Blooming for the Alphas

Chapter 2

Ophelia P.O.V.

Ten years.

Ten years of random beds.

Ten years of starvation.

Ten years of shiftless full moons.

Ten years of fear.

It had been ten years since they first found me, ten years since they first claimed me as their mate, ten years since I first felt the call- that deep , animalistic pull that drew me towards them even as every part of me screamed to run in the opposite direction. I could pay people to say they never saw me, I could change the way that I could, I could try and hide my scent with the cheap smell that humans call ‘perfume’ but they would always find me because of the bond.

The only thing that I couldn’t change about myself, the one thing that was completely and utterly out of my control. No matter how much I hid and no matter how hard I tried to outrun the bond always pulled them back towards me.

And I had hidden. I had hidden so well, humans bought my flowers all of the city and nobody ever thought anything more than me being a ‘small town local florist’. I had built my life in this small, completely unassuming flower shop so far from the chaos and riches that they had brought with them. Then there was tonight. Tonight, there was nothing that I could do to out maneuver them. Tonight, I knew without a doubt that they would find me.

The fear.

That was the worst part of everything. It wasn’t having to leave my parents behind and the memory of my sister. It wasn’t having to leave behind all of the pretty clothes or the fancy jewelry that I had. It wasn’t having to leave behind all of the extra help that I received for being the princess. It was the all-consuming fear of being found. It was the hallucinations after spending days, weeks, months, years on the run from people that were destined to find me no matter what.

Most of the stuff that I had left behind I had felt so much better about, except my sisters memory and my mates. It was the only two things in my life that I cared about, that I never wanted to go without, especially the garden I had made in her memory.

lila .

Thats the name that she was given. It was so similar to Lilac’s, her favorite flower that I ended up making her an entire garden on them.I took in another deep breath, I could feel the pressure growing in my chest. The sweaty palms, and the desperate need to throw up with the sinking feeling that I would have to tell my mates the truth. I wouldn’t be able to run from them any longer, I would have to reject them.

The feeling in my chest- the crippling anxiety of having to give them up in order to save their lives, it made the despair growing in my stomach even worse. It almost felt like no matter what I chose to do with my life, my parents would always win.

If I chose to love and mate with them then they will die.

If I chose to reject them then I will have to live with the knowledge that they will find another Luna, another mate and she won’t be me. I’ll have to live with the sinking feeling that I was never enough, not really. I would never be able to be true mate in the way any other she wolf would be to them. I would never be able to settle down with my mates and live in some elaborate mansion. I would never be able to start a family with them, we would never be able to complete the bond or even knot.

No matter what I lose.

I don’t just lose a part of myself either, I will lose anything that I care about.

I lose my other halves.

So, now I am doing the only thing that I can do while the nausea courses through my body, and despair robs of the happy feeling flowers normally give me as I try and play out as many endings to tonight as I can. I swallowed hard as I tried to push down some of the throw up threatened to come out and my hands shook violently as I tried to finish off another bouquet of flowers. I threw the ribbon on the floor and grabbed more in frustration, my hands were shaking so bad that I couldn’t tie the ribbon. My breath was coming out in shallow gasps and the cramping in my stomach became more and more intense with every second that passed.

I shouldn’t have been so afraid. I shouldn’t have been overthinking every single word that I would chose to say to them tonight because the truth is that none of it would matter anyway. I had escaped them for this long. I had ran from them for this long.

The truth is no matter how many times that I have worked myself up to this particular moment, no matter how many times I have practiced how to tell the loves of my life that I couldn’t be with them. None of it mattered, because the moment that the bond would snap in place all the practice would go out the window. The moment that they laid eyes on me, all the fear, all the helplessness that I had spent years suppressing would come rushing back and there is nothing I could do to stop that.

I wouldn’t be able to run anymore.

I wouldn’t be able to try and get them to give me the ‘time’ that I needed to sort out the ‘new’ and ‘complex’ feelings that came with being mated to three Alphas.

The bell above the door chimed, the singular sound that normally brought excitement with the flow of customers now brought only dread. It sliced through the air like a warning and my blood went cold.

They were here.