Rejection on the Alpha #1
01

Author’s note: Hi there, to my newest and oldest, most loyal readers, I want to thank you for clicking, adding and commenting on this story. I just wanted to let you know that this is a full on rejection story, it was made to be a rollercoaster ride to make you annoyed, frustrated and sometimes even want to give up on the story. It was made to pull such emotion out of you that you could end up hating me, but I swear, each book gets better. That’s what I am for on Wattpad, and its what I aim for on here. I hope it still entices you to read the second book here too, because I swear, you will not be disappointed. Thank you!

CHAPTER 01: Rejection Denied

People knew the Julius Alpha was egotistical, hard to work with. They knew what he stood for, which wasn’t anything but our strongest of clan leaders. He could silence every single werewolf, every single lycanthrope in the closest vicinity. He had a pack to define his legacy, his teachings. The Julius Clan. Every member of his pack had their own personal skill set. Each one he used at his disposal, and everyone was expendable.

He was a God to everyone who believed his power was infinite, but a monster to me.

“Mate.” He said, lowly. Like I was his lunch and whipping toy at the same time.

I did what any woman with red flags blaring in her head would do.

Which is why I stood in front of him, his Beta, his Gamma, his Delta and personal Enforcers in the annual clan meetings that usually spoke of issues, and coordinated solutions, where I met my doom.

I met his dark, platinum silver eyes, “I, Celestine Colton, reject the bond with Martin Julius, Alpha of the Julius Clan.” The words didn’t strike my heart, not like I thought they would. I never wanted a husband, a partner like him. He saw the hate on my face, the disgust. Not one of his ranks moved, not one made an expression.

It wasn’t until I screamed, falling to the floor in gut-wrenching, blood-curdling pain, blinding me as I stare down at the ink bleeding out and embedding itself in my skin, on the floor in front of him as he barely moves while whatever he’s doing to me shows his dominance. It wasn’t the bond that was hurting me, it was him. I felt his power cut like knives into me.

Forcing me into submission.

Like a good little girl.

The ink reddened and burned into my skin as I screamed louder, against my own Alpha, against every Alpha in the room watching as Alpha Julius squats in front of me.

The pain chokes against my lungs as I roll onto my back, I couldn’t breathe as he whispers with an echo against every wall of the Royal courts, “I don’t accept. I will never accept.”

His darkness consumed me not long after.

Two Days Later...

All men love what they know is forbidden.

Knowledge is power, what is known is sacred, documented and ruled by over centuries. Soulmates are of ancient times, as is the goddess in which formulates bonds between the werewolf species. My species. It was unfortunate for me to see mine in that conference room, the conference room I wasn’t even obligated to go to, except the werewolf council meeting my employers were attending. It was custom to go. I didn’t anticipate replaceing the eyes of the one werewolf in all lifetimes to be my bonder.

When I rejected my mate, I had done so for a very credible reason.

Being that of the fact Martin Julius was a crazy son of a bitch who loves a good dictatorship, power and merciless submissions from his subjects whenever he wished in his arrogant fucking presence.

Henceforth, the situation I am in now once he knocked me out, claiming he ‘does not accept my rejection’ because that’s a fucking thing and that’s fucking allowed. WRONG! It’s not a thing, it’s not credible, it shouldn’t even be possible.

The rope should’ve snapped, that instant connection when the mind sprouts ‘MINE’ the instant their eyes meet. The connection to their eternal soulmate’s should not still be there if one rejects the bond of another. If one calls the moon goddess wrong.

I called her out.

I said the right words. I made the right vow. He should not be able to do this.

The myths and legends of almost any cruel understanding between a long rocky road on a dark and dreary afternoon in the middle of an excruciatingly cold winter on the Julius territory coiled low in my stomach. I knew the place was like an immovable, irreversible scar against my skin. I knew it in a sickening crunch of familiarity and disturbing memory of what was to come.

He put me in a cage.

