Chapter 3

The hallway was pindrop silent and everybody's attention was now focused on me.

Zayne's broad back was still turned to me and I repeated for the third time, "Zayne, I asked you a question, why are you avoiding me?"

Then he finally whipped around to face me, a confused frown on his face. Why the hell was he confused?

"Excuse me? Do I know you?"

I blinked severally.

Was he being serious right now?

There was no way in heaven and on the earth, that Zayne didn't know we were mates.

"Do you know me?" My voice a pitch higher, I was getting pissed and very mad. "Are you honestly asking if you know me? Of course you do, we are mates!"

Gasps echoed throughout the hallway and people started murmuring.

"He's your mate?! Zayne Marshall is your mate?!" Madison echoed, I didn't have to look at her to know that her eyes were widened in shock.

"Lia, what do you mean he's your mate? Are you sure he's--"

"Of course I'm sure Jonathan. Werewolves don't go around calling people their mates, so that means Zayne is very much aware of that too. So what I'd like to know is why he's acting ignorant and has been avoiding me?"

Zayne pocketed his hands and started walking towards me, making my heart beat faster. Was he finally going to bond?

"Dahlia Grande. Are you stupid or just naive?" That was the first full sentence Zayne would be directing to me.

"What?"

"If your mate is avoiding bonding, what do you think that means?" He asked again.

What the hell was he talking about?

Zayne sighed and rubbed his face frustratedly.

Why? I was the frustrated one there.

"Okay,listen. You're so dumb and slow in the head to read the room. You're timid and naive as fuck, you come from a lowly, unknown pack, compared to me. I'm the Beta of one of the most powerful pack and I'm going to be the next Alpha after my father. You don't fit in my world, you don't belong there and I don't want you there. So let me spell it out for you."

Then his eyes turned amber yellow, his inner wolf coming out. The air in the hallway suddenly turning shivering cold.

With his eyes locked on mine, "I, Zayne Marshall, Beta of Blue Moon pack, reject you Dahlia Grande as my mate and future Luna."

My heart squeezed tightly against my chest and shattered in million pieces. I watched as Zayne's eyes returns to his usual beautiful brown colour. I was still trying to process what I just heard.

My mate just rejected me.

In the school's hallway.

In front of everybody.

I continued watching as he held his chest as if he was in pain and his strong scent faded away as his friends led him away from the hallway.

Of course he would be in pain. When a rejection happens between two werewolves, both parties would feel a sharp pain.

But the rejected mate would feel even worse.

A sharp, excruciating pain pierced my heart and then was passed all over my body. I whimpered and my knees buckled.

"Lia!" My friends called out in unison and rushed towards me.

"I-it h-hurts." I cried out. My body felt ice cold but inside me, it felt like it was on fire.

I clutched at my chest, tears streaming down my face.

I have never felt immense pain like this before.

My heart squeezed even more tightly and a loud scream escaped my lips, which turned into a growl.

I felt my inner wolf coming out and the white walls was the last thing I saw before everything became blank.

My eyes fluttered open and my drowsy gaze landed on the beige walls of my room.

I frowned a little bit, confused on why I was in my room.

Then the painful memories came crashing down on me like bricks.

Was it just a terrible nightmare?

I tossed to the right and my eyes fell on the post-it note on my bedside table.

The sloppy handwriting indicated that Madison wrote it, "*Immediately you wake up, give me a call. I'll come over immediately. We're here for you. You'll be fine. Love, Madison*"

It wasn't a dream.

The humiliation in my memories actually happened.

I was brutally rejected by my mate, in the school's hallway.

He said I didn't fit in his world because I was too slow in the head and naive for me. And I also come from a lowly, unknown pack.

I wouldn't deny the fact that I was timid, I wouldn't exactly call myself bold and daring but does that mean I didn't deserve a mate?

And I didn't ask to be born in the Night Walker pack.

Then why did he have to reject me in such a humiliating way?

I'd waited excitedly for the day I'd meet and bond with my mate but I never imagined that I would be rejected.

