Rejected but Unbroken

Chloe

I stared at the toast on my plate. Was there any way to make this breakfast take longer? I'd stretched it into an hour already, but it wasn't nearly long enough. I was running out of excuses to stay at the table. My entire day had been a slow one. When I'd gotten home the night before I hadn't been able to sleep. I had just tossed and turned in bed and was haunted by the knowledge that I'd almost met my mate. The one person that the Moon Goddess had chosen especially for me.

Even when I'd finally gotten my sleep though, Jade had been bounding through my dreams. My wolf was ecstatic. I couldn't blame her. I understood the importance of it all.

I'd found my mate. No, we'd found our mate. Jade had almost gotten the chance to meet the wolf that she'd be forever linked to. The one that we'd likely ran into today.

Chances were since he'd been at the party yesterday, he went to the same school too. I could run into him today. I could be less than an hour away from coming face to face with my mate. Our entire life was about to change in the course of one day.

Nothing would ever be the same for me again.

I forced down another bite of the dry toast. Everyone else had already finished their breakfast and carried on with their lives. I had no need to tell them that mine had changed. Nothing would ever be the same for me before.

"Chloe, will you stop acting like you're being sentenced to death? We found our mate! We're going to talk to him today. We're going to be together just like the Goddess always meant for us. This is a happy day. You should be telling everyone, not hiding it all like this."

I ignored her and finished the last of the toast. My juice glass was empty, and the clock ticked on. I had run out of time to lag behind. If I didn't get going now, my mom would drag me to school by the ear.

Why couldn't I have gotten some sort of sickness from the party yesterday?

A knock on the door tore me out of my struggles and, sighing, I went to go answer it.

"It's about time," Kale complained. "You never called me last night, so I didn't know if you made it home okay. What happened, Chloe? You just ran off. I tried to follow you, but I lost track."

I hadn't wanted anyone to follow me. "Sorry. Is it school time already?"

"Yes, and if you don't leave in the next five seconds, you really are going to be late this time. Come on!"

I sighed and nodded. It was time for me to go face my destiny. I wasn't completely against meeting my mate. I did want to know who that delicious scent belonged to. Who had the Goddess picked out for me? But I still couldn't squash the doubts that plagued me. No matter how many assurances Jade whispered to me.

I was not mate material.

"Why are you so quiet, Chloe? What's going on?" Kale looked down at me and frowned. His normal smile was nowhere to be seen.

"I smelled my mate yesterday."

His eyebrows jumped. "Your mate?" he whispered. "Damn, Chloe. I didn't think you'd ever find that. Congratulations! Who is the lucky bastard?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

Kale tipped his head to the side. His eyes scrutinized me. "Let me get this straight. You smelled your mate, but you didn't meet them? How did that happen? They run away from you?"

I swallowed. This was the part that was hard to admit. "No. Actually, I ran from them."

"Oh, that's why you were acting so weird yesterday." Kale dragged me after him, picking up our pace so we were jogging more than walking. "Sorry, we don't have time to be slow, Chloe. We really are going to be late today."

I couldn't care less if I ended up late. Still, I didn't want to cause any problems for Kale so I picked up my speed and we pushed ourselves to the level we did in our training and we raced into the school even earlier than we had the day before.

Kale bent over, gasping for breath. "Damn it, Chloe. If you have that in you, why are we always almost late every single day? Don't you think you could show me that kind of speed any other time?"

I chuckled at him. He looked funny, doubled over like that. I wasn't even winded. "You need to work out more if that's enough to exhaust you, Kale. I didn't train you to be that weak."

"Ha," he spat. "Well, now that we're here on time, you can get in class and go get prepared for that chemistry test of yours."

I groaned. I had almost forgotten about that test. I'd rather have a combat or fitness test than mess with chemistry. The last time I'd had one of those tests, I'd created some sort of thick slime that had gotten in stuck in Kale's hair. I'd had to shave him bald, and he'd complained for a month straight about it.

"Don't create anything weird this time," Kale scolded me.

I rolled my eyes at his back as we strolled down the hallway.

Wait.

There it was again. The strong scent of cinnamon tickled my nose, and I sniffed the air, enjoying the spice and the subtle undertone of watermelon.

"Mate!" Jade screamed again, her voice rebounding in my head.

The scent was coming from directly behind me. Kale turned to check what was behind us and his body straightened.

Who was it?

I slowly turned on my heel like someone else was controlling my body. I came face to face with the future leader of my pack.

The soon to be Alpha.

Andy Cain.