CHAPTER 2

‎ From the way Peter was grinning beside me, I could tell I had gotten myself into something I would regret. After all, he had wanted me to catch Alpha Kaelen’s attention. Even better for him now, I was Alpha Kaelen’s mate.“Mate.”The word echoed in my mind, twisting my stomach. My heart pounded wildly as my wolf leapt up and started to pace once again, trying to claw her way out of me and reach for him like a wild beast.Not quite sure why I was making the first move, I took a step forward. The music had long stopped, and everyone was staring at what was happening in front of them. I didn’t miss the air of discontentment from a lot of people at the fact that he was mated to a person like me, but it didn’t register immediately.This could be my way out, I thought. I could be taken away from my father, taken out of the situation I was in. I could leave here tonight with my mate, and all of my problems with my father would be put behind me.Alpha Kaelen finally got over his shock and moved toward me with intent. People instinctively parted the way for him as all eyes turned to me as he finally reached me.“You’re my mate,” I said quietly, knowing fully well that he knew that. I didn’t know whether to smile or not.Alpha Kaelen’s gaze never wavered past my face. He towered over me with an unreadable expression. My body trembled, but it wasn’t in fear. The mate bond tugged harder at me, and I could tell from how he winced that he felt it too.Before I could open my mouth and say something else, his next words stopped me in my tracks.“What an utter disgrace.”It wasn’t just the words that struck me across the face like a slap. It was the way he said it so coldly and so cruelly, like were not standing in the midst of all these people. I held my breath in surprise.“You’re on omega, aren’t you?” He figured it out.The heat that had just been spreading across my chest was doused and put out by his words. Murmurs started to ripple through the crowd.He looked at me from my head to my feet, disgust pooling at his face.“You don’t even have to tell me you’re an omega before I find out. You carry it in you. Your posture, your scent. You smell like complete weakness.”I flinched. Each word sounded even more painful than the whips that Peter had dealt me earlier.“I had expected that the Moon Goddess would have more sense than to do this to me,” he muttered more to himself than to anyone else. “But I guess not.”As if to make things worse, his eyes landed on Peter whose smile had completely faded from his face.“And you,” he said. “You were my father’s beta before you went against his orders and betrayed him in the process. How am I supposed to be mated to your daughter with such history?”I was frozen. My feet were rooted to the floor, even with how badly I wanted to turn around and run out of there. It felt like my heart had been open, and Alpha Kaelen had wasted no time to crush it.“I, Alpha Kaelen Spear of Crimson Wood Pack, reject you as my mate.”Gasps filled the air in the hall, followed by silence as they all stared at me.I waited there with my breath held for the bond between us to snap as I had been told it would if someone was rejected. I had heard it was supposed to feel like a wire breaking in your chest and a gaping hole there.But nothing came.There was no snap. There was no emptiness. There was only the sharp, echoing silence in the hall and nothing more, leaving me even more confused than anything else.“What…” I trailed off, looking over at Alpha Kaelen to see if he felt it too. If the bond was still there for him. But before I could get a good look at his face, he was turning around and walking away without giving me a second glance.“That’s so embarrassing for her,” I heard someone whisper in a low, cruel tone. It was followed by laughter from whoever the person was talking to.“I can’t believe she thought he would accept her, knowing the history between her father and his father,” someone else said.Soon, all I could hear was how foolish I was to expect anything from Alpha Kaelen. How hopeless I was.I was laughed at, pointed at, and they all had no sympathy for me. Not even in the slightest.“I can’t do this,” I said as I turned to Peter, who was glaring at me as if he was only seconds away from having my head in his arms.“What can’t you do?” He asked, daring me to say what I was saying. “You can still fix this. You can convince him to take you in. Tell him you won’t be weak forever. You’ll train.”He didn’t care. He didn’t care about me. I knew that a long time, but being faced with the reality of it was too much. All my father cared about was me getting him what he wanted. He didn’t care that the man he wanted me to catch the attention of was my mate and had just rejected me.My legs finally moved, and I bolted. It was something I was sure I would regret, but I didn’t care at the moment. All I wanted was to get out of there and be able to breathe.I just ran through the patrol guards and through the woods. Branches scratched at my arms, but I barely paid them any mind. I stumbled a couple of times, but I never fell. I couldn’t afford to fall. Not now. Not after the fall I had just taken in front of that crowd.I reached home when the moon was at the peak of its glow, making a mockery of me. I stumbled through the front door and collapsed onto the cold wooden floor of the living room.“Why?” I cried out, not sure if I was asking the Moon Goddess, my father, or Kaelen. “Why would you do something so cruel? Why me?! Why does it have to be me?!”“He was my mate. And he just…rejected me,” I rambled as I tried to come to come to terms with what had just happened and the burning humiliation I would have to carry on my shoulders now.Worst of all, the bond was still there. It was buzzing in my chest like a constant reminder of my failure. It was telling me that I wasn’t free from this. Not even in the slightest.The door flew open, rattling its frame and almost coming off its hinges from how much force was used. I jumped to my feet as Peter stormed into the living room, his eyes gleaming with unadulterated fury.“I was trying to tell you what to do so that you could salvage the damage you caused, but you ran out on me. How dare you?”He stepped toward me so menacingly, and his last threat toward me caused me to swallow the lump in my throat.My father was going to kill me.