Had I known hours ago that rejecting Martin Julius would shove me in a metal, steel bar cage and suffocate me in an abyss of rust and silver, I guess I would have waited, maybe—perhaps even ran from him. Running from him would have been the better option. His female Beta stares me down, and my sunshine blonde curls are ripped from my hair tie. A dark male group sang a German song of sorts on the stereo. My neck was free of any chain, however my wrists weren’t so lucky.

Martin sat in his suit in the seat in front of me.

No one said a word.

I stared at my burnt skin, “What the fuck is this? Magic? This isn’t a true binding, arsehole!” I spat at him. He didn't react, he only stared forward. No one spoke or said a single word, which heightens my anger.

I dumped my head back on the useless leather binds I’m strapped against, “I have a job, I had friends, I had a fucking life back in my territory. With my council! I have the right to seek their guidance and judgment!” I bounded towards him, shoving my shoulder against the bar. He still refused to look my way. He hasn’t even said a single word since he’d embedded the ink into my skin. It burnt me constantly. I writhed at the unbearable uneasiness it left within my stomach.

I gritted my teeth, and seethed when it started to burn harder. I grunted, “What is this? Why do I feel like I’m burning from the inside out?” I asked him, slumping against the floor.

The Beta Female, Reina stared at me with strange eyes, illuminated golden irises. I lied there with my cuffed hands on my abdomen, and my stomach rumbles quietly.

I felt it under my skin, like sharp rolling flames, they had a wave of shock heat, not like a werewolf’s heat, but something different, something deeper.

I stared at the ceiling, “I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to cuff your own bonder, arsehole.” I told him, huffing and panting as I struggled to get comfortable, a kink in the small of my back and my neck, another nauseating headache worsening by the mere second. I felt sick. I felt the cold sweat slide down my skin and yet a strange burning deep in my belly.

A bass-boosted song came on next on the radio in the car. It was on to drown out the noise I was making in severe protest of whatever the hell made this Alpha think he had any right in the world to take me from my home, from my family. Fuck, he was crazy. Almost as crazy as me.

The speed of the car accelerated like a damn bullet-train. Making me anxious and desperate now. Being taken from home into the arms of strangers was a death sentence for me.

I smacked the cuffs against the bar, “I will rip out your freaking spleen. Do you hear me, stupid Alpha?” I yelled at him, flipping up into a stand. It doesn’t cause a single one to flinch.

The next thing I knew, I was thrown to the ceiling, hanging with a magnetic tool above me. I screamed at the sudden abruptness it jolted through me, an electric shock that has me grunting as I hung with my legs dangling off the floor.

I twisted and turned, squirmed and wriggled, “Fuck sake. What is this?!” I growled under my breath, kicking my legs as sweat beads thread down my head. I screamed out in anguish.

Every echoing sound it curled against their deaf ears did nothing. I swore my head off, cursing him more.

The music turned up louder, and I was drowned out.

I growled, lifting my legs up and flattening them against the ceiling. I took slow breaths before I pulled harder against the magnetic force used on me to hang from the ceiling like a dangerous prisoner. I shook my arms harder, but the more I tried, the colder the air probed into my pores like singular needles familiarizing themselves with my skin. I couldn't understand how he did it.

“LET ME GO! YOU STUPID IMBECILE!” I yelled to the top of my lungs...nothing could get his attention. I could shove my hand through my chest and rip my heart out to pass the time.

He wouldn’t bat a freaking eyelash.

BANG!

I grunted louder when my back connected with the hardened floor of the truck. Whoever it was, turned off the magnetic force on my handcuffs, causing me to bang against whatever material. That alone sent a darkening tinge against my spine.

I narrowed my eyes, “I can’t wait to ruin your reputation. You’ll only ever be known as a historical coward of a man who couldn’t face the woman who rejected his arse and instead gave her a bloody tattoo because that was THE ONLY WAY YOU COULD KEEP HER WITH YOU!” I roared at him. Not a single blink is sent my way, not even the fisting of anger in his hands, not the contraction in his biceps from the want to wring my neck. He didn’t expose anything.

I thumped my forehead against the bar.

