Chapter 6

“Alpha Tony Giles,” the Beta answered my earlier question, still thoroughly confused. And, unless I’m mistaken, a tad amused. I also noted that my mate didn’t seem to have much to say anymore.

“Great,” I said with an attempted peppy tone. In this loud bar I doubt anyone noticed if I failed to sell it. Despite my firm resolve to reject this mate, my wolf and I were still a little sad but definitely in agreement. We’d long since been rejected by our pack and had long been expecting a rejection from our mate. For as long as I could remember my brother and my mother told me at every possible opportunity that I was unwanted, that no one would ever want me. My wolf and I had been mentally prepared for it for so long.

The last person either of my wolf or I would ever accept as a mate is the exact kind of judgmental sack of alpha attitude like the one that was currently staring at us like we weren’t fit to breathe the same oxygen as him. I knew that look well. That was the way my brother and mother had always looked at me.

Though my father tolerates me, my mother and brother made it clear long ago that they hated me. I could not for the life of me figure out why. And since pack youth tend to worship the rising sun, aka the future alpha, my brother, everyone just went along with whatever he said. And Kiren said no one was to befriend me. So, no one ever did. No boys, no girls, no one.

Which sucks on so many levels, not just for me.

“An Alpha is supposed to protect his pack, support them, especially those that need it the most. It’s literally your job description. An Alpha that can’t do his job will lose his pack. Your pack's downfall will be your fault,” I said out loud. This Alpha reminded me so much of my brother it hurt. What was the Goddess thinking with this match?

My brother waged a campaign of mental and social warfare on me since the day I turned nine. I never could figure out why. I’m a girl, it's not like I was a threat to his future title. And I guess that’s why I said those things to my ex-mate. I really wanted to say them to both Kiren and to this twit.

Anyway, I always understood that my brother's treatment of me reflected poorly on his ability to lead. Our mother thought the son shined out if his ass though and my father didn’t seem to fully grasp how awful they were to me. My mother was always whispering in his ear. This Alpha pup was obviously just like Kiren. I bet his mom’s a total bitch. Probably a friend of my mom’s. 

“If this is how you treat your fated mate, an innocent girl you don't even know, I can’t imagine how awful you are to your pack members,” I muttered out loud but more to myself. Still, he was an Alpha with sensitive hearing.

My mate stepped closer but did not attack me again. Though if the venom in his eyes were any indication, he would have if he wasn’t worried about how it would look attacking a girl again in public, not that he was concerned about that a few minutes earlier, more likely it was the possibility that he might lose again that stayed his hand.

Maybe if this mate had been a decent person. Maybe if he’d actually been interested in getting to know me instead of making assumptions, things could have been different. But they weren’t. And I wasn’t about to cry or beg for a change. That’s what bullies like him fed off of.

All that aside, no one ever wanted to be rejected by their mate, even me. Deep down I craved that love. Who wouldn’t want to meet their soulmate, their perfect match, who would love them unconditionally? Still, that’s obviously not my destiny.

“I, Lara Waters, reject you, Tony Giles, as my Alpha and mate.” My voice rang confidently in the now eerily quiet bar. There were quite a few supernatural's here but many of the patrons were human. I can’t imagine how strange this interaction seemed to them. No wonder we had attracted such a crowd.

Technically, I should have given my packs’ name, and my rank since I’m Alpha spawn, but since I don’t really have a pack anymore, that makes me a lone wolf and everything else is none of his business. Female Alphas are uncommon. For some reason, alphas tended to have a much higher chance of producing male offspring. Misogyny in action. Probably another reason my bro hated me. That alone made me special.

If I’d given away that nugget of info to this jerk ex-mate though there was a chance, however slim, that he might accept me just for my strong Alpha genes. And the last thing I want is for a man to want me for potential breeding. Screw that!

Usually, people also identified their packs during these things. But I didn’t really have one now and I couldn’t care less about him. I hoped it would work anyway.

“You actually fucking rejected me?” I swear even in this crowded club I could hear his cogs turning as he struggled to process what was happening to him. He was planning on rejecting me so what does it really matter if I beat him to it? I just wanted to get this over with so I could go start my new werewolf free life. I never understood why who broke up with whom mattered? If you’re done, you’re done. You move on. 

