Chapter 5

• I was crying silently in an abandoned classroom when Kira found me. "Leah?!" She quickly closed the door, and came to sat with me. "Leah, what happened?!" She held my face, and wiped my tears away. "Leah, look at me. What happened?"
• "Pete is my mate." I said in a monotone.
• "WHAT?! Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. That's just," she searched my face, "Did he reject you, Leah?"
• "No."
• "Then why..?"
• So I told her the whole thing.
• "Oh no. Oh my god." She said it faintly. I looked over in concern, I had never heard her voice like that.
• "You okay, Kira?" I asked.
• "You are asking me that?" She came over and hugged me, patting my hair, which was easy since we were both almost the same height. "Leah, I don't even know what to say..."
• "You can say you're proud I held up on my own." She might think I was trying to find humor in this situation, but I desperately needed some kind words after Pete's harsh ones.
• "Of course, I am, you big dumbo." She was crying and laughing at the same time, just like me. She held my face as she made me face her again. "I am so fucking proud of you."
• I smiled through my tears, no matter how cheesy it was.
• "But for real, Leah, what're you going to do?"
• "I want to reject him, but if he never accepts it, my wolf will think it is my fault that this whole thing didn't work out." I sighed.
• "She's in your brain, Leah, wouldn't she understand," Kira asked, even though I knew she already knew the answer to that.
• "She is me, Kira. But she is me as an animal. There's nothing more important to her than survival and the advancement of her species. And she only wants to do it with one other." I knew it, especially considering that my wolf was the most stubborn assbutt I knew of.
• "Look- don't be mad, now- but what if you accept-"
• "NO." I said loudly. "Kira, this is the guy who got the whole school to throw eggs at me, who has spread rumors that only Satan could think of, he is the guy who beat up every guy who asked me out, so that I would have no one. He didn't let anyone be my friend, and by some miracle, you came along, he would have driven me to suicide, Kira. And he would have been happy about it. In fact, if I was jumping over a building, he would make a video and post it on YouTube for kicks."
• "The last sentence is most of the human population right now, Leah, let's be real."
• I smiled a bit. "You know what I mean. Pete is my nightmare, Kira, he is everything I don't want. In fact, when we were kids-" I stopped, already knowing I had said too much.
• Kira frowned. "You knew each other as kids?"
• Great, Leah, give yourself three stabs on the back for that. "...Yeah."
• "How come you never told me about it?" She didn't sound angry, just confused.
• "Well, it happened 10 to 12 years ago, Kira. I just wanted to forget that this guy and me had some moderately good times." I put my head in my hands.
• "What happened?" She sat crisscrossed, her chin resting on both her hands.
• "Well, he was the son of the Alpha, and I was the daughter of the Beta, and so of course, everybody was trying that we create some sort of bond, because everyone thought I'd be his Beta, you know?
• "Anyway, Pete was sort of fun, actually. He wasn't a very open person, but he wasn't a jerk, either. We used to hang out, as our parents did. He was never impolite to me, but I always got the impression he didn't want to be with me.
• "There was this one month where the Alpha and the Luna had to go out of town for business, so Pete came to stay with us. I was trying hard to be his friend. And he and I quickly became so close. He...he and I promised- we would be friends forever. And then his uncle came to visit. He didn't exactly have a place to stay, so he stayed with us.
• "And then I-" I gulped. "Our whole pack used to live in a different district, remember?" I stopped. I couldn't say anything, any further.
• "Leah?"
• "I don't know what happened, Lee, two days later, Pete was...not himself anymore. It started out slow, but his antics got worse every time. He was a monster, Kira, a monster."
• There was long moment of silence. Kira finally picked up both of her bags. "Let's go, Leah."
• I reached home, trying to avoid Pete the whole day. It wasn't easy, our school campus wasn't very big, and I kept think I saw his dark head everywhere.
• I skipped dinner, my stomach was doing too many things and started getting ready to sleep. Just as I lay down, I had an overwhelming amount of pain in my lower abdomen. I cried out, but then put my hand on my mouth (I was doing that too much nowadays) to stop me from crying out loud.
• I clutched my bed sheet tightly, tears escaping my eyes. I almost wanted to laugh. At least there was one promise Pete kept giving me pain.
• And what a way had he chosen to do it.
• He was having sex with someone else.
• **************************************************************************************************
• I lay like that for a very long time, and somewhere along the way I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was groggy, with dry tear patches under my eyes and on my cheeks.