I stared down at him, “What do you want?” I asked him harshly.

Nothing.

Not a single thought is written on their faces.

Martin Julius was the most stoic of them all. He sat in the embellished suit, nothing but wealth sunk into the air, draining me like quicksand, all I could smell was him. It was as if the rejection didn’t work, refused to work. I couldn’t make sense of a second of it.

The scent of him, it sucked me in like some sort of deep spell, correlated in intoxicating substances, a mix of too much that my mind couldn’t sustain much else as I stared at his side. He was larger than the seat he sat in.

His midnight hair was highlighted against the light in the SUV. Each single looked combed and designed for the sleek curl he sports, the wave-like motion while the sides are shaved. He was more than merely well-built and tamed to perfection; he was legendary for a reason. He was a myth for a reason. The man put most Alphas to shame, with every muscle having another muscle of its own.

I curled my slender, pale fingers against the bar, “You will hold nothing when I am through with you. I will crush every hope and dream you have about this pathetic bond. Do you hear me? I will ruin everything and everyone you wish to protect, Alpha Julius. Your status, even your power, will know my face and my name when you breathe your last breath after I am ruled to have taken the life of a legend.” I promised him, slyly.

The car stopped all of a sudden.

I popped my eyes up to see if what I said had gotten a reaction out of the beast himself, the back doors open with a snap, and immediately a square of white light tarnishes my already blinded vision.

I was mentally ripped in half when the bar opened, and the Beta female slammed my head against the wall and shoved a toxin of sorts into my veins.

It latched on like some trajectory system in my bloodstream, a nano-injection working my mind to unconsciousness as quickly as possible. Weakening any thought before I’m thrown out of the truck.

Immediately my world is tarnished when snow started whacking me in the face like I’m the freaking piñata. Sticking to my shoes like blood on a battlefield.

I slid against the snow-infested ground, blocks of snow thundering against my clothes like hammers and nails. I could practically feel the lightning slash the ground mountains away, and I knew I was on his territory.

He didn’t seem to care too much for me as he threw a long coat around himself, platinum eyes scorch my forest green ones as my blonde hair forms heavy slapping locks all over my soaking skin.

I’m hauled out like a rag doll into a dizzying stand by the Reina that says nothing, but her grip says it all. She’s clearly pissed I rejected the leader she apparently worships.

Why can’t she kiss his arse then, I ain’t bending to that flabby contraption of a man.

Bile pooled in my throat. Defying gravity by threatening to spew all over the place given the stress I just put my mind, body and soul through.

Salt and blood never escaped past my tongue.

Blood dripped down the back of my head; more pain cascaded through my skull as I reached over and ripped out a certain stone that carved its way through.

The healing process began with another burning sensation through my forearm. It curled and wrapped around my wrist, up the back of my hand, wrenching me of any kind of freedom as the wind picked up while I stumbled against the rocky ground. My thick heels collect more mud as I glide against each slope, uneven ground as my surface.

The cold ate against my skin, and the snow sliced against my cheek as my arms froze instantly the second my heels moved from mud to knee-length snow.

My face connected with buckets of snow. I laid there for just one second, unable to breathe, unable to feel. I caught sight of his eyes, of their eyes.

I squinted in the snow. My bearings felt erased as I stared into the eyes of many children and families across the other side of the mountain.

One bow and one arrow was dropped against the snow before me, and the mountain was lit up, a castle near the very end. I looked down at the bow, the arrow, splintered wood, and the string on its last life.

I looked over to meet platinum silver eyes. He stared at me with stoic deadliness. On the inside, I knew something darker swirled within the dark abyss that crawled along the webs of those silver cobweb eyes.

Beta Reina stepped forward, “Earn your way to warmth, Celestine.” She said stoically.

My bones shivered against the air.

I felt it thin against the back of my neck, the front of my face. Icicles were already forming against my fingertips, up my barely covered arm. I heard footsteps, and the second her words registered in my mind, the sound of an engine gripped at my heart and squeezed as I leaped up and ignored the burning of frostbite in my toes.

