This had to be some mating ceremony
prank, trick, or joke. I tried to hold on to that thought, but the rational
part of me knew that it was no joke. The man I loved had been cheating on me
with my sister. If I had any doubts about that, I only had to see the way he
looked at her. Jason and Erina drifted across the room together, accepting
congratulations. Erina parted from Jason and went over to a group of her
giggling friends while Jason made his way to the back of the room.
Jason loved me. I knew it. He was
just confused.
I took a step, then two, and ended up
flat-out running to him. I wiped my streaming eyes to get him into view,
clutched at his sleeve.
"Jason, please don't do
this," I begged.
He slapped my hand away, and took a
step backward when I tried to take his hand.
"Kiara-" he warned.
A sob tore its way through my throat.
"You can't reject me. I love you. I know you love me-"
His lips curled in disgust as he
continued to back away. "Look, stop making a scene. You're ruining my
party. Stop with the sniveling, okay?"
He turned his back on me and
disappointed into the crowd, taking a large chunk of my broken heart with him.
I pressed a hand to my chest. The pain I felt there was almost physical. It was
like I had a hole punched right through my insides. I hugged myself tightly and
groaned in agony.
"She's not going to have a fit,
is she?" said someone to my right with a hint of hopefulness.
"Maybe if she does, she'll
finally be able to shift properly," said another.
Raucous laughter greeted this remark.
"Poor little, Erina, heartbroken
and sad," someone said in a singsong voice. "Those the poor little
baby want a hanky?"
A handkerchief was thrown in my face.
I looked up and stared at Erina's clique of friends with hate-filled eyes that
were getting mistier by the second. Choking on a sob, I bolted out of the room
and gunned for the stairs, shoving people out of my way.
All I remember about my run home is
that I fell a lot. My arms and legs were maps of scrapes and bruises by the
time I got home. I locked myself in my room and looked around wildly.
I had to leave. There was no way I
could remain in the pack. The thought of running into Jason and Erina day after
day after day...
"I'll go mad," I croaked.
I began to cram most of my clothes
into a large suitcase. I took the petty cash I had saved up and lugged the
heavy suitcase down the hall. My father, who was crossing the corridor stopped
in his tracks. He glanced at the suitcase, completely ignoring my tear-streaked
face.
"Where are you going?" he
asked.
"I'm leaving," I wailed. "J-Jason-"
Oh damn! It hurt so much to say his name. "-rejected me as his mate in
front of everyone. He chose Irina instead and- and everyone was laughing. They
called me names and-"
I dissolved into tears.
"Is that all?"
His question temporarily stunned me
into silence. My life was literally ruined and he was asking if there was more.
"Dad, I told you-"
"I heard what you said! You got
rejected by your mate. So what? Life's hard. Get used to it. Get that stuff
back into your room now and stop acting like a spoilt brat. If you make another
move to leave this house, you'll suffer something much worse. You know I don't
make idle threats. "
He stormed off, muttering something
about useless, ungrateful daughters.
The next few days were a nightmare.
Word had spread to everyone in the pack about me getting rejected. Once, I
thought I had a hard life. It was nothing compared to what I faced now. I would
gladly have spent all my days locked up in my room alone, but Lora was not
having it. She sent me on stupid, irrelevant errands and I knew it was just so
people could point, stare, laugh, and jeer at me.
Whenever I returned from these
errands, she would stare at my reddened eyes hungrily, eagerly waiting for a
tear, and then her face would droop in disappointment when I stubbornly refused
to cry. But I made up for all the tears I refused to shed, in my room, bawling
my eyes out.
As if all that wasn't torture enough,
I wasn't allowed to eat my meals in peace. I was forced to sit at the dining
table with Lora and Erina chatting excitedly about Erina's relationship on one
side, and my father, hanging on to his wife's every word on the other side.
Then Lora and Erina would pause to ask why I looked so unhappy and why I wasn't
excited about my sister's good fortune.
"It's fortunate that Erina will
soon move in with Jason," said Lora to my father one time with a
disdainful glance at me, while I tried to swallow past the pain and clog my
throat. "The way Kiara looks at Erina sometimes... like she wants to
murder her..."
Lora shivered delicately. My father
let out a humorless laugh and patted her hand.
"Nonsense, love," he said.
"Kiara wouldn't dream of hurting Erina."
And he glared at me as though he
would have liked to murder me instead.
I felt my sanity being chipped away
bit by bit as several more days passed. And then one day, my father came into
my room with Lora on his heels, while I sat curled up on myself, staring
blankly out of the window. I stared at them dully, wondering what new methods
of emotional torture they had devised for me now.
"Kiara," he said in a deep,
grave voice. "We have come to the conclusion that you have to leave-"
I got to my feet without having a
memory of moving.
"Yes," I said eagerly.
"Yes. I will leave. I have to. I-
My gaze fell on my suitcase which I
had never really unpacked.
"Listen," he said sharply
and I fell silent. "A few months ago, we took a loan from Alpha Ryder for
the expensive course of medical treatment you had to cure your shifted
problems. A waste of good money but now we're up to our ears in debt-"
"Because of you," Lora
finished.
I had a sinking feeling in my
stomach. Instinctively, I knew something bad was coming.
"What has this got to do with me
leaving?" I asked.
"Everything!" my father
snapped, anger breaking through his enforced self-control. "Alpha Ryder
demands you as his bride to pay off the debt."
"No." My mouth widened into
an o of horror. Rejected by my mate
and now sent off to some man as payment? This couldn't be happening.
"Yes. You will pack your
belongings to go live with him."
"I won't," I gasped.
"I won't go. You can't make me."
"Do you have any idea what he
will do to us if we don't pay?" Lora shrieked. "Are you going to put
all of us in danger just because you're too proud, too stubborn to do as you're
told?" She tugged at my father's arm frantically. "I told you! I told
you we shouldn't have taken that loan."
"Calm down, love," he
soothed with his angrily flashing eyes fixed on me. "Don't you dare make
me regret trying to find a cure for your condition, Kiara. You will get married
to Alpha Ryder and that's the end of it. If you refuse, may the goddess help
me, I'll..."
He clenched his fists, making the
threat very clear.