4. Of Rejections and Betrayals.

EUDORA.

Please…please don’t say it. 

“I Conan Crawford, reject you Eudora as my mate.”

Pain.

 The kind of one that makes me clutch my chest. It gnaws at my heart and eats deep into the depths I never even knew my heart possessed. This. This must be what it feels like to be rejected. 

This was the pain books I read on lycanthropy in the library out of curiosity went on and on about and took half of the pages of each book to describe. Different books gave it different meaning and I suspected that the writers of each book had either gone through it and relayed each of their experiences differently or they had a really wild imagination. 

If i was to write about mine, I'd write in vivid detail how I stopped breathing momentarily. How it felt like there was an imaginary hand gripping at my throat and forcing the air out of my lungs. I’d describe how my heart stopped pumping blood and the result of it was the stiffness of my body. How my thoughts froze and how I cried out when the pain was too much to bear. My little piece of literature would have my tears staining the papers and smudging the ink as I wrote it out. 

Yet, it felt like there was more to my pain than just being a natural course of order for my kind. It felt like something else hurt more than that particular type of pain. I thought deep about it, trying to know what it was. I searched my broken and disoriented thoughts for it. 

And then I saw it. It was right there in Conan’s eyes. 

Ah…this must be what betrayal feels like. The feeling of broken trust. My pain had come from a place of both rejection and betrayal. A mixture of nature and human intentions. 

Conan made a promise to me and broke it at the same point in time. That was what hurt the most. 

Conan has never broken a promise. Even when he promises me the littlest things like coming home from the training fields of the warriors in time to help me with my homework while I was still in middle school. 

Even when he promised me the day he left for college that no matter what, he would come back home on my eighteenth birthday to celebrate it with me. I acted like I didn't remember that when we met earlier because I was too embarrassed to face him since I didn’t find my mate like everyone else did. But even then, I was happy. Happy that he was still on my side and I could still dream of rainbows and glitter and a litter of pups to call our own.

Well, not anymore. 

I have lost the only other person on my side and now I am alone just like I was when I was found in a pool of my family’s blood and in the sea of their bodies. And I would die alone after being used to the fill of whatever Alpha that would want me in the future. 

I stared into Conan’s eyes. I think my lips quivered a little. I expected to see his face contorted in pain just like I imagined mine was. I expected some kind of reaction thinking it would soothe my ache just a tiny bit. His face was void of pain but there was pity and guilt swirling in them.

No pain, the one I badly wanted to see. I would have preferred it to that look of helplessness. He’d claimed he waited for me for so long yet he let me go in one night. 

He seemed okay and it only hurt me the more, knowing that in the end,an Omega suffers it all. She is the weakest yet she carries all of the burdens. 

I looked from Luna Eleanor to Alpha Oslo. If they felt any guilt like their son did, they masked it perfectly well. They waited for me like I was a time bomb ready to explode in their faces. Whatever I was, it was still nothing short of an object. I have no place here. 

The thought made me back away slowly in the direction of the door, gathering my dress in my arms and  then I spun around, opened the door and ran into the night glazed by the full moon. 

“Eudora! Wait!” 

I did everything but wait as I heard Conan call behind me. 

“Leave her. She’ll be back.” His father cautioned. 

He’s right. There was nowhere else I could go. Despite their betrayal taht cut deep, they were my only family and as much as I wanted to go far away from them, far away from here, i’d be dead before within just a step out of the marked borders of the Bluecoven pack. But it didnt stop me from wanting to disappear and so I just ran. I ran with no care for if or when I would come back. 

I have always hated running, especially with people around. It makes me feel bigger than I already was because of how tired I get in the end and how much weight I have to pull into it. I never even run. Ever. 

I had no choice now. Even if I didn't want to, my legs wouldn’t stop. They ran past the gates of the Alpha’s home on their own accord and through the few scattered houses of wolves in the pack who live close to the Alpha. 

This time, I wasn't tired. The pain in my heart was more of a deadweight than I was. The pack lands were divided like just as the four cardinals of direction–north, east, south and west with the Alpha’s home in the center of it all. It was a large expanse of land and we were like a country of our own hidden in plain sight from humans. 

The only part of these lands that isn't occupied is the west. It was just farmlands and fields of green since our major moneymaker was agriculture. It was the place where the pack went for runs on full or blood moons with the Alpha taking the lead. 