I ran like my life depended on it. Snow slammed against my back as I leaped for the truck I knew he was in.

I hit the side of it, snapping my right arm with a scream as I roll to the dirt and freezing cold ground. I cradled the arm to my chest, and I couldn’t stop what came next as I watched the two trucks leave me in the snowstorm. The tears froze on my lips, the only heat I could make against the unfurling wind and the pain of everything else. I dipped low with the tears running down my eyes as the sound of those wheels moved further and further away.

He wasn’t coming back.

I didn’t want him to.

None of them were.

This is how they want to play, then let’s fucking play.

This was punishment for what I did. Punishment for wanting to leave his arse on his own continent, considering I don’t plan to bow before any Alpha anytime soon, he had another thing coming.

I counted every minute as I pushed through the chilled weather conditions that threatened frostbite if I stayed still for too long. I wasn’t even close to any flickering light. When I saw the last light leave the sky above me, I dropped to my knees as devastation tore through my chest. My mind couldn’t examine that around me.

The cold was blocking everything.

My thoughts.

My emotions.

All but anger.

I froze at a piercing roar behind me, yards behind me, but I heard it and slowly, in the midst of my heartbeat dropping into my stomach and motioning palpations in my nervous system.

My blood pumped fast, the piercing roar in the atmosphere that I couldn’t replace in sight. I was scared to breathe, to make another step the more I ripped apart my muscles and ran. I ran like my life depended on it, and I knew it did when the roar got louder and faster. It was nighttime. In the very middle. Actually.

It was white.

My eyes bugged out of my sockets once I flipped through the air at the impact of the largest polar bear and the first polar bear I’d ever seen. Its razor-sharp claws sang against my back as I flipped through the air and down a large hill towards a frozen lake.

My external warmth kicked in, and my blood ran thin, splitting the axis of my world when my instincts kick in after a very human reaction of freezing to weigh out my options. Unless I wanted my mind to numb and blank out, so as to just accept death from a fucking polar bear.

Not common where I’m from.

I slid against the frozen lake after watching it topple down to join me. The faster route compared to running; falling.

My fingers caught on uneven cracks when they smashed into the water. I heard the creaks, and I heard the weight the momentum of its fall held before my body could. I watched in unadulterated fear as the crack levels underneath me. The image of drowning made me cringe, I’d rather go any other way than one slow painful death.

One thought runs through my head.

I will kill him.

I fell into the ice-cold water and my vision curled, it disintegrated before me when snowflakes in the stream clung to my eyes, burying the scream that threatened to burst through the bile already readying itself in my throat. Nothing so visionary until I saw her.

I heard her voice.

Stay awake.

Doesn’t any child who seeks out their mother’s presence when facing danger?

My mother’s voice, deep in my ear. I didn’t know why it came to mind. It was soft and quiet, stern and strict. She was ordering me to leave, the more I twirled against the unconscious thoughts of the water. She positioned me, held me still while something was burning. Something around me, like someone was losing control.

The corners of my vision worsened at the polluted ice cold water beneath the surface of the frail ice above me, it was dark. It wasn’t translucent or opaque, just dirty and it reeked of the dead. Just like she did, I remembered the little blips of a time I wish I had no memory of. My werewolf senses smelt it.

Blood.

It was mine.

A simple substance needed to survive, and I was losing it quickly in the water.

That I knew all too well.

My eyes wouldn’t close. Neither would my heart.

Something rips me out of the water, I gasped for breath, getting dragged out onto the ice with the polar bear running back into the stormy fog of the storm that rages beyond the murky feeling that cloaked over me. I searched my bearings, there was nothing and no one for miles.

No rescue.

No concern.

This was his revenge for a rejection he never accepted in the first place. But no man should be powerful enough to force a bond despite a rejection. He should not be stronger in this moment, where myself...who is weak in the snow. I lost seconds trying to heal whatever damage was down to my back, fearing the dislocation of nerves along my spine.

Frostbite was the least of my worries.

