Chapter 2 - Talk of the school!

Blanca

SADLY, THE TIME CAME TO FACE LIFE, and my pack again. I couldn’t very well spend the rest of my life in my room with only the dead and Mr. Wiggles to keep me company. As I made my way down the staircase, I could hear the whispers, but I held my head high. It was clear that Carlo rejected me because of my curse. It was clear because they were all talking about it!

My parents called it my special gift, but I believed it was a curse. If I had been born a normal werewolf, or even a normal human, I was sure my life would have been so much easier, but I wasn’t and now I had to deal with what I was. People kept staring at me while we waited for his royal pain in the ass before breakfast and I wondered if they were all waiting for me to fly off the handle. Unfortunately for all of them, I had decided before I came downstairs that I wasn’t going to. I was going to hold my head high. It was Carlo’s loss and not mine. In fact, it was the best thing that could have happened to me, wasn’t it?

Some of the girls who were rejected completely lost it in the past. They would scream, cry, or even beg their mate to take them back, but not me. I was determined not to let this get me down. I had a plan for my life. First of all, I wanted to help those with lower ranks. I wanted to teach people that their rank wasn’t all they were. Sure, there had to be ranks for order, but that didn’t mean you were stuck with the rank you were born with for the rest of your life. I was sure that if I could prove an omega was just as strong as a gamma or even a beta, I could make a difference in so many lives.

“I told you he wouldn’t be caught dead with HER by his side. He is all mine now.” I rolled my eyes at the sound of Crystal’s voice. Crystal had been after Carlo since she discovered boys! It never really bothered me when the girl clung to Carlo as if she couldn’t live without him. As a matter of fact, before I found out he was my mate, I could care less if he slept with every available girl in our pack!

But now it hurts. To think of him with others. It hurt so much that I had to blink away the tears fast so that nobody would see me cry. Why was it still so damn painful?! The physical pain seemed to have subsided and nobody could fault me for spending the time on my own. Every wolf that was rejected went through intense physical pain. But why did my wolf still whine at the mere mention of him?!

I closed my eyes for a moment to compose myself and took a deep breath when the entire room fell silent. When my eyes shot open, our eyes met as Carlo walked in. For a split second, I could have sworn I saw my pain reflected in his eyes, but it disappeared so fast that I wasn’t sure what I saw. Crystal was at Carlo’s side in the blink of an eye and I tilted my head to one side. Was he actually looking disgusted with the piece of cheap trash that was clinging to his side?

His eyes kept finding me and it was making me incredibly uncomfortable. I couldn’t … No, I wouldn’t run out of the dining room! Not because of him! Carlo took his seat and the group of girls around Crystal giggled as they took theirs before breakfast was served. I wondered how long this pain and all the other feelings were going to last before I would eventually start to feel normal again.

After breakfast, I grabbed my bag from my room and rushed downstairs. I had missed three days of school! I had so much work to catch up on and I had to write one of the exams I missed. I couldn’t allow any of this to affect my grades. I needed them so I could go to university and get my degree. If I wanted the life I had envisioned for myself, I needed that degree.

Now that I knew I would never have a mate, my future job was all I had left. Second-chance mates were a myth. I had never met anyone who found a second chance mate. I had met a couple who found a chosen mate after they had been rejected. Rank was everything in our damn pack, so a couple of the males thought it was best to reject a lower-ranked destined mate and choose someone they thought was more appropriate. I rolled my eyes at my own thoughts and dumped my bag on the passenger seat.

Pulling out of the driveway, I breathed a sigh of relief. I made it out of there before any of the others were even in the parking lot, which meant I would be able to make it into school without their gossip for once. Pulling into the parking lot at school, I knew that I was the talking point of literally everyone! Three different packs attended our school. It was situated right in the middle of all three regions and had been declared neutral territory because it was part of a human town.

The three alphas of the region were all the same age. Seniors like me … Their testosterone levels were way too high most of the time. The neutrality of the school seemed to keep them out of each other’s way most of the time, but they sometimes still got into each other’s faces. Our parents were hoping that having humans around would keep the boys in check … Yeah right!

