Chapter Eight

Mason's POV

Alpha Mason reclined in his office chair. He was met with the gaze of blank paper on an easel. The one next to it is self-drawn and features his likeness. For nine years, he had been looking for his soul partner.

Nine fucking years!

And she showed up; indeed, she did, but she brought with her another mate and her stubborn nature. He has heard from Randy about how she stared at the new kid.

Was he her other mate?

He couldn't help but feel like he'd been deceived. What kind of twin would make promises that would take her away from her mate? There's a pattern here, he thought. Alee, his mate, would come on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while her other twin would come on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Why can't they come together?

He was aware that they had to have developed and adhered to this pattern for a considerable amount of time. It's incredible that the school's teachers haven't noticed this peculiarity. Were their parents abusing them at home? That didn't make sense given the context. Alee and Minty appeared to be young people who preferred solitude to social interaction and wished to avoid him. Then there's the new kid.

The kid's new, and apparently, he is powerless. He seems like a common human with one look, and he feels human too, but that punch to the face hurts ten times more than an alpha wolf's paw to the face. But he had held it in because his mate was in front of him. They had been fighting until one of the teachers broke them apart. He searched for his mate, but she must have fled during their argument.

He had Randy and Emily track her every move in and out of school, but they would always report that after school, she would just disappear like she was never in school. He followed her once, but a strong wind blew that evening, and she had disappeared. His wolf was restless that day. He had to wait a day more before he could see her again. And even after all the pain he had to endure, his mate didn't bat a single eyelash at him. All she told him was to abide by her rules until she could figure out who her true mate was.

He raised a tight fist and slammed it on his desk, destroying the poor desk. Since he met Alee, he has had four desks. He lost his mind over her. He would have abducted her a long time ago if his sister hadn't intervened and reminded him that some people may find it difficult to adjust to new circumstances when they have spent their lives in a different way or had not anticipated any significant change in the past.

Even though he gave her some time, as his sister advised, she still ran to the first new kid she had just met. He regretted the day he first met her. He regretted the day he caught her scent. He was seated at his workstation when his beta returned from school, smelling like his partner. His beta is still in school, so he must have dropped his bag on her, or perhaps she held it because her scent was still detectable on the bag. His beta had tossed the bag at him, and as he grabbed it, he realized it was coming from his backpack. His wolf was in a tense state. It was small, but they could make it work. They knew her scent, and they knew the school she went to. It would have been easy as pie, but it wasn't.

The first day he came to her school, his wolf was overwhelmed by all the scents. He couldn't pinpoint who was who, and this made him frustrated. He left the school before dismissal, but he came back the next day with a strategy. He would smell his way from seniors to freshmen. After a week, he was frustrated because he didn't end up finding her. Instead, he created a group of human fan girls who have fallen for his charms. At this rate, he wondered if she was a human. Humans don't have any power of any kind, but there's a possibility that anyone of them can be his mate.

After that week, he lost hope of finding her, but his sister kept on urging him. He attended school every once in a while to look for her until he smelled her scent again. He saw a glimpse of red hair as she turned around a corner. He followed her to her next class, AP biology. Thankfully, the teacher is a member of his pack, so it was easy to tell him what to do. The teacher introduced him to the class as a new student while he stared at the redhead sitting close to an open window. She wasn't listening.

He walked up to her seat when the teacher told him to sit anywhere. There was an open spot right next to her. As he approached her, he stared at her, analyzing her for any sign of the supernatural. She seemed like this timid, quiet girl staring into space, but the air around her said otherwise. He could sense that she was supernatural, but he didn't know what kind she was. A dragon had come to mind, but he shot it down. Dragons were the only unfriendly species that could hide their form from anyone, making everyone think that they might either be humans or are a specific kind of supernatural, but dragons have been extinct for quite a long time. His kind was ruthless. They had led a war that killed a lot of dragons. How they were killed was beyond him, but that doesn't change history.

She had stared at him in confusion. He pointed at her seat, and she took out her bag for him to sit in.

Okay, he thought.

Time to take the next step, he smiled.

He took a long sniff of the area, and though he detected that there was something off with the smell, he looked her in the eye and said the one thing that would change his life forever.

“Mate!” 

She had stared at him in confusion, then surprise, before she settled for alarm and anger. He wasn't sure. He leaned on the chair and threw his arm around her chair, but she cringed away from him. It hurt him so much that he refused to acknowledge what she did. His wolf was unusually quiet, and this added to his agitation. Why wouldn't he say anything?

She grabbed her bag and virtually rushed out of the room when the bell for the following lesson rang. He had been seated there for a while before the next class's students arrived, and he was unaware of their arrival. He was feeling hurt because his mate had just left and fled. He had pondered what he had ever done to merit such treatment. This is why he gave the order when he realized that he knew the teacher who was going to teach her next. He then kissed her to show her how possessive he was.

Even after that, he felt like she had been carrying the game all along. He always looked for her, watched her, and followed her everywhere, but she never looked at him. Instead, she ran off, pretended like she was following the rules she had put up for him, disappeared from school after dismissal, and is now flirting with the new kid.

He slammed both his fists on the desk repeatedly until someone held him down.

“It's okay, Mason. You are okay,” she said.

His sister is able to make him feel at ease, but not this time. He believed she was to blame for everything. He would have been with his mate if she hadn't intervened. He would have taken her as he had planned to and imprisoned her in his chamber. By this time, she would be pregnant, and they would be raising their pups. She is the root of all problems. She is at fault. She should be put to death. He grabbed her by the neck and squeezed with both of his hands.

He increased the pressure the more he felt her choking. Someone held his arm and dragged him away from his sister. He ran blindly to where he felt his sister must be lying, but some people held him in place. He growled at them, but they didn't let go. He roared and shifted into his wolf, jumping through the windows of the five-story building, breaking it, and destroying the walls around it. He ran off into the woods surrounding them. He ran until he felt the anger ebb away. What was left was the guilt he felt for trying to strangle his sister.

He lingered in the woods for a while before he summoned the energy to go back. He used the back entrance to the pack house, but as he tried to sneak in, the lights came on, and he saw his sister's mate sitting on one of the seats in the kitchen.

“Alpha,” he said, but his stance and his voice didn't sound happy to see him.

He wouldn't blame him. The gamma would rather kill him than acknowledge him as an alpha. He knows that he needs to apologize, but stooping so low as to apologize to a gamma rubs him the wrong way, but still, he has to apologize.

“I'm sorry for what I did back then. Is she alright?” he asked.

His gamma stared at him for a while before he said tersely,

“She's fine.” 

They stood in silence for a while before his gamma said,

“You know that I can't forgive you for that stunt you pulled, right?”

“Sorry. I wasn't in my right state of mind,” he said, rubbing his chin while releasing a sigh.

“But I understand what you are going through. She's testing you. I think you should confront her. Don't let her take the reins on everything.” his gamma said.

“That's the opposite advice from what I got from Danielle.” Mason responded. 

“Danielle's a mother hen. She mothers everyone, even some girls that she's yet to see. I'm sorry, but I don't like that girl. She's putting you through hell a lot, and it's affecting everyone,” his gamma replied.

“I'll see what I can do, Nick.” Mason said he was feeling the stress from this afternoon come back in full force.

“Don't. You should know what to do. Take charge, and don't let her tell you what to do,” he said.

“I hear you. I'm off to bed, okay? Send Danny my apologies. I will find a solution soon.” Mason said as he walked up the stairs.

“No problem, Alpha,” he said as he gave Mason a firm salute.