, that we are just blessed.

My brain fuzzed out as a girl sat next to me. She had dark black hair and such beautiful gray eyes. My heart picked up, thumping in my chest. She was not very tall, and she looked like she could hold her own in a fight. Of course, I couldn’t see more of her because of the overlarge shirt she wore. I was in instant lust for her, as my brothers would have said. She glanced at me quickly, and then look back down at her desk. And just a glimpse of those eyes made my heart thump hard in my chest.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Darla. What’s your name?”

“Nihil,” she almost whispered back.

“I flipping love your eyes, Nihil.”

She gave me a shy smile. “Thank you.” I saw her cheeks pink, and man was I smitten.

“Are you interested in healing?”

“I am interested in anything that will get me away from my parents when I turn eighteen. I was thinking of maybe healing, cooking, or teaching.”

“Are you an omega?” I watched as her face drooped and she stared down at her desk again. “I don’t mean to make that shameful. I was just curious.”

“I’m wolfless, so I’m unranked, but I am from an alpha household,” she whispered.

I leaned in towards her. “Wanna know a secret?”

Her eyes shyly locked with mine, and she gave me the smallest of nods. “I’m wolfless too. But that’s okay. We’re just late bloomers. I come from a beta line, but here is the secret, I am part lycan.”

“Really?” she perked up at that.

“My mom is full.”

“You mean your mom came from overseas? She has been to the royal lycan city, Abtsoulertain?”

I nodded. “She grew up there. Came here with her family for a conference and met my pop. Her mate. She says lycans get their wolves late.”

“I’m not a lycan. I’m cursed. My twin sister got her wolf, but mine never showed.”

“I doubt you're cursed. Just a late bloomer.” I leaned in closer to her. “Which means your wolf is going to be super special.” Her eyes brightened, and I kid you not, I wanted to pounce on her and see if those lips were just as soft as they looked. Get a hold of yourself, geez.

“You think so?”

I nodded. There is something about Nihil. Like she was a warmth that I wanted to get close to and did not know I was cold until I met her.

“What classes do you have?”

She slid her class schedule towards me. And I nearly wanted to squeal with joy. We had all the same classes for the rest of the day. The last bell ran, and my i***t brothers walked in and sat beside me. They both zeroed in on Nihil.

“Who is she?” Daryl asked, as Darian looked around the room.

“My new friend Nihil.” I watched in joy as she smiled forward at the teacher as the class started.

There is something about her Daryl shared through our mind-link.

She is wolfless, I shared. But she is of an alpha line.

Not one around here, Darian said.

I know we were all now looking at her. Wanting her to turn those eyes on us. Sometimes, it scared me how much I was like my brothers, and how they were like me. And just like me, it seems my brothers are drawn to Nihil too.

I couldn’t help but sneak peeks at her while we changed later into our training clothes. Since we were both wolfless, we got to be in the same training class as well. She had muscles, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. The weird necklace she did not take off did. There was such blackness of the pendant that it almost hurt to look at it. That’s not normal. It did not distract me from the scars and fresh bruises.

“Nihil,” I said, as I sided up against her. “Why do you have all the bruises?”

She nervously smothered the shirt and used her hair to hide her face. I noticed all day she did that when she was trying to avoid answering questions. Like when I asked her why she didn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria, or even if she ate lunch at all.

“I train with my sisters every day.”

I tilted my head. “How many sisters do you have?”

“Fourteen, soon fifteen if mother is already with a pup.”

“That is a lot of sisters!” I could not help being a little loud.

“Mother is trying for a son, because my father wants an heir.”

“Your father is Alpha Conway,” I said, and it clicked earlier when she said she wanted to leave her parent's home. I had heard her father was a mean, old-fashioned man. Women could learn the basics of training, but they were only good for breeding in his pack. If they were good enough, they could be healers, because he believed healing was a woman’s duty.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Ohmygoddess,” I said, and covered my mouth, looking around. Daryl and some of the other wolfless boys were coming over to where we were waiting for our trainers. “Your twin is Melanie?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, she is a twit.”

“Who is a twit?” Daryl asked.

“Melanie.”

He rolled his eyes. “She had enough nerve to ask if I was the wolfless one.”

“She did not,” I said.

“I’m sorry Daryl. Melanie is very opinionated and likes to stick her foot in her mouth.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault your sister is a twit.”

