Lusting After My Rejected Mate

ELSA

My mother was waiting for me at the door of our house, eyes wide and searching.

“Where’s Alpha Derek ?” She questioned.

“Alpha Derek ?” I was confused. “Derek Xavier?”

“Don’t be silly, girl.” She snapped at me. “AS though there could be any other Derek Xavier in your life. Yes, Alpha Derek. I invited him over so he could eat all the food we prepared yesterday.”

“Oh,” I said in a small voice. “I didn’t realize.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t know a gift horse if it was looking you in the mouth. Sometimes, I wonder how I even gave birth to you.”

She muttered into the house, not bothering to pause for breath, punctuating every single spell of silence with her words.

“You’ve been single forever. Now a good man comes into your life to take care of you and wipe away your shame, and you’re behaving this way to him. Ungrateful. Skies know I was never raised like that. Don’t bother unpacking your box either, because you’ll be going back with him as soon as he arrives. You’re lucky Alpha Derek is still going to take you back.”

I stopped walking in step with her, my eyes pulled to the floor.

“I’m not going to go back to Alpha Derek .”

My mother continued as though she hadn’t heard a single thing I said.

My aunt had left a gift I was grateful for.

Alpha Derek did not come to visit that night. Nor did he come the next day, so that by the third day that I was still in my room, my mother had begun to get worried. She burst into my room unannounced, a determined look on her face.

I had just finished talking with my friend, Olivia who had married into another pack some distance away from us. It was an unusual proposition, but I had been trying to see if should be able to put me up at her place for a while as I tried to heal from this entire thing.

“I’m talking to you, Elsa Luca,” my mother thundered. “What have you done with Derek Xavier? Why isn’t he coming for you?”

In response, I stood up and moved to the box I had returned with. It was still locked up, the contents unpacked. As though my mother sensed what I was going to do, she suddenly pounced on me, shouting at the top of her voice about what an ungrateful child I was.

“I’ll have you reported to the Alpha’s council!” She screamed. “You’re not going to sully that man’s honor. He’s the only person who will look at you like a mate in this pack. No one else wants you. You think I’m going to stay here with you in this house until you die?”

“I don’t want to stay here, mother!” I shouted back at her. “I’m thirty! I can do what I want. I can go where I want.”

“The only place you’ll be going back to is Alpha Derek’s! I don’t care if you have to lick the ground he steps on. You’re not going to leave that house simply because he has another woman. For God’s sake, you silly girl. Grow up! I don’t care whether you have to beg him or get pregnant for him. You’ll do it! You’ll go back to Derek Xavier, even if you have to die in that house!”

“I won’t!” I yelled and shot away from the wall, running away from my mother. I misjudged the trajectory and tripped over something on the floor, my head banging sickeningly onto the floor.

My vision swam and my something warm was trickling down my head. Still, I stumbled to my feet and pushed open the main door.

It was just beginning to rain, darkening clouds rumbling softly as weeping threads fell from the sky.

I staggered forward once, then backward, and stepped into the courtyard, falling down in the rain.

My breathing was ragged, and I could hear my mother screaming inside the house. There was no one but the walls to hear her. My father had long since disappeared, appearing only because of my engagement party that had been called off, and my other relatives had other things to do.

I thought of Olivia.

I wished I had never been born. I wished…

The rain roared louder in my ears and I was beginning to catch a cold, my clothes thoroughly soaked. I didn’t hear the car when it parked beside me and the man came out until he was standing right in front of me, an umbrella over my head.

Even through the rain, his scent still spread through every fiber of my being. Skies, I hated that I knew and loved this man. This man that I now absolutely wanted nothing to do with…

Derek Xavier was stiff-faced as he held out a hand to me.

“This is pointless, Elsa,” he said. “No matter where you go or what you claim, you love me. And you’re not going to be able to forget about me, either. You’re thirty already without a mate. No one but me will want you. So stop this tantrum and come back with me.”

I looked back and thought about my mother who was still screaming in the house. I thought about the others like my aunt who thought I was never going to have a mate or get married. I thought about how old I was getting… thirty already…

And Alpha Derek’s lies—his deceit… those stood most glaring of all.

And yet, when he lifted me and led me into his car, I allowed him.

He got in beside me, throwing a coat that reeked of Alice’s scent, Alice’s perfume…

“You’re still going to be mine, Elsa. What are you so angry about, anyway?”

He started the car, but wouldn’t put on the heater. I shivered, huddled in Alice’s coat. I could have cried, and he wouldn’t have even noticed, rain or not.

“Nothing is going on between Alice and I; we were lovers once, and I help her out now and then…”

Even now, he was still lying. Even when I knew that Alice was still his mate. Nothing separates a mate bond.

“You’ll have to apologize to her and come back to the house. Alright, Elsa?”

I nodded feebly in my chair.

“There’s a good girl.” He put the car into gear and pulled a hair away from my forehead. “Come on. Say goodbye to your mother.”

“Goodbye,” I said, more to myself.

“Goodbye.”