“I don’t think he’s ever been told no before,” I heard a girl snicker somewhere off to my left. My ex-mates eyes narrowed and darkened in response, thanks to his werewolf hearing, I knew he’d caught every word of that comment too. She wasn’t the only person whispering about him either. Surprisingly, the crowd was on my side. If I was at home, my pack would have sided with literally anyone else.

That girl’s right. If you had a rolled-up newspaper handy I’d whack this insolent pup on the nose with it, my wolf quipped.

Once he gathered enough control over himself, he sucked in a deep breath and spoke, “Whatever. You’re too weak for me anyway.” The insincerity in that comment made me hold back a laugh. Suddenly he was looking at me with something akin to awe lying under all that obvious fury. I’d just had him on his ass in a second. He wasn’t expecting a fight. He was expecting a crier, someone to beg his special and important self to reconsider. He never for a second considered that someone might consider him undesirable, that someone might not want him as a mate.

He took a step closer to me and a tall, good looking, incredibly buff, human guy that I recognized as a bouncer, stepped up beside me.

“Are you alright, miss?” the bouncer dude asked me. “Did he hurt you? We don’t tolerate that here.” He shot the Alpha reject a dark look that almost made me laugh.

“I didn’t hurt her. She attacked me!” My ex-mate whined. Ex mate, Alpha reject, was a big guy, clearly fit and well-built. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans that looked practically sprayed on to show the outline of every perfect muscle. He’d be good-looking if it weren’t for that perpetual ugly-ass sneer etched on his face.

“Actually, he was groping her and then he threw himself at her. I think she said no,” the girl that had commented earlier spoke up. No one had ever spoken up on my behalf before. I took an instant liking to that girl.

“Thank you,” I told the girl with a genuine smile, and then turned to the bouncer. ”And thank you. It was a misunderstanding, I’m sure. I was just about to leave, but he has something to say first,” I held my head high as I spoke, waiting for him to accept my rejection.

Come on, finish it… I silently begged. I was surprised at how quiet my wolf was during this whole fiasco. Should she have been jumping for joy that we’d found a mate? Thank the Goddess she wasn’t begging me to give him a chance.

We deserve better than him. We deserve a real man, not a spoiled little boy, Maya said in my head. But there was a note of sadness to her tone. I wished I didn’t have to do this for her sake. But she’s right, we deserve a decent man.

“I, Tony Giles, reject you, Lara Waters, as my Mate and Luna. I never intended to let some arbitrarily assigned bond control my life choices anyway,” he hissed the words so quietly that I doubt anyone but the wolves in the room heard. Was that his problem? He felt that mate bonds denied him the choice?

The pain in my chest almost made me crumple. But I was used to rejection. When my ex-mate groaned as his shoulders slumped, I knew the rejection had worked. The bouncer seemed confused, as did the human portion of the crowd. They’d get over it. I’m sure this wasn’t the weirdest or wildest conversation anyone would over hear in a nightclub. I swear I spotted someone selling pills a little while ago.

“What’s going on?” a second bouncer dude demanded.

“It’s a formality in our community,” I offered a vague explanation to him and whoever else was listening.

The second bouncer dude was a shifter, but not a wolf, bear maybe... It was hard to tell in here. It didn’t matter though he would understand what happened here quickly enough.

“You should leave,” the bear bouncer growled at my now ex-mate.

“Oh no, please, crank the music, Tony here is going to buy everyone a drink to make up for the disturbance,” I announced very loudly as I patted each of the bouncers on their lovely, hard upper arms and batted my lashes.

I definitely heard the Beta guy stifle a laugh while his Alpha stiffed a growl, right before the club broke into raucous cheering. I’d already turned on my heel and made a break for the door. That ought to keep everyone busy enough while I make a swift escape.

I needed to exit before this fool, or his friends realized how badly I’d insulted him and decided I needed to be made an example of. Alphas don’t typically handle insults well and this one came with a rejection. I felt bad for how I handled it. I’d never been a mean person, so it didn’t sit well with me. Not the rejection, I was perfectly fine with that. It was that I’d handled it with a cruelty I wasn’t aware I was capable of. As a perpetual victim of bullying I hated that I’d been a bully here. 

Slipping through the crowd, I made my way out of the club. I should have gone to an all-human bar.