I fled in that direction, needing the solace of it more than anything I have ever needed. I ran so much my legs hurt. My feet dashed against stone a few times and I fell, dusted off the sand and rose again. Weeds and branches caught my dress, tearing into it and ruining the once beautiful velvet red piece. Soon the dress was a mess of mud and holes and I was close to being naked in it since I had longed to dump Conan’s coat somewhere I didn't remember. I didn't stop running. 

I didn't know where I was running to. It felt like there were voices in my head telling me to let it all out and liberate myself. Voices that told me it was okay to cry when I am hurt. Tears spilled down my cheeks and I didnt wipe them. I let them run freely as hot and fast as they came.They blinded me and my perfect werewolf vision blurred. Not even the full moon could make me see clearly anymore. 

Then, something changed.

I didn't know at what point it started to happen. At what point I felt myself running even faster. My eyes were clear but I was seeing the world through a vision like someone else was using my eyes. At what point I couldn't feel my legs or arms anymore. I felt trapped and felt at ease all at once. It was like someone else was taking the lead and let me sit back and watch. 

I did. I let myself go. 

Soon, I found myself returning in the direction I came through. Through the same branches that tore my clothes and the rocks that caused my feet to bleed. Through the farmlands, the parklands and finally, the gates of the house I ran away from minutes ago.

When I didn't take the door but jumped loops to climb up the window to my room, it was then that I understood what was happening. 

I had wolfed out. I got my wolf while I was out running. 

Crap, I'd forgotten this was meant to happen on my eighteenth birthday. Or maybe I thought I had lost her before I even got her since I was just rejected.

The rejection had taken so much that I didn't get to welcome my wolf well or feel the excitement of having her. Clearly, she was forward and took the  lead. The window of my room was open and she jumped through it. I was glad I didn't have to go past the front door anyway.

 I was devastated but I was also eager to see what she looked like. She would be the only thing that would make my eighteenth birthday worth it. I could be alone but I would have her. 

Our minds connected. She knew I wanted to see her and so she strutted over to stand in front of the huge mirror in my room and showed herself to me. 

The feeling that twisted my guts wasn't one I liked. I didn't know what it was but they ran along the lines of disappointment, anger, irritation. 

My excitement sizzled out at the sight of what was before me. 

My wolf was an exact replica of me. Well, not in terms of size anyway. No matter how big I was, as an omega, my wolf was meant to be smaller compared to that of other high rank wolves but that wasn’t what bothered and made me mad. 

It was her fur. 

 Her gleaming fur was two-toned just like my hair. White…and black. On the left, from her front paw to the hind leg, her fur was black and on the right, just the same way…white. 

How is this even possible? 

I think I upset her because she whined painfully but I wasn't about to comfort her. I didn't want her. I would only be labelled a bigger freak than I already was. I didn't want my wolf. I hated and despised the sight of it just as much as I despised the sight of myself. 

For once, couldn't things just go right for me? Couldn't things be in my favor? Why was I so unlucky? The moon goddess couldn’t even allow me to have a happy ending just this once?

Why didnt i just lose her after i got rejected? I’ve heard and read stories of wereWolves, typically Omegas, losing their wolves after getting rejected and though I had been excited at first to know that I had her, seeing her made me wish I never did. She would only take the lead, standing at the forefront of my insecurities and problems. I would never be able to go on runs with the rest of the pack. 

An outcast. That is what I would forever be. 

The door suddenly opened and she snapped her head around. I sniffed the intruder before I caught sight of him. His scent wasn't so delicious to my nostrils anymore. It was just his normal musky Alpha smell. The rejection must have changed all of that.  

I didn't expect it but my Wolf sneered at him, baring her teeth. I saw Conan’s eyes grow wide. She was an omega yet she seemed to detest the sight of an Alpha who minutes ago was our mate. 

“Oh Wow…”he breathed, not moving an inch. For one, I acknowledged her bravery. She was better at something I wasn’t good at. 

Then she looked back in the mirror and whined even louder. Eyes colored in pain. And just like that, I felt myself take control again. I felt my arms and legs again. My vision was back to normal. 

My wolf had retired back for reasons best known to her, shifting me back into my human form and leaving me naked and alone in front of the man who rejected me.