Four

I sneaked in, making sure to be unnoticed, and sat down with my family whose table was at the middle of the stage.

"Where have you been?",

"And what have been keeping you up stairs?", My mother scolded, but I didn't respond.

She couldn't ask further questions as she was in the mist of a lot of crowd. I wanted to make up a perfect excuse, but as I was about to speak, there it was again, "That scent that smells of smoke". Dave walked on stage and stood close to his parents. As he looked up, our eyes immediately caught each other. My wolf was howling,

 "mate!!, Mate!!", She whined.

 Dave altered a few words, while Mirabel encouraged him by rubbing her hand on his back. All this while Dave stood on the stage, we never broke eye contact as he grabbed the microphone into his hands, bringing it closer to his mouth.

Dave stood confidently on the stage, holding the microphone. His gaze swept across the crowd, his eyes finally locking with mine. It was intense, penetrating. My heart skipped a beat as my wolf’s voice rang in my head, “Mate! Mate!”.

Dave’s expression was unreadable, a mix of curiosity and something darker.

“I have an announcement to make,” Dave’s voice rang out, calm but commanding.

The crowd shifted. Soft murmurs passed between some of the guests, wondering what he was going to say. His voice carried a weight that caught everyone’s attention, pulling them into the tension. Many of them leaned in slightly, eager to hear the next words. It was an announcement, after all—a big one.

“I, Dave Wheatstone, have found my mate.”

Gasps rippled through the room. People looked around, their eyes darting from face to face. For a moment, it was a guessing game. Whispers started to rise, and some in the audience even smiled, clapping softly in congratulations, though they didn’t yet know who it was.

Eudora and her friends exchanged quick, sharp glances. Eudora’s lips curled into a knowing smile, her eyes gleaming with a mix of satisfaction and jealousy. She crossed her arms, tilting her head slightly as though anticipating something juicy. It was as if she had been waiting for this moment, already piecing together who the mate might be.

But my wolf… my wolf already knew.

Inside me, she was howling, her voice a mix of excitement and pain, while I felt nothing but a sinking dread.

My family sat frozen. My mother’s eyes went wide with hope, her hand half-raised to her mouth, waiting to know who it was, while a smile ran through father’s lips.

“Who could it possibly be?”, mother whispered to me, while I just shook my head at her, letting out a forced smile. I couldn’t even reply her. I was confused.

 I began bracing myself for the reveal, for the moment the crowd would shift its gaze onto us, I could hardly breathe.

Just then Dave turned his head slightly, his cold eyes never leaving mine.

“I, Dave Wheatstone, have found my mate… Esmeralda West.”

Shock. That single word hung in the air for a moment, pulling every eye in the room toward me. The crowd fell into stunned silence, and then a roar of reactions followed—a mixture of gasps, surprised murmurs, and whispers that rose like a wave. Some clapped awkwardly, while others, unsure of how to react, simply stared at me with wide eyes.

Eudora’s smile faltered For a brief moment, she looked stunned, but then it shifted back into something sharper, colder. Her friends leaned toward her, whispering, their faces a mixture of curiosity and pity, as though they had just witnessed the setup for something much darker.

I felt my parents shift beside me. My mother blinked several times, her shock turning into a smile that seemed almost relieved. Her fingers clutched at her chest, and I could see the hope in her eyes, the pride forming as she quickly adjusted to the idea of me as Luna. My father’s expression was unreadable—a mix of satisfaction and caution, but his eyes glinted with approval.

But inside me? My chest tightened.

Something felt wrong.

Before I could react, Dave’s voice sliced through the noise again, cold and unfeeling.

“With all of that said,” he began, and the room fell eerily silent again, “I, Dave Wheatstone, reject you, Esmeralda West, as my mate.”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The words echoed in my head. Reject. Mate. Reject.

A stunned silence fell over the pack. I could feel hundreds of eyes now glued to me, no longer filled with congratulatory warmth, but with shock, confusion, pity. My wolf whimpered, her previous joy crushed, replaced by unbearable sorrow. The room spun around me. My chest tightened, and the painful howling in my mind drowned out everything else. I felt numb, standing there in the middle of the attention I had never wanted. My face flushed with embarrassment as I struggled to maintain my composure.

Some of the pack members gasped loudly, others murmured to one another in disbelief. The atmosphere shifted from celebration to uncomfortable tension. I noticed some people staring at Dave, their expressions a mix of disbelief and anger, while others still stared at me with a combination of pity and confusion.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eudora, standing at the side of the stage. Her lips were slightly curled into a victorious smile.

