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As his words hit me, each one landing against my soul with more force than his fists and feet have ever used, fiery pain shoots through my body. I can feel the tethers of our mate bond start to sheer away, snapping and twisting, fighting and failing.
I gasp and fall to the floor, hating the position I’m in. I hate it and yet, I can’t do a damn thing about it.
My eyes start to fall closed, the pain of the rejection searing through me and making it hard to breathe. I just need a little rest. Just a moment.
My wolf howls in my mind and it has me blinking my eyes open.
“I, Serenity Barlow, accept your rejection, Todd Harrison,” I whisper the words and Todd grunts in pain as he falls to his own knees.
When our eyes meet again, the anguish I see there gives me a sense of sick satisfaction I know I shouldn’t be feeling. It twists something up inside of me. What I don’t see there is regret, just his own pain. As if the years of abuse I’ve endured at his hands didn’t already show me who this male in front of me is.
I struggle to my feet, every cell in my body protesting with every movement. I can hear my mate…my former mate…calling after me as I stumble down the stairs, everything I was supposed to do today flying out the window. When I finally make it outside, I look at the trees and do the only thing I can do—I run.
CHAPTER 3
SERENITY
It’s been two days since the rejection and I’m a little surprised my family, and, yes, I use that term very loosely, has allowed me to wallow in the hole of depression, anguish, and pain I’ve dug for myself. I haven’t left my room and I’ve surrounded myself in blankets and horrified desolation.
I hate that the sheared bond, which feels like a weeping wound on my soul, has thrown me into this mental state. The last person I would ever want to be paired with is Todd. Yet he is my mate.
Was. Hewasmy mate.
No more.
He’s no longer my mate. He made damn sure of it by rejecting me the moment he found me. He didn’t even have the decency to do it in private. He did it in front of one of his many conquests.
I almost wish all I felt was shame and embarrassment at not being wanted. It would be better than this festering hole in the middle of my chest that I’m sure is getting larger with every passing minute. Mates are supposed to be sacred. We only get one. The Moon Goddess pairs us using her grace and discretion. We are created for each other and paired, finding each other when we need to find each other, completing each other in a way no one else will ever be able to.
Todd ripped that from me in a single moment and I don’t even know why. Not really. I know I’m considered to be at the bottom of the pack, but it’s a lie. I am the Beta’s daughter. I should be near the top of the hierarchy.
I was.
But then everything changed, and the reason why is something I have never been able to find out. I never did anything to deserve the treatment I’ve had to endure. I’ve never done anything to hurt anyone or put the pack at risk.
I was just a child.
Fuck, maybe I still am a child.
The tears soaking the pillow underneath my head prove I’m still just a scared pup. My wolf whimpers in my head, but I can feel her strength even through her pain.
“We are strong, my human,” she murmurs the words, a growl of determination lining them and lending me more of her power, of her assuredness. “Maybe this is not the pack for us, and we need to find another way.”
The thought of leaving Waning Moon shouldn’t make me sad considering the number of horrible memories I have here. Still, it’s my birth pack and wolves are wired to be loyal to their pack. Even when there are those within the pack who don’t deserve that loyalty. I know it’s an instinct, but my wolf is even more bound by instinct than I am and if she’s suggesting leaving it’s something I really need to consider.
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t stay here and fester in the pain,” she coaxes me.
“I don’t want to run like a scared little pup. I want to be stronger than that. I want to stand up and fight,” I insist.
“They don’t fight for you, Serenity. They are not worthy of you fighting for them,” she points out gently and it breaks my heart.
“I know,” I whisper brokenly.
I hate that there is part of me still clinging to the hope that Todd will change his mind. The rejection can’t be taken back, not really—the words will always hang between us and the bond we had, the one the Moon Goddess placed between us, will always be broken. However, we could forge a new bond.
If we mated and he marked me, we would be bonded. I don’t know if it would be the same as it would have been if he had accepted me. I never thought to ask that kind of question in school when we learned about mates. They glossed over rejection because it doesn’t happen. Except to me, apparently.