When I first started coming here, I couldn’t imagine how things would be. Going to school with humans was strange at first and everyone was on edge. We weren’t allowed to shift in front of humans. We weren’t allowed to tell humans what we were and, most importantly, we weren’t allowed to kill or turn any humans. What made things worse was that never before had the school had all three alphas of the same age attending the same classes. As if senior year wasn’t bad enough!

Thankfully, it seemed the humans didn’t know of my terrible ordeal on my birthday. They knew that our group was gossiping about me and Carlo, and from the conversations I could hear with my wolf hearing, they were all thinking I had been dumped by the school’s number one jock. I sighed. If only they knew the truth. As I made my way to my locker, I wondered what humans would really think if they knew the truth. Would they want to become like us or would they run for the hills?

“Hey! Happy birthday. Sorry I wasn’t invited to your party, and then you had to stay away for three days? What happened? Didn’t you like your gift?” My salvation! The only person in this entire damn place who seemed to like me. Lilith and I had been friends since our first day. Lilith was a pure goth girl who dreamed of one day being swept off her feet by a vampire … In true human style, of course. I guess you could call her my best friend … If I was able to tell her the whole truth about who and what I was.

“Sorry,” I shrugged. “But you know my parents.” I grabbed my books and we made our way to the library.

“Yeah,” She sighed, studying her black nails and chewing her gum. “I’m seriously beginning to think you are part of a cult. Do you know that we’ve known each other for five years and I’ve never been to your house? Not once.” Having a human friend was difficult, but if that was the only person who wanted to talk to you, what else could a girl do?

“Lil, please. You know how difficult things are for me.” I rolled my eyes. I promised her that we would go out for ice cream the day after my birthday, but because of Carlo, that didn’t happen and I knew she was being bitchy because of it.

“Anyway, I bought you a gift.” She pulled out a small black box with a red bow from her dress pocket. “I saw it and I knew you just had to have it.” She was fighting the urge to smile, but I could see the smile creeping its way across her lips as she handed me the gift. Opening it as soon as we sat down at one of the tables, I gasped. Inside the box was the most beautiful bracelet I had ever seen. A plain silver bracelet with a butterfly. Its wings were covered in blue stones.

“It’s beautiful!” I gasped.

“SSSHHHH!” The librarian glared at us with her finger on her lips and I mouthed an apology before putting the bracelet on.

“It made me think of you. You know … Finding your freedom from that cult you live with.” Lilith waved her hand through the air and I couldn’t help but laugh. If only she knew the truth … The first bell rang and we hurried to get to our class. After a while, I grew used to the voices and they all melted into one and I no longer heard them. Yeah, I had been dumped by the school quarterback …

“Someone is going to fuck up tomorrow and then that person will be the talk of the school.” Lilith tried to comfort me over lunch and I just nodded. We were on our way out of the cafeteria when Carlo walked in. The gasps could be heard all over the damn place, and all I could think was if these people honestly didn’t have a life! Lilith gripped my wrist and we got out of there.

“What happened between the two of you?!” She looked a little shocked and I just shook my head. I really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Why don’t we go shopping this afternoon? I still owe you an ice cream.” I changed the subject and a huge grin broke out all over her face as her eyes lit up. We might be seniors, but when it came to ice cream, Lilith was still a kid at heart! She nodded and we made our way to the next class.

When the last bell rang, we rushed outside and jumped into my car. Lilith had some strange new band she wanted to tell me about and I let her ramble on while I drove us into town. We agreed to go shopping first and then have some ice cream. It was a hot and humid day and we needed something to cool us off after shopping. I wasn’t a huge shopper, but it always seemed to put Lilith in a good mood. We strolled through the shops but didn’t find much.

Lilith found yet another corset in black and I joked, wanting to know how many she had. By the time we were done, I was feeling a lot better and we made our way to the ice cream store. The town was bustling with school kids and usually it didn’t bug me much, but today they were making it difficult for me to be there. I kept feeling them looking at me and I was so distracted that when the bracelet was ripped from my arm I stood there blinking like an idiot for a moment before running after the thief!