THE ILL-FATED MATCH

Chapter one

He drove a little above speed limit to pick up his three-year-old toddler, Theresa Adams, from kindergarten, who had requested, no, demanded that her father be the one to come pick her up from school on her birthday. It didn't matter if the world was falling apart.

Her demands had to be met. Gabriel thought how ridiculous it was that a three-year-old could hold so much power over the most feared and most powerful alpha among the alphas of the nine packs.

He found a suitable parking spot and climbed out of his car thinking of a gentle way to put his toddler in her place when he spotted her running towards him. All thoughts of a gentle lecture on respect and responsibility fled.

Theresa ran towards him, a lunch bag in one hand and a Mickey mouse backpack slung over one little shoulder, as fast as her little legs could carry her.

Her ponytail bouncing and her eyes sparkling with delight. Gabriel felt his heart melt, he knelt on one knee and spread out his hands as she raced into his waiting arms slightly out of breath.

No sooner had they strapped her safely to the car seat then she started telling him about how Elizabeth Waters had yanked her bow off her hair and how she had retaliated by doodling all over her colouring book. Gabriel tried to listen as much as he could as he maneuvered his way out of the parking lot.

He wondered if that was the right time to start a lecture on forgiveness. "Daddy I want ice cream" Theresa demanded as Gabriel rounded a corner.

At age three, Theresa didn't like being told what to do.

" I want ice cream daddy" she stubbornly repeated.

Skies!!! she was going to be the exact copy of her mum, he thought. Theresa had her mother's chestnut hair and eyes that were neither green nor blue but a curious turquoise.

Now those eyes were watery and her bottom lip jutted out in a pout. Gabriel's resolve nearly melted but he decided to be firm this time.

"Honey you've got to say please."

His phone rang at that moment and he was thankful for the distraction. He smiled as Selena's voice came on the line and burst out laughing when Theresa let out an ear piercing wail, her hands already reaching for the phone to report her dad's cruelty to mum.

Gabriel thought Selena must have worked some magic because a few minutes after she hung up, Thersa politely requested in a tiny voice

They stopped at their favorite ice cream spot where Theresa got the strawberry and banana flavor. Her favorite. Not getting any ice cream for his wife meant torture. It was something he didn't dare forget — chocolate ice cream for his pregnant wife, mate and Luna, Selena Adams.

 Selena Adams, Luna of the Blue Moon Pack, hung up the phone and started to add finishing touches to Theresa's birthday cake.

She thought in wonder at how even after four years of marriage to Gabriel, her heart still melted at the sound of his voice just like on the first day she had heard him speak.

The same could not be said of her parents. It was even impossible to imagine that they had once loved each other. For Selena, growing up was a terrible ordeal.

Love and peace were as uncommon as water in a desert in her childhood home. Her dad was a strong, muscular tyrant who never hesitated to use his fist against his wife and child when they acted "out of line." Being seen with the opposite gender was definitely acting out of line for Selena as far as her father was concerned.

Her mum somehow blamed her because she thought if she didn't have a child she could have left the marriage.

But she couldn't leave because of Selena and she couldn't care for Selena all by herself being poor and uneducated. She resorted to verbally and emotionally abusing her child.

At a very young age, Selena had vowed not to have a husband or child. She couldn't trust a man not to physically abuse her and she feared she was going to turn out like her mum and hurt her own child. She was especially scared of muscular men.

She had managed to survive and even successfully graduated from high school l. Going to college was the next step and a way of escape, but her father, the mean bastard, had come to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to spend so much on a female child. "A bad investment" he had called it. Selena had wept bitterly.

There was no use turning to her mother for help who was at that point indifferent to everything except what got her the next booze. Selena was all on her own.

She decided to be strong and accept her situation as all she was going to get from the universe, but she wasn't going to make the mistake of bringing another soul into the kind of world she lived in.

Five months later she got employed as a cleaner in one of the big hotels. She quit after a near-rape experience two weeks into the job.

She tried applying for the job of a nanny but apparently "young and attractive" made mother's feel insecure. Finally, when she was beginning to consider the idea of becoming a stripper, she found a waitressing job at an Italian restaurant, and that was how she met Gabriel.