I couldn’t believe that after what she put me through she showed up at my dorm room and even worse she brought him with her. I loved her with all of my heart and she just threw me aside like I was nothing. It hurt but I could understand why she did it. I have seen enough werewolves find their mate and I knew how powerful that bond could be. It was naive of me to think that my love could overpower that bond but that didn’t make me feel any better. I gave her all the love that I had and it still wasn’t enough to change anything.
She threw me aside like I was garbage, she didn’t even have the decency to tell me the truth. I had to walk into the cafe that we normally went to only to see them snuggled cosily together. It was the worst feeling in the world to know that you gave your heart to someone, only to have them trample all over it.
Now that she had chosen him I tried to do the honourable thing and keep out of her way but she didn’t have the same respect for me. Was it really too much to ask that she leave me alone? Did I really need to see them being happy together all of the time? It didn’t matter any more. After today I would be far away from this place and if I was honest with myself, I didn’t ever see myself coming back.
There was always plenty of work for a trained rogue hunter. I might not be as strong or as fast as my werewolf half brothers but I made up for it with superior tactics. My mom didn’t want me to stay in that line of work. She had wanted me to have a normal life complete with a safe office job so she had pushed me to get my degree. It was a nice fairytale but my life was never going to go that smoothly.
I knew that my time here was ending when my parents didn’t check in for five days in a row. This was unheard of for them, even if they were busy hunting rogues deep in the forest they would always find a way to check in with me. I tried everything I could think of to reach them but nothing seemed to be getting through. In the end I resorted to contacting Franklin, that was six days ago and he has only just got back to me.
Franklin wasn’t a friend so much as a work acquaintance of my parents. He is a vampire who specialised in hunting down other supernaturals who had lost control of their powers. He used to work with an organisation of other supernaturals until he worked out he could earn a lot more by going freelance. That was how my parents met him, they had worked with him on a few of their assignments and they would throw each other work from time to time. He seemed nice enough but he was always very serious. Then again, this way of life had a way of doing that to you.
“Will you stop feeling sorry for yourself already?” Franklin complained. Turning around I saw him standing in the doorway to my dorm room, leaning against the door frame. He was wearing his usually dark shirt and jeans, his long dark hair was tied back in a low ponytail. I wonder how long he had been standing there watching my pity party.
“I see you haven’t got over the whole gothic vampire stereotype. You do realise that isn’t cool anymore right?” I countered. I laughed for the first time since my girlfriend left me for another man. Maybe getting out of here was exactly what I needed. I could get away from anything that reminded me of her and move on with my life.
“It’s the best way to make sure I get left alone.” Franklin said. I laughed again. Yeah right, this had nothing to do with getting left alone. He loved playing the role of the brooding vampire. It was more than just a look, it was almost his whole personality.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” I suggested.
We had a long way to go. Franklin had spent almost a week looking through my parents home and speaking to all of their known contacts. He didn’t find much information, the one lead that we had was a small pack who had sent them messages asking for assistance with a rogue problem around their pack. We couldn’t be sure that my family had gone to help them, we couldn’t even seem to get in touch with the pack on the details they had provided. However, given the timing it was the only thing that made sense.
“Are you planning to take all these bags? You do realise I only have one car, right?” Franklin complained.
“I know but I don’t think I am coming back here.” I replied. Shock filled Franklin’s face. He coughed and took a couple of steps back, I could tell that I had made him anxious although I had no idea why.
“Look Dom, I like you but I am not really interested in that kind of relationship.” Franklin replied, rubbing his fingers along the back of his neck and looking at everything except for me.
“What kind of relationship are you talking about?” I asked. I already had a clue where this was going but I wanted to make sure that I was right before I went into something that was still very painful for me. I had been taking things a little too personally recently and it had gotten me into a few arguments and fights. All anyone had to do was mention Molly’s name and I would lose my temper.
I loved her. I offered her a life with me, a way of getting away from the pack who treated her badly for half of her life. I would have even let her turn me into a werewolf just so we could be together, something that I swore I would never do. It hurt that all of that got thrown away the moment she met her mate. I was never going to risk going through that kind of pain again and that meant not getting involved with any more supernaturals.
“I think you know exactly what I am talking about. You should know me well enough to know that I will take no partner other than my destined soulmate.” Franklin said.
“I know that and it wasn’t what I had in mind, I just need your help to find my family. I am never getting involved with someone else’s soulmate ever again.” I replied with a lot more venom that I had intended.
“I have a feeling that there is a story behind that tone but maybe it's a story for another time.” Franklin said. He gave me a sympathetic smile before he picked up two of my suitcases and started heading out of my room. I took one last look around before taking my remaining bags and following him. I was going to miss this place. It was a shame to be leaving this part of my life behind me so quickly but if I was honest, it was never me.
I just wasn’t built to have a comfortable life. I spent the early years of my life in hiding, squatting in empty houses with my family and eating what we could find while dumpster diving. My family may have come a long way since then and built a life for ourselves but we were still rogue hunters. In all my time at college I never stopped looking over my shoulder, expecting my past to finally catch up with me.
My parents wouldn’t be happy with my decision to give up on my education but they would get over it eventually. Besides, I could make more money in one year hunting rogues than I could in five years as a graduate of my chosen field.