My hair stuck to the ground like frozen strands of starlight. The glass mirror of the stilled lake beside me was my vision to see the marks on my face.

The rebel blue I’m certain was tantalising my iced-over lips, the pale crystal of my skin, my cheeks hollowed with each breath, and the discouraging look of death I was about to face not moments ago. Yet I was breathing, whatever dragged me out, whatever magical being of sorts had done it had my gratitude. If I hadn't already lost my precious mind.

This all started in that one court room, when I rejected the leader of the Julius clan, because my heart murmured its restraints on the wolf that I had no business with, no want to pursue or feel for. If a mate says ‘No’ so publicly, shouldn’t there be something so obvious that something was wrong? That fate got it wrong.

A bonder, a soulmate cherishes the connection with another, do they not?

My instincts were pulled in every direction, a part of me said to fall, another part said to reject and run. Run as fast as possible. Only I was too late and he had more on his side than any other Alpha I knew. He had the firepower, he had his enforcers, his reputation, and the abilities that were only rumoured among our kind. There are parts in my life that is a blur, this may just another one added to the pile, wrecked with ink on a new page, in a new chapter of my life that does not feel mine.

I have been an outsider in my own body, since I took my first breath.

But what I knew is that something did not feel right with the Julius Alpha.

If there was no indication after he dumped me out here as punishment for public humiliation, unjustified rejection, decision abomination...I don’t know, whatever the bastard wished to call this transaction.

I felt cheated.

I felt wronged.

I felt uncertain.

That kind of uncertainty makes for a decision I had to do and he was just too sour to accept. After rejecting him, the ink I had on my arm, that formed in an ancient, forced binding that resulted in the pain we both feel. One who won’t accept and the other: me, who will not kneel.

For I. Will. Not. Kneel.

Disorientation couldn’t describe what I saw in my semi-conscious form. I felt zombified.

My eyes crusted over when I walked through a city half asleep for the night; houses in the depths of it was darkened with no nocturnal rhythm that vampires prefer to use and soundless ice, moving closer and surrounding everyone and everything.

I moved up steps with no railings to hold onto. My heart barely alive to pump blood. That was dangerous.

If I couldn’t replace warmth soon, my own body would betray me with its weakness, being too slow in pumping oxygenated blood to my organs, the kind of weakness that I needed to bloody fix soon. A normal human would've been dead by now.

My hair felt permanently damp. The stabbing of spiders against the skin of my back was prominent. It never stopped biting, slicing, and scratching, ripping each skin cell into a thousand pieces.

Do you know what its like to feel every inch of your skin rippling off, each layer leaving you, betraying you while you try to stay alive?

That’s what I mean when I say that your own body will betray you when you’re put in conditions outside of your control.

There were no guards in front of the castle that looked forbidden to humanity, priceless in their eyes, when it looked worthless in mine. I knew who was in this building, I knew what they stood for and I knew who held the power in there.

It was him. He caused the laughter, he removed the rumbling of the starved bellies of his kin, he enforced order and guidance among a clan that distanced themselves from others because of their former leader. I took another route, a servants route in so it wouldn’t alert any of my arrival. I managed it before dinner was fully served by the bitter fucking sounds my ears were graced to hear.

I followed the sound of forks and knives champing, and the clanking of glasses. The chimes of violins and the keys on a piano. The laughter, and excitement of the warm and flooded interior above me. Despite winter at its coldest outside, shattering the limbs of people who couldn’t afford this kind of luxury, they all seemed so comfortable with a city built by Alpha.

I could smell every individual so clearly. I didn’t care for the dried blood beneath my fingernails, the grime on my skin, the stench of winter that clung to my clothes. A coolness to drain the warmth within, only my warmth sparked before I got inside. An inner feeling I had that felt more than just my wolf’s doing.

The icy serenade is something I left behind when I entered without the eyes of guards. Only to replace walls, misleading corridors, stairs and the unfortunate view of the throne through the railings on the stairs.