“Of course, she was enjoying this”, I thought bitterly. She had always been close to Dave, and now, seeing her here, it all made sense.

As Dave let the microphone fall to his side, his eyes remained cold and indifferent, as if this whole scene was a joke to him. Meanwhile, the world around me seemed to collapse in slow motion.

My mother’s face paled. She stood frozen in shock, her wide eyes glued to me, unable to process what had just happened. My father’s expression hardened into a mask of fury, his hands clenched into fists as though he wanted to tear Dave apart right there on the stage.

But all I could feel was the heat of everyone’s eyes on me. My wolf’s wails echoed in my mind, but I was too stunned to react.

I rubbed my temple slowly in an attempt to ease the head splitting pain. His words kept echoing in my mind. With an aching heart, I jumped up and out of my seat. Embarrassment and pain coursed through me as I finally pushed myself up from the table, muttering,

“Excuse me.”

I barely heard the voices calling out to me as I rushed out of the hall, my legs shaking beneath me. Everything moved in blurs around me. It felt like a dream, but it was indeed a reality. The last thing I saw before leaving was Dave smirking again, seemingly unfazed by the chaos he had caused.

My wolf painful howls were driving me insane. So I quickly ran back and disappeared back into the lightless, dark house. I shakily ran up the stairs of the pack house and headed towards my room.

I threw myself inside my room, slammed and locked the door shut behind me, and finally allowed myself to collapse onto the floor, hiding my face in my palms, confused and embarrassed.

I couldn't feel much of the heartache anymore. I felt a feeling of despair surrounding me.

The aspect that pained me the most was the fact that my relationship ended even before it started. I was not going to reject Dave quickly. All I needed was time to get along with him, but he ended up ruining everything.

 My wolf had seemingly calmed down for I could no longer hear her shriek of pain.

 "Esmeralda, sweetheart", I heard my dad's voice call out to me at the other side of the door.

 He sat down next to me on the floor. He opened his mouth to start talking, but I interrupted.

 "Dad the Sparks were not there", i explained.

" He came to meet me at the kitchen earlier today, and he kissed me in the kitchen earlier; that's why I was late", I recounted.

"It didn't feel like how everyone said it would feel". I said as I pulled my legs towards my chest, and buried my face in between my knees and mumbled.

"It's normal for a werewolf not to feel sad when they are rejected, but the only reason I felt something was because of Alaric", I said as I spoke to father, his eyes flooded with confusion.

"She is the one hurting, I’m not", I said, but it was actually a lie, because in reality I was hurting.

There is a deep pain in my chest like it had been crawled out. My wolf's crying and pain made my head hurt like I have been under water for too long, and my ears were starting to buzz. I'm more embarrassed than anything.

Father let out a giggle and pulled me into a hug. His laugh was fake, I knew it from the moment he let it out, and he was worried but wanted to comfort me with fake smiles.

 "It's going to be alright dear", father reassured me.

"Everything happens for a reason", he concluded.

Suddenly there was a loud crash down stairs. Father and I looked at each other in confusion.

"I need to see what's going on downstairs", father said.

 His eyes were wide with worry. I knew what was going through his head, his first thought must be about mother his mate.

 A woman's scream followed another loud crash, and without another word, my father ran out of the room, and I followed suit.

 The house was in complete mess. Broken bottles and pieces of furniture were scattered everywhere. Before I could ask any question, I was pulled into a warm embrace, the Jasmine smell.

My mum's eyes were glossy with tears as she ravished kisses over my face, holding me tightly into her embrace.

 "Are you ok dear?, Are you ok dear?", she sang as she brushed my hair with her fingers the way she used to do when I was a child.

 Seeing that both my parents were with me, I realized that my little brothers weren't with them, so where could they be.

"Collins and Clinton?", I asked in concern. "They are standing outside with some of my friends. Everyone was ordered to go back to their homes", mother said, while I nodded.

 " I am very sure I will have my hands full with a lot of questions to explain later", I said jokingly.

There was a sudden loud noise at the major living room that was meant for all the werewolves of the pack.

"What is wronged with you", Nathan screamed.

 He already had Dave pinned to the wall of the pack's house living room, while his wife Mirabel was hysterical and desperately begging him to let Dave go.

 "It's like you want to remain a fucking child", Nathan yelled one more time.

Dave stayed silent, his eyes cold and lifeless once more as he stared down at his father.

"Nathan let him go", Mirabel begged, pulling her mates arms.

 As Nathan released his grip on Dave, Dave tumbled to the floor. Mirabel bent down to him,

 "How could you Dave?", Mirabel asked her son.

“We raised you better than this”, Mirabelle continued