Chapter 5 Frannie

• “Have you decided which dress you’re going to wear for the mating ball yet?” Hope, my best friend asked once again. I rolled my eyes. I wouldn’t go if I wasn’t being forced and our pack is hosting, so there’s no escape.
• “Hopey, we’re supposed to be the ones avoiding this mate bond bullshit. I don’t even want to go to the ball, let alone wear some prissy dress,” I sulked rolling onto my back, staring at the picture of Donnie Wahlberg in the Teen magazine I purchased the last time we went into neutral territory. He’s my personal favorite of that group.
• “You know the deal, Frannie. Felicity and Sheri said that if we don’t go to the ball, then we don’t get to go to the Shaggy concert the next night. Come on, I really want to hear ‘Oh Carolina’ live,” she whined, pointing out the stipulation to our concert attendance. I was already keenly aware of the situation.
• The upcoming mating ball was the bane of my existence, I don’t ever intend on getting trapped within the confines of the mate bond. It’s archaic to think that just because the moon goddess says that this man is supposed to be with this woman, we’re supposed to roll over and play good little doggies and accept it. I am not going down like that!
• I don’t care that I am the Beta’s daughter and that I am supposed to lead by example. Well guess what? I am leading by example, dammit! I am refusing to be the ‘little wifey’ to some ranked wolf and bear his heir. I have lived the past nineteen years of my life in the spotlight always having to do the right thing and I am sick of it!
• “I am wearing a tube top, booty shorts, and flip flops. I am not even gonna comb my hair, that way if some ass starts to claim me, he’ll take one look and he’ll reject me so he can run fast in the other direction,” I responded. “Besides, you don’t want a mate either. So why are you gonna sell yourself out for the night?” I added.
• “You’re right, I don’t. But I do want to see Shaggy the next night, so putting on a dress for one night and being the prissy Alpha’s daughter for the night is so worth it,” Hope confessed. Ugh, she’s right even if I don’t want to admit it.
• “Fine, I’ll do it, but we need to go into the neutral territory because I am gonna need a lot of hairspray if I gotta be a priss one night and look totally hot the next. I just finished hemming my shorts after I cut my leather pants up. They hug me in all the right places now,” I conceded.
• “Yeah, well all your work is gonna go to waste if you don’t fall in line and decide on a dress for the ball,” she reminded me.
• “Let me try on your green taffeta dress from the winter solstice. It will look cute with my black go-go boots,” I requested.
• “Frannie, you’re six inches taller than I am! It will barely cover your booty,” Hope scolded. She is my best friend and truly an angel, but she didn’t see that was the point. I am the bad influence in this pairing.
• “Exactly! If by chance my fated mate is at the ball, he’ll reject me because I look like a two-dollar hooker. They’re all the same, you know. They want the demure, submissive little she-wolf to hang on their arm like a trophy and I am no one’s trophy. I belong to me and me alone!” I declared.
• I have thought about possibly running away after the concert, so that I can live the carefree life that Hopey and I have always talked about, but I don’t think she would come with me, and I really don’t want her to face any consequences of my leaving.
• “What if your mate was different? I mean what if he really did treat you like you’re the most important thing in the world and worshiped the very ground you walk on? I mean I don’t want to be a trophy either, but what if it really could be a nice thing?” she said quietly.
• “Hopey, we’re ranked female heirs. We are the trophies that ranked male heirs want. Besides, what will happen if we find mates from opposite sides of the country? Together forever, remember? “Now be a pal and go grab your winter solstice dress so I can make sure it fits,” I said, wrapping her in a side armed hug.
• “You’re right. Together forever, pinky swear. I’ll be right back,” Hope replied, sliding off the side of my bed.
• Hope has been my ride or die best friend for as long as I can remember but I am worried that if Alpha Charming happens to be at the ball, she will crumble and fall into the trap that is the fated mate bond. Supposedly the moon goddess has a predetermined mate selected specifically for you and they are supposed to be the half that makes you whole. I call bullshit!
• My mother is a brilliant woman who was destined to be one of the greatest doctors to ever walk the face of this earth. She finished her studies at the pack high school at the tender age of twelve and was admitted to Harvard at thirteen. After completing her bachelor’s degree at fifteen, she was given a full ride scholarship to Johns Hopkins University and was just two years from completion when she came home for the mating ball two weeks after turning eighteen. That’s when she and dad discovered that they were fated mates and she never went back. Mom gave up her dream, for a life of serving the pack as their Beta female. All that potential was wasted to play the second-string female leader for Alpha Carl and Luna Felicity. If that wasn’t bad enough, she got knocked up with my older brother Francis who died at birth. The irony of that is; mom could have saved him if she had become the doctor she was meant to be. But the healers didn’t know how to deal with my brother who not only came out breech, but with the cord wrapped around his neck twice.
• I logically know that sometimes these things happen, even in the human world, but I have seen my mom when she thinks nobody is looking. She’ll slip up to the attic of the pack house and secretly look through her old medical journals or when she sits with her face buried in my brother’s baby blanket and cries. I see the longing in her eyes when she watches Hope’s brother, Josh and the other boys their age when they are playing football or even sparing out on the training grounds. For all those reasons and more, I will not become another victim of the mate bond.