Chapter 5 Devastation

• AZURA.
• Four weeks had passed since his rejection. I feel like all I do is sleep, stuck in some depressive mood. If that wasn't bad enough, for the past week I have felt nothing but sick to my stomach.
• Rolling out of bed, feels like a mission but I know I can't keep this self pity party up, I have a reputation to uphold and Leo Rossi isn’t allowed to be the one to say he broke me….again.
• Yet no one truly knows how broken I am, yet fake it until you make it. My parents would ask questions, they already are, but any longer and they may just force me into counselling or order me to tell them what’s going on.
• I just wanted to forget yet I have a feeling this is going to be another thing that haunts me alongside what Judah has done. What I have done!
• Moving around my room, I find some fresh clothes, I am pretty sure I have been wearing these for two days now, that will give the old bat from the bakery something extra to complain about.
• I snicker to myself at the thought before deciding I will add deodorant, yeah I am already known as the freak and definitely don’t want smelly added to my honorary title.
• No, I needed to ressure parents, I was in fact okay. Maybe make a Leo voodoo doll, stick a few pins in his ass, maybe a few in throat because damn my throat has been burning for the past week from feeling constantly sick. I can’t keep anything down.
• Maybe I should add hair to this doll so I can pluck his from his head, that would ruin that sexy face of his. No man fears anything more than a receding hairline!
• Maybe than I can move on, forget him for good, if it wasn’t for the scars that laced my neck from his mark maybe it would be possible. No instead everyone see my shame as I stare in the mirror as I get changed trying to make myself presentable. A scar I glare at when I notice it, like it is taunting me.
• That night replaying relentlessly on a never-ending loop in my head. It had shaken me far more than anything Judah had ever done to me. I still remember grabbing my clothes before I stumbled out of the penthouse. I had nothing, not my phone, not my bike.
• I had managed to beg someone for a phone, and I had rang Liam as the rain began falling, washing away the scent of my so-called mate. But it couldn’t wash away what he did to me. My mark burned with agony, the healing slowing due to the rejection.
• When my brother showed up, I was silent. When he saw the state I was in, the anger in his eyes had made me succumb to tears. I had never seen him so enraged, and if I didn’t grab onto him and beg him that it was consensual, he was ready to kill.
• I had managed to tell him that my mate had marked and rejected me. If it was anyone else but Leo, I wouldn’t have cared, but I couldn’t tell anyone because it would ruin things. Alejandro would lose it and Marcel, Leo’s dad, would feel guilty over it. This involved my entire family, not just me. I just couldn’t.
• I now clutched at my neck, where his mark stained it. It had taken a full week for it to heal thanks to the rejection.
• Frustration and anger filled me as I stared at the message on my phone.
• Judah.
• He was a problem that still didn’t go away and he, like the rest of my pack, had found out I had been marked and rejected. His anger had been clear in his messages and he had begun to ring me too. Calls I refused to answer, which only made his threats worsen.
• The Blood Moon and its sister pack, the Blue Moon, combined were over four thousand members. We literally shared the same territory, although the residency homes were separate.
• Years ago, we were like this pack of people living in the woods, weird right? Yeah, tell me about it, but now, we had a mini town here; shops, a restaurant, cafés, even a school, and of course a huge hospital.
• Somehow word of me being marked had still travelled like wildfire, even though I had tried to keep it a secret.
• My mark… a crescent, shimmering, midnight blue moon, with stars and a lotus, set against a background of blue flames. A beautiful mark with an equally ugly story too. A reminder of the painful memories I wanted to remove.
• I still remember the look on Dad’s face when Liam had brought me home, the way he had hugged me, the way his heart was thumping… Mama’s pain, the worry and anger in her blazing eyes. I had to stay quiet for everyone’s benefit, but they only got angry at me for refusing to share his name. I still hadn't said the words to accept his rejection… I knew I didn’t need to be face to face to do so, but still, it was daunting.
• Everything had made me sick; I had lost my appetite and I was unable to focus on anything. I needed a break from it all, I wanted to run away… and although Liam told me it wasn’t the answer, I still wanted to.
• A light knock on my bedroom door made my head jerk up.
• "Hey Zu," Liam’s voice came, concern clear in his magnetic blue eyes.
• "Hey." I replied, picking up my jacket and slipping it on.
• "Were you going out?" He asked.
• I nodded as he stepped into the room, wrapping his arms around me tightly. I closed my eyes, hugging him back, his familiar scent reminding me of home. I wanted to cry and throw a tantrum for him to fix.
• But I wasn’t a child anymore, and this wasn’t his problem to deal with. He had enough to handle with six kids and a pack to take care of.
• "Talk to me Zu." He whispered, kissing the top of my head.
• I didn’t reply, simply hugging him tighter.