I knew something was off when my father insisted that we had a family dinner in our private dining room rather than with the rest of the pack. The last time we had dinner together as a family I was still a child. I must have been about eleven years old. That was the day that my father told me that he was enrolling me on an elite training programme. I left home a couple of months later and I didn’t come back until I was eighteen years old. I was stuck in that facility for seven years with a bunch of alphas, betas and elite warriors. The only people who spoke to me the whole time I was there were Nolan and Kaiden. We became very close during that time and I am sure that is why Nolan ended up falling in love with me. “I have some good news.” My father was smiling at me which in itself was a bad sign. How often have I seen my father smile? It couldn’t be more than a handful of times in all of my life. My mother kept her head down, looking intently at the plate of food in front of her. I
I felt the weight of Brianna’s father’s alpha command as soon as the words left his mouth. I was centimetres away from getting the one thing I had wanted for so many years. It was much too close to have it all taken away from me so cruelly. I have loved Brianna for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t her beauty, even though she was the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. What really attracted me to her was her strength, she worked incredibly hard to prove herself to her family. Nothing she ever did was good enough for them and yet Brianna didn’t complain or give up. I gave my heart to her years ago, I was more than ready for her to give me hers in return. “Don’t listen to him, Nolan. Mark me and make me yours forever.” Brianna pleaded. Her words gave me the courage to fight her father’s command. As I lowered my canines towards her neck I could hear her father’s forces breaking through the door beside us. My eyes closed, her skin was so close that I could feel the heat of it
My father might not have locked me in a cell but he may as well have. Three of his most highly trained warriors took me straight to my room and locked me inside before standing guard outside it for the whole evening. I could have probably still taken all of them down and escaped, but where would that have gotten me?I would have ended up on the run with no money and no clue where I was going. I have no intention of being forced into being someone’s chosen mate but if I was going to escape then I had to make sure I did this right. Make sure that there was no chance of me getting caught or followed. Unfortunately, that meant I was stuck here, waiting in my room for my father to come and deal with me.I thought he would only make me wait for a few minutes before he came to reprimand me but it seems as though I couldn’t have been more wrong. After a few hours of listening to the people standing guard outside my room and gossiping about me, I realised that he wasn’t coming tonight. I was p
When I walked into the room Brianna’s parents were whispering amongst themselves. Her father was wearing his usual stern expression but her mother looked to be almost distraught, she was quietly begging her mate for something. They broke up their conversation abruptly upon noticing me. It was clear what they were talking about but the interaction left me wondering about a lot of things.I had always assumed that alpha Kennedy’s reputation was a fabrication, just like mine. He had a mate and a daughter and I couldn’t see how anyone with two important women in their life could be so heartless. That was until I heard the way he spoke about his daughter, seeing the indifference with which he dealt with his own mate was just another confirmation of this. “You seem to be getting along well with my daughter,” alpha Kennedy stated with a smirk on his face. “She is a lovely woman,” I replied.That smirk made me want to deny his statement but that would have been counterproductive. I needed a
Another night of me standing in a dingy alleyway trying to pull any kind of useful information from the locals. We had managed to trace my parents to this city pretty quickly but now the trail seems to have gone cold. We were outsiders here and nobody wanted to share information with us. This wasn’t a new problem. It was something that I had run into on nearly every investigation that I had been a part of. But it was all the more frustrating to know that my family were the ones in peril this time. There had to be someone in this useless town who knew where my parents had gone, all I had to do was find them. The vampire in front of me was the third supernatural that I had spoken to this evening and this conversation was proving to be just as useless as the other two. Maybe Franklin would have had more luck with her than I had but I hadn’t seen him all evening and I had no idea where he was. “You know I can't share any information with a human.” The vampire grumbled before trying to
I wanted to hate Mason so badly but I didn’t. He could have treated me like property in the same way my father did, but instead he spoke to me as though my opinions mattered to him. He wasn’t willing to let me go but other than that he had gone out of his way to make me feel like I mattered. It was confusing and more than a little frustrating. It made me want to throw my clothes around the room and break some of the beautiful furniture that he put in here. “What’s wrong? Is the room not to your liking?”Somehow Mason had managed to enter the room and sneak up on me without me hearing a thing. That only annoyed me more, I was an alpha in my own right and my hearing was usually outstanding. This was all his fault, with his stupid confusing behaviour.“The room is fine, it is my host that I have a problem with.” Mason’s face was stoic but there was nothing he could do to hide the hurt that shone through his eyes. I didn’t like being the one that put it there but it wasn’t as though he
Brianna had just proposed a deal which would solve all of my problems. I wouldn’t have to force her to be my mate against her will as long as I would be willing to wait for us to get to know each other better. Her father wouldn’t be too thrilled with the arrangement, he had wanted me to mark her at the party but I had already decided that I was going to go against his wishes.Public markings were humiliating and I would never put my Luna through that. He would probably be annoyed when he realised that I was deviating from his plan but I doubted that he would say anything at such a public event. He wouldn’t want to risk me living up to my reputation by putting him to death, and he had to know that he wouldn’t stand a chance against me in a fight.“I agree to your terms.” I replied.“Great, would you like to shake on it or something?”I had a better idea, I felt the corners of my lips lifting. I knew that it was a bad idea to tease her but I couldn’t seem to help it. Whenever I said som
After Mason stopped kissing me and fled the room as though my lips were made of lava, I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room alone. I assumed that Mason had to leave to attend to some kind of urgent pack business but it still didn’t feel good. One second we were kissing passionately and the next he mumbled something incoherent and walked out of the room without even looking back. It hurt that he was able to walk away from me so easily while I was left behind wanting him.After spending a few minutes feeling sorry for myself I started looking around my new room. Mason must have prepared this room for me in a hurry. He had filled the closet with more clothes than I had seen outside of a store before but there was no order to it. They were all different sizes and styles, and every one of them still had the tags attached.It was the same story when I looked through the draws. He had even set out a desk for me in the corner of the room with a brand-new laptop and phone on top of it.