Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The "Scarred One"

Amelie 

"I, Amelie Ashwood, reject you, Tate Cozad, as my mate. I REJECT YOU!" I screamed with the last of my energy. I took the silver blade dipped in my blood to my mate mark. The searing pain my body and my wolf felt was like my heart was being ripped from my chest while being hit by a bus. I guess not all new starts are bright and shiny. The physical pain was unbearable, but my mind was clear. "I did it. I'm free." I passed out naked, bloody, and alone but free; after ten years, I was free.

I had just done the unthinkable. I completed the rejection ritual marking myself as a mate rejecter, a pariah in my community. I not only rejected my mate but my old pack. My whole identity to that point – was gone. I was now scarred, no longer marked. Now, I carry the black scar created by the silver blade, and I reject the mate made just for me by the goddess.  The cursed life of a "Scarred One" is what I must look forward to now. The sense of loss was foreboding. Was what I lost the only cost for my freedom from my mate bond?

As I woke, a flood of mixed emotions rushed through me. The physical pain had dulled; now, it was time for my broken heart to let it out finally. Not only am I a Scarred One, but I lost the ability to shift. I did not lose my wolf, Inari. She was there, just weak. We were both aware of what the full consequences of the rejection ritual would mean and do to us physically. We did not care. We needed to be free. I pulled myself up off the damp cave floor. I couldn't stand yet, and I was barely sitting up.

I had left my father's pack to join my mate's pack. I had built a life for myself and my mate. I had a small shop where I made and sold my jewelry designs, but that was gone now - more like taken. I had to pay the Rejection price to pack Alpha Mason to leave. It's hard, but I don't regret it. I'll make this work somehow. I get up from the cold cave floor, my strength returning a bit, and put on the clothes I had prepared for myself. 

The strap dug into my fresh wound as I put on my bra. I had yet to look at the hideous  damage that I would now live with for the rest of my life.  I have now been marked as a rejector, a home destroyer, a bringer of misfortune. I didn't care. My now ex-mate would have none of the pain and suffering I did, and his mate mark would fade away. It would be a lonely life of judgment for me now. That is why most mated pairs stayed together even if things were terrible. We wolves are a social species, craving a pack and family.  I wanted these things too, but not the pack I had nor the life I was leading.

As I finished getting dressed, I thought of what would be next for me. I did not have much going for me. I was broke  as I had lost my business. I’m not young; I'm 30 now. I'm marked as a rejector. What I just did is rare. Rejecting a mate itself is not rare. This happens, but it's customarily done before mating and marking. After marking, it rarely happens. Growing up, one old woman lived on the edge of town that bore the rejector mark. We were all scared that she would come into our rooms at night and curse or eat us. I was to live my life like her now. On the outskirts, alone. Well, at least it will be peaceful. I can garden, my second favorite thing to do. I can still work on my jewelry and start an apothecary business. I will have to hide that I am the owner as no one would dare buy goods handled by a "Scarred One."

Before completing the rejection ritual, I was added, once again, to my father's pack. It helped lessen the pain that the mate rejection ritual causes. I looked down at my shoulder to see my deep green Ash Tree mark; it gave me some strength to keep going forward. My one saving grace was that I was the eldest daughter of the Ashwood Pack Alpha, the largest pack in the Northern Midwest - one of the most influential in North America. I didn't have much else; my father loved my siblings and me. I was an all-around oddity in the werewolf community. I was the Alpha's eldest daughter born before my parents found their mated pair. My mother, Ann, was the daughter of my grandfather's Beta. My parents grew up together and thought they would be mated. On the contrary, they were not a fated mate-pair. I was raised in my father's pack but also accepted by my mother's pack. Her mate, Alpha Logan of the Black Hills Pack, didn't want to raise another Alpha's child. He didn't hate me; he loved me. He just didn't want another Alpha in his business. Having me in the pack would complicate things. I was left with my father and his mate, Celest.

Most pups are not children of desire but children of destiny.  I was looked at in my mother's pack as a mistake and something that should not have been born. Life on the surface was better in my father's pack. No one dared say what they were thinking to my face. Instead, I was politely ignored. My stepmother was an exception. She loved me as if I was her pup and treated me as such. She never allowed others to treat me differently.  As I grew, I worked to earn the respect of the pack elders, which made life easier. My younger siblings, bright and happy, were bathed in love and care every day. I envied that, but I could not deny spoiling them myself.

 The youngest was the heir, James. He and I were 13 years apart in age. My sister Hope and I were 11 years apart. I loved every minute of it; to them, I was just their sister. The Luna had complicated pregnancies and lost many pups.  Of course, there were whispers that I was to blame as I was a curse. It was a common belief that the pups died because of me. My father and stepmother did not believe in the old tales and ran the Ashwood Pack with more progressive views. Honestly, my father, Alpha John, was more of a businessman than a warrior. His Luna was the same; they fought with their brains.

I found my now ex-mate when I was 20, which was a few years later than most she-wolves, but I was excited. As someone who should not have been born, I thought I wouldn't find a mate. I felt validated! I was meant to be in this world! The goddess had created a mate for me!  He was older, which was not uncommon for males to find their mates in their mid-twenties. On the other hand, females had commonly found their mate before their 19^th birthday.  Of course, I was almost 21 when I found mine.  He was tall and slender, not the regular heaping hulk most male wolves are. He was an artist, as was I, intelligent and passionate.  His dark brown loose curls came to his shoulders. His features were sharp and angled with high cheekbones. His eyes were like a winter sky right after snow—soft blue with a feeling of briskness that took your breath away. 

"Mine!" My wolf screamed. "Mate, what is your name?"

"Tate, and yours, my mate?" He asked as he leaned in for our first kiss, unable to hold himself back.

"Amelie." I was barely able to whisper my name before he took my lips. I was in heaven.

Both his passion and skill were amazing. I would melt and be sent into fields of pleasure I had never dreamed of with the slightest touch. I saw myself growing old with him having a family - just a simple ordinary life with my destined mate. However, those blissful days didn't last.