The Blacklisted Rogue
Chapter 1

Sally

POV

The old oak tree. 3 PM. Come alone.

I frowned at my phone. Okay?

My brother George usually sent cheerful texts full of emojis, but this time the text was short and cryptic. Like something serious was going on.

Was he mad?

Maybe he figured out that I borrowed his Netflix account yesterday.

Why would he be mad about that though?

I glanced at the clock and put my phone in my bag along with my notes and a textbook in advanced chemistry. The class was over anyway so I walked out of the school gates and headed for the old oak tree.

Red Ridge High School was a large yellow building that was located just south of the packhouse and I was in senior year. I turned 18 two months ago and I was just a few months away from graduation. The Red Ridge pack was one of the few packs with its own high school on the pack lands. Other packs just enrolled their kids in the human schools, but that didn't happen here. The pack held on to the old beliefs. Werewolves are more advanced physically than humans, therefore it's a waste of time to even talk to such lowly creatures and so on.

I can't say that I was a huge fan of those beliefs that the pack so fanatically followed.

Contrary to the beliefs, the Red Ridge pack wasn't as isolated from the human world as you might think. In the center of the pack territory was a large human town that a lot of werewolves either lived in or visited a lot.

The humans didn't know werewolves existed. To them, we were some sort of cult that set up shop outside of town. Inside the gated area only werewolves were allowed, and only the richer wolves afforded to live there. My family was the Beta family. When I grew up, my father was the pack Beta, the second in command to the Alpha. When the Alpha's son Hudson took over the title my oldest brother Luke became Beta. George was the middle child and I was two years younger than him. We sure had our fights but we were still very close.

I spotted the old oak tree and noticed that George was sitting on the lowest branch.

"Hey"

I jumped onto the same branch that George was already sitting on and nudged his shoulder.

"Hey Sally" George said and smiled at me.

"So what's up?" I asked.

George glanced at me, but quickly diverted his gaze to his lap. I noticed that he fidgeted with the sleeves of his sweater.

"George, what's the matter? What's wrong?"

I started to get worried.

"If I tell you something, promise me you won't tell anyone else, okay?" George said quietly.

"Okay, I promise. What's going on?"

George took a deep breath.

"I found my mate."

When a werewolf turns 18 the wolf in us awakens and we are able to replace our mate. A mate is like a soulmate, your one true love and the one you're fated to spend the rest of your life with. Usually the chance of you replaceing your mate was quite low, like less than 25%. Most werewolves that didn't replace their mate sometimes got tired of waiting and just took a chosen mate instead.

A mate was a holy gift from the Moon Goddess and anyone should be overjoyed when they met their mate. That's why I was puzzled by George's reaction. He didn't seem happy at all. "That's great George!" I exclaimed. "But you don't really seem happy about it at all. Don't tell me you got mated to Lizzie Coughlin. That is one mean girl. She had her boyfriend giving you a swirlie in tenth grade." George still looked down in his lap.

"That's not it, Sally"

"Then what is it?"

"You won't tell anyone right?"

"George I already promised you, just spit it out already!"

George sighed.

"My mate's name is Alex. He lives in town. He's a human." He?

George's mate was a guy?

And human?

I started to see why George did't look happy about it.

Our pack didn't really welcome the idea of same s*x mates. It was considered shameful. Being mated to a human was almost worse. The wolves mated to humans usually ended up banished if they didn't reject their mate. "Oh" I said. "What are you going to do about it?"

George's eyes started to tear up.

"I want to be with him, Sally. I met him six months ago and we've been secretly seeing each other since then. Last week I told him that I was a werewolf."

I stared at him.

"How did that go?"

"At first he thought that I was joking, but I explained how the mate bond works. Then I took him out into the forest and shifted in front of him."

I felt my heart sink and slapped my hand over my forehead.

"You did what??"

Showing ourselves to humans in our wolf form was strictly prohibited. Usually a group of warriors kills the human before they can tell anyone else. "You heard me. Go ahead, tell me that I should reject him."

George started to get up, but I took his hand and stopped him.

"I'm not going to do that. If you want to be with Alex, then I support you. But I don't think I know a single other person who would. The whole pack will turn against you and Alex could get hurt because now he knows that werewolves exist. I don't want that to happen." George sat down on the branch again.

"I need your help Sally. I sent an email to Alpha Jordan from the Blue Eclipse Pack. They're known for being more pregressed than our pack and when I explained the situation Alpha Jordan offered us to become members of his pack. Alex and I decided to take his offer, but I can't leave without anyone noticing. That's why I need you to cover for me so that we can get out safely."

I considered George's plan for a second. Him leaving the pack would probably be the safest for the both of them. I could never stand by and watch George being punished for a fate given to him by the Goddess. I had to help him. "Okay. What's the plan?"