My grandmother and aunt, the only family I had, weren't exactly warm to me. So I've always craved genuine love and I lived with the hate and disgusted looks on Grandma and Aunt Kristen's faces, the hope that my mate would surely love me unconditionally comforting me.

But even my mate doesn't want me. He said I don't fit in his world.

I don't even think I fit anywhere.

I was just an unwanted entity, as a person and as a werewolf.

Aunt Kristen was right.

No decent werewolf would accept me as a mate.

I was a burden and a nobody.

My door flung open and I hurriedly rubbed my eyes to clean the stray tears.

"You're finally awake." My grandmother commented.

She watched me for a while and shook her head in mock pity, "I told you several times not to fantasize over novel romance, didn't I? They don't exist, especially not for someone like you."

I looked up at her from my position on my bed.

My grandmother glared at me, "What? Did you really believe you deserved a happy ending?"

She scoffed and continued, "My daughter died because of you Dahlia. You and your father ruined my daughter's life! I can't cook my daughter's favourite meal anymore because of you!"

"I know!" I couldn't help but yell. She says this at every chance she gets and it was getting really tiring and exhausting.

I gulped the tears brewing to spill over, "I know Mom died because of me. She died because she married Dad and gave birth to me, a hybrid. An abomination, a half human and half werewolf, I know I shouldn't have been born but I also didn't want this kind of life. I didn't ask to be born! So can't you just cut me some slack? Please cut me some slack....." I trailed off, breaking down in hysterical sobs.

I was busy crying my eyes out that I didn't notice my aunt barge into my room.

She hit me across my face, "Shut the fuck up,you little piece of shit! Do you think crying like a little shit would make us pity you? You shouldn't have been born. You're unwanted and something that shouldn't have happened, so live your life in misery. Mates go crazy for each other, they do everything to protect each other but your mate doesn't even want you. Isn't that enough sign? Nobody will ever want or love you. So stop bawling like a little bastard and go prepare dinner!" She growled at me and left the room the same way she came in.

My grandmother said nothing more, she just eyed me in disgust and walked out.

Aunt Kristen is always right. She might say it in the harshest way but it was always the plain truth.

Mates love each other unconditionally, regardless of the packs they belonged to or their flaws but Zayne doesn't even want me and hates me so much that he ignored and avoided me like a plague for days before finally rejecting my pathetic ass in front of everybody.

Slowly, I got up from my bed to head to the kitchen and do as instructed. And I made sure my gaze didn't knowingly or unknowingly fall on the full length mirror on my way, I couldn't afford to see myself. I disgust me.

This was my fate. A terrible one but still my fate. I was fated to be unloved.

The following day after the worse day of my life, (and I've had my share of worse days), was Saturday so I had much time to prepare for school on Monday, the after effects of the humiliation and embarrassment that came from being brutally rejected by your mate.

But I wasn't prepared for opening my locker and finding it empty.

I rubbed my eyes severally to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

My locker was empty. My books, my stationary, even the necklace keepsake from my mom, everything was gone.

I glanced around in urgency, trying to figure out from my fuzzy brain, what to do.

Then my glance fell on the trash can in the opposite direction of my locker.

It was unsually filled to the brim, with a familiar necklace hanging from it.

Honestly praying in my heart that it wasn't what I thought it was, I walked towards the trash can and opened it, and there they were.

All the things I left safely locked in my locker were in the trash can, with spaghetti sauce spilled over them.

I gasped and placed a hand over my mouth.

"Wha---"

"Oh my. Who do we have here? Is this not the unwanted lowly girl who was rejected by her mate?"

I whipped around to find Danielle sneering at me.

"Dee?"

It was then I noticed that she was not alone, Nadine was with her,and Julia, Samantha and Gwendolyn, the three bullies in our school were also standing beside her, all five looking at me disgustingly.

"Why? Are you surprised? You and everything that concerns you belongs to the trash can, Dahlia, because that's what happens to a rejected wolf." Danielle said and cackled, before pushing me into the trashcan.

What the hell was going on?