The smell of bread ran for miles. I opened a set of doors, locating a kitchen of sorts as I scanned the room. The bread was just sitting there, cooling down, I grabbed three of them swiftly and slid down the tile back wall of the chatter and clatter in front of me.

I ate the bread greedily.

Each crunch and crumb—I saved.

I didn’t dare to go into that room, and I didn’t want to as I walked down an empty hall. I walked down many empty halls when I sniffed out the furthest place away from him. I walked down a mountain of steps before replaceing one specific room, a guest room of sorts, and when I saw the sheets on the bed, I didn’t hesitate. The shower could wait.

I removed the infested, disgusting pair of pants and moved the fur skin blankets. I placed my head on the pillow in utter silence.

I felt my eyelids roll down in despair, and quietness seeped into my lungs, no matter my urge to scream. I don’t know how long I rested when I felt a certain chime against the door.

Knocks parade like a thunderous avalanche against it before a voice screamed out, “Miranda, you must get up!” I overheard on the other side.

“Who are you?”

I jumped when I caught sight of the tiny brunette in the corner, who was unfolding a pair of extra sheets from the linen cupboard. I stared at her with an emptiness that strung me on deadweight, slumping against the door, half naked and still shaking.

She raised her hands in surrender, “Stupid question. Don’t answer that. Its obvious now. I’m a servant under our clan leader’s rule. You’re the Luna people have been speaking about since the Alpha arrived a couple of hours ago. I thought you were supposed to return with him this evening?” She asked me, handing me a change of midnight trousers and a long-sleeved black shirt. She saw my clothes, made the connection. I guess I didn’t rest long.

She sat on the freshly made bed I slept in before she arrived, “He must know you’re here.” She whispered in the air, it coiled and died out in the room. Her uniform spoke its own story of hard work and labor, yet she was well taken care of by the look of the room, where she had her own facilities, weird given I thought most lived in dungeon-type rooms around here.

I snapped my eyes up to hers. She had softened golden ones, “The Luna is normally taken care of before she’s wedded to the next Alpha. They’re calling what he did a lesson you needed to learn after you publicly rejected our Alpha.” She explained to me, grabbing a few towels and she placed them in the laundry basket.

I swallowed, wincing when it hurt. It would take a long time for me to heal.

She watched me silently, with big curious eyes, “We all heard the beast roaring. So many of the girls were scared for you, and many males believed our clan leaders to be harsh, but he still wouldn’t stop. He believes in you; that must count for something, right?” She whispered.

“MIRANDA! GET UP NOW!” I overheard.

She scowled in annoyance, “I’M COMING!” She bounded out the door.

I hid the urge to cover my ears, the pain resonated against the tips as she gestured for me to stand. I hadn’t anticipated what came next when she opened the door, revealing females of her age in towels from steaming rooms, toothbrushes hanging out of their mouths.

The eyes went straight to me as Miranda gestured towards the large mountain of wooden steps at the end of the deafening corridor, where females stood and stared, wide-eyed.

I followed Miranda silently towards a set of main doors. I wasn’t ready for what came next when clanks of forks, splashing of juice and coffee and smells of heavenly substances surrounded me.

I watched Miranda turn to me, eyes rolled in sympathy. Even then, I couldn’t move anything but my legs—nothing felt right anymore. Alpha Julius wasn’t in the middle of the room, but at the very edge of the last table. Further east away from the entrance, any entrance. Whether that was a protective measure or not, I knew the bitch would need all the distance he could get from me. Eyes set on me, silver that I came to hate with a great passion.

“I’m sorry,” Miranda whispered behind me. I didn’t expect any kind of apology, given she was one of Martin’s fucked-up subjects.

I looked over my shoulder, where the door had closed and locked shut. I barely blinked when too many pairs of eyes dug holes in the back of my head, my skull felt the weight of those judgmental eyes.

It felt too hot when I turned, my eyes met the throne chair on the very top podium. The same crest that burned my eyes now and the insatiable wolf ones in my head, she eyed it. I stared at it before my eyes looked left and right at the number of quiet enforcers. They judged every step I took. Some so blank they wanted to mask what they thought of me.