• I sat still for a second, not quite wanting to believe what my life had become. With my forehead in my hands, I just sat there for a long time. And that's when I decided-
• I knew that Pete was not going to change. I wasn't going to accept him, it would cause me a billion times more pain than yesterday. He wouldn't reject me, he wouldn't accept my rejection. A mate connection dwindled to nothing when you rejected someone, it amplified itself with acceptance and became even stronger when they mated.
• And in this state in-between? It was still strong. It was like a fresh breakup, where you still loved the person, but didn't have anything to do with them anymore. I wasn't in love with Pete, but he was my mate.
• He would keep going to cause me pain like this. And I couldn't let him do that to me, he wouldn't listen, obviously, so there was only one way. I prayed to the Moon Goddess that it worked, because if it didn't, I might have to actually kill Pete Sullivan, and since murder of an Alpha was a serious offence, I would have to become a fugitive.
• I didn't want that. I had to move on. I had to find someone else. I had to erase Pete from my system forever.
• PETE
• The first clue I got, I couldn't believe it. I remembered Leah's birthday, so when I felt like I had a mini heart attack, the sign that your mate just turned eighteen, on Sunday, I almost wanted to jump off a building.
• I had always known I would find my mate, but I had always feared Leah would be mine.
• So, on Monday, I came late to school, because I didn't want to see her, smell her, or confirm my suspicions. But she was everywhere. Her smell was everywhere. Chocolate and honey Every. Fucking. Where
• I almost lost it there and then. But then I calmed myself somehow. It still wasn't enough. I followed her scent to the water cooler. She always looked beautiful, she always did, even before I found out she was my mate.
• She stilled and turned around, and threw fucking water all over me. She had beads of water still stuck on her lips, and I knew if I looked at them too much, I would do something I would regret.
• And then she had asked me, screamed at me, to 'do it', I thought she was talking about me accepting her as my mate, and I couldn't believe my ears. I wanted to mark her as mine, but then she said the fucking thing I had always known she would- reject me.
• I was so angry, I saw red. Oh this bitch wasn't going to be free from me so easily.
• That night, I got laid. Because I wanted, no, I needed to hurt her.
• The next morning, I called Gary, my best friend. He picked up on the fourth ring. I was so angry I couldn't think straight. Even sex hadn't been able to calm me down, it only made me angrier.
• "Hey." Gary said groggily. "'Sup? Found your mate-for-life?"
• Instinctively, I growled slowly.
• "Woah, man, calm down. What is up with you?"
• I took three deep breaths. Nothing. My teeth grit together. "Leah."
• "What?" He sounded extremely confused.
• "She is my mate."
• Silence. Even he didn't have anything witty to say about this.
• "Gary?"
• "Are you...err...sure?" He asked tentatively.
• "Of course, I am sure!" I growled again. What the fuck? Deep Breaths. Deep Breaths. "She wanted to reject me, she wanted to-"
• "You can't blame her, Pete." He said it so quietly, I almost didn't hear.
• "What did you just say?"
• "You can not blame her, Pete. You've bullied her your whole life. You have this weird obsession with her-"
• "That is not true." I interrupted.
• "-Oh yeah? Then why did you not let anyone even have a crush on her?"
• "I...she didn't deserve it."
• Another silence, but this time an angrier one. Finally, Gary spoke. "I told you that I think she has become pretty hot, I would like to bang her, and you punched me."
• "She didn't deserve praise, Gary. My point is- I hate her."
• "You know what? I am coming over. Give me five."
• Five minutes later, he was in my room. He was the only guy I knew, who was so particular about time. His pale blond hair was combed, and I looked down into his eyes, as he was two inches shorter than me. He returned the angry stare right back. Which is why he was my best friend.
• "Let's start with the question that has been on my mind. What do you mean- 'she wanted to reject you'? Why didn't she do it?" He asked me with narrowed blue eyes.
• "I told her I wouldn't accept it." Yeahhh....
• "What? Why?"
• I stayed silent.
• "What is wrong with you, Pete?" He stood up. "You hate her! Let her go, for God's sake! You're taking this thing too far."
• "I will take this as far as I want to."
• "Then why did you even call me?" Gary asked in a flat voice.
• "I was just...really angry." I turned to look at him. I was expecting something akin to sympathy, but Gary was almost boiling with rage. "What?"
• "You were angry? You were angry? You know what, Pete, you have tortured her continuously for eight years, and you still don't want to let it go? Even if it hurts you?"
• "It doesn't hurt me in any way. My life will continue on as usual, while she will suffer. It is a one-time opportunity. In fact, I got laid last night."
• I felt a sudden chill in the air, and the door clicked shut behind me. Gary was gone.