“Darla, Nihil, Daryl, are we going to start class, or should I call for tea?” Coach Sanders asked. He was from our pack, but was surprised he knew Nihil’s name.

“Sorry coach,” we all muttered.

Now you would think us having no wolves at the moment would make us weak. Truth is, we had more to catch up with and felt we had something to prove. So we ate up everything the coach taught us, and when it was time to spar, we all went at it like our lives depended on survival. Nihil was actually really great at fighting, which pleased the coach. When he teamed us up to spar, I would not say I was not disappointed. When she took me down, her body wrapped around mine. If I were a cat, I’d be purring.

You like her, Daryl’s voice said in my mind after class.

I do, I replied.

I do too. She is like a light that I need to help see in the dark, if that makes sense.

I thought it more like she was a fire, and I didn’t realize I was cold until I was close to her. Do you think this is a mate pull? I asked.

I don’t know. We need to speak with Darian. Maybe his wolf can give us something.

Our last class was science. There were lab tables for four people. Darian waited for us at one of them. “How was training?” he asked as we took a seat.

“Brutal,” Daryl replied.

“Man, who would have thought we wolfless could be so savage?” I said and laughed.

One of Melanie’s friends walked over to the empty seat. I had placed my bag on it and ignored her.

“That was rather rude, sister,” Darian said.

“I’m saving it,” I told him as I watched the door.

“For her,” Daryl said as we watched Nihil enter class.

“Hey Nihil, over here,” I nearly shouted, waving my hands to her.

“Take it down a few notches. You are going to scare her,” Daryl whispered.

“Hi, again,” Nihil said. Her cheeks were a cute shade of pink. I pulled my bag off the seat for her.

“I saved you a seat. I would not sit by Maria.”

“Maria is not bad. She just wants to please my sister so much she forgets she is the child of a healer.”

“Spoken like a ranked wolf,” Darian acknowledged.

“I pick up a lot from my family, even when they push me away,” she almost whispered.

The three of us went silent. We could see the hurt written all over her face. We made it through our last class, and I was walking with Nihil to her locker.

“Can I get your phone number, and we can chat later?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, sorry. I don’t have one.”

“How about a home phone?”

She shook her head. “Just my father has one in his main office. If I were to go in there, I don’t know what he would do to me.” Her voice was very low and scared.

Woah, I did not like that. Jay Kirkland stopped by the lockers. “Hey Nihil,” he said and turned to look at me. “Darla Jacobo, right?”

“Right,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes at him.

He knew damn well who I was. Our alpha had to pay the clover pack extra so we could pass through to go to school. Did I mention I hate alphas? Well, except our alpha. He was old and sickly, but he was different. He swears his nephew is the same. We hope so. After all, he is a lycan. And soon he and his family will be here to take over the pack. His mother is our alpha’s only blood relative alive. We met him when we were younger, and we got along nicely. But he had to go back to the Lycan city, where his father held a high rank. I’m not sure how he got out of it, but as his son will be the next Alpha in our pack, that became a priority.

“I’m going to have a welcome back to school party this weekend. And I would really like you to come, Nihil,” Jay said.

Gag me, I thought.

She shook her head. “I’m too young. My parents would never let me leave pack territory.”

She lied well. I could guess that she was never allowed to leave her pack territory. I wondered if she could actually do anything. It didn’t take wolf's hearing to hear her stomach growl. That solved the problem that she did not have lunch. Tomorrow I will bring her lunch, and we will have lunch together every day. I don’t like the idea of her not eating.

“Well, Melanie said she would come.”

She shrugged. “Melanie does what she wants to do.”

He got closer, and I wanted to growl. If I had a wolf, I would have. He bumped her shoulder. “You can sneak out if that is what she’s going to do.”

She shook her head like crazy. “Nope. Sorry.”

“There you are Nihil, we need to get home now!” Melanie said, coming over to us.

Nihil lowered her head. “Melanie, I was just telling Nihil about the party.”

“Nihil is grounded, so mom and dad will definitely not let her come. And sneaking out is not something she can do either. Her room is right across from dad’s upstairs office. He would know if she left her room.” I watched her grasp Nihil’s arm, sinking her nails into her flesh, and pull her away from her locker and out to the parking lot.

“Did you get her number?” Daryl asked.

I shook my head. “She doesn’t have one. I also don’t think her family treats her well at all.” And when Darien joined us, I told them everything I saw and heard today.