I took one step down before the sound of one individual standing to clap resonated against these treacherous walls.

I stopped.

I trailed my eyes to the muscular, bare-chested enforcer standing with a smile on his pale face. Another one next to him stood and clapped in cheers, proudness dawning in their faces. Another five in the room stand. The sound of a rhythm in the stamping of feet, pounding fists against tables, and hollers. The sound of females screaming their cheers.

I despised every bit of it.

This kind of people fed on strength to the point where one would have to be close to death to earn such applause and a few cat-calls and whistles. To earn this praise, as I took one step after another, one howled, and five hundred more did the same with hollers from so many females surrounding their enforcer titles.

One stepped up and held his hand to me, “Welcome, Luna.” He announces, like its one goddamn honour to be here.

I stared into his eyes. They were bright brown and he looked amused, as well as flirtatious, yet respecting, he looked related to the Beta. Fantastic, a fucking spawn of Martin’s second-in-command. The hollers quieted down after a good ten minutes. I don’t shake his hand. He smiled and clapped for me, patting me on the shoulder. I flinched away from it. I trudged down the line of silenced Enforcers that stare indecipherably. I didn’t look at one of them as I resisted the urge to throw tables against the walls.

One clap.

Only one left.

The female Beta, who wore a sporty leather suit, blades at her sides; she gave me a wide smirk and a raised eyebrow, “Congratulations, Celestine. You survived stage one of your training to be our Luna. Do you mind joining us later? We can arrange your room.” She offered, handing me what looks to be a peace offering. She was playing off what happened to me as a fucking stage in a Luna’s progression to leadership. Like it was an initiation into the clan.

Is she out of her bloody mind? The lot of them were, they had to be.

She thought she could be sweet despite my anger, the light to my darkness...she had another thing coming.

I got in close to her face. My eyes do the talking as she stilled, watching me carefully, eyes that turned soft when she reached for my shoulder. I looked down at that hand and she sighed, “For the record, you did well, Celestine.” She said to me.

Her praise was so meaningless, her breath and words wasted on me.

I waited for her to officially get the hint and move her hand away. I shoved her shoulder with mine, stealing one of her daggers in the process and not bothering to send Alpha Julius a look of menace.

I kept my back to him as I walked towards the exit, gripping the dagger in my hand, even when I heard her behind me, “Celestine, sulking won’t do you any good here.” She said behind me. She truly thought I was sulking, like a pampered child getting a freaking wake-up call?

I couldn’t tell if I was even pausing to breathe when I slid a bowel of salad from the buffet table and kicked down one of the exit doors. I didn’t care where I sat, just as long as it was away from every individual in this pathetic clan.

I sat huddled against a circular window. My head in the crock of it, and my eyes only ever picturing the haze of blood red lava stocking in my veins. I crushed my legs against my chest, closing my eyes when I finished the entire basket of fruit.

I felt he’d refuse to take ownership of me and spat me back out with a splintering fire. The mark on my forearm burned, alerting me of who was close by. I opened my eyes, where Reina sat on the other side, she watched me closely, studying me.

Before she sighed, “My name is Reina Morel. I am the female Beta here in the clan. My mate is next to your Alpha, this is Robert Morel. Male Beta. Dorian Henderson is our Gamma. Weston is our head enforcer.” She informed me.

Like those names are important. Even after she placed another basket of a few cooked breakfast meat products in front of me, I didn’t turn in her direction in any of their directions. I felt content ignoring the eyes of his kin, of his clan.

She sighed in defeat this time; cautious and unsure, my silence not giving her direction. I relished in the fact it unnerved the bitch, “It shows how much one can change when left like that. Have you learned anything, Celestine?” She used a condescending tone, eager to know if I learned my lesson in the few hours I’d been in his infested presence. I’d learned far too much out there already, I did not wish to learn more.

I wanted to rip this courtroom apart.

“Who my new enemy is.”

That’s what I’ve conducted.

Let’s see him choke on that.