Chapter 3 - A royal rejection.

Lorenzo

I WAS PLANNING ON SNEAKING DOWNSTAIRS and having a quick look at the girl I was told about and then joining my parents for breakfast afterwards, but as soon as she looked up, I felt a lightning bolt hit my damn heart!

“Mate!” My wolf whispered before I could stop him as a growl escaped. We fought for control over my body and in my scattered state of mind, he gained control and strutted right over to where the bewildered girl was blankly blinking at us. I fought and regained control just as he gripped her wrist and she flinched.

“Let go!” The girl shouted and in an instant. I could see the recognition in her eyes as they grew wider. “Mate.” She whispered, looking confused. My mind was all over the place. A slave girl couldn’t possibly become queen one day!

“I, Lorenzo, king of the werewolves, hereby reject you …” I realized that I didn’t even know her name. Her eyes were filled with confusion.

“Ariana,” She blinked and I could have sworn I saw sadness in her eyes for a split second before it was replaced by a dead cold stare. “My name is Ariana,” Her voice sounded like music to my wolf’s ears and he begged me not to do this.

“I, Lorenzo, king of the werewolves, hereby reject you, Ariana, as my mate.” It felt for a moment as if someone had knocked the wind clear out of me.

“I, Ariana, accept your rejection.” She didn’t look away. She kept my gaze, which was strange for a slave. I quickly became aware of all the people around us that I didn’t even notice before.

“Don’t you all have work to do?!” I growled as they all returned their attention to their work before I stormed out of there. I felt like ripping my own skin off my body as I made my way upstairs. There was no way I could see my parents in this state. My mother would find out what happened and insist I take the girl as my mate. She would insist that I take back the rejection and there was no way in hell I was going to do that!

If the girl was weak enough to get herself captured by the slave traders, there was no way she would be strong enough to ever be queen! My father would understand that. He understood what I was looking for in a future bride, but my mother just wanted grandbabies!

Storming into my office, I paced back and forth, shifting between pulling my fingers through my hand and huffing and puffing in utter frustration. What the hell was the moon goddess thinking?! The woman had clearly gone mad the day she chose a slave girl to be my mate!

“Dude! The entire castle is talking! I just came to warn you that your mother is on her way …”

“There is no need to protect my son from his own mother, Luc.” I stood glaring at my Beta who whimpered away under my mother’s gaze. She might not ever have been in charge of the pack, but my mother was a force to be reckoned with. I had hoped this would just fade away in the background without her ever finding out, but I had completely misjudged the fucking castle grapevine!

“Mother, if you give me a chance to explain before you start ranting, I’m sure that you will see things my way.” But I should have known better. I might be the king of all I see, but she was still my mother …

“I don’t understand, son. You have a perfectly good destined mate waiting for you downstairs, and what do I hear? You rejected the poor girl before even speaking two words to her!” My normally calm mother threw her hands in the air in frustration and I rolled my eyes. She was being overly dramatic. “I want you to go back downstairs and apologize. I want you to accept the girl this instant1” She demanded and I could see that she was not going to like my answer.

“No.” It was a simple word, but she frowned.

“No? What do you mean, no?” My father made his appearance and leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. He was looking far too amused under the circumstances and suddenly I wished I was in his shoes rather than my own.

“Isabel, he made his choice and I agree with him. A slave girl can’t be a queen.” My father intervened, which he didn’t do often and I almost breathed a sigh of relief when my mother turned her angry gaze on him.

“Do you actually agree with him?!” She pointed at me as my father walked into the room and closed the door behind him. At least with the door closed, the rest of the castle couldn’t hear the rest of our conversation. My office had been soundproofed for that specific purpose. Sometimes a king had meetings here that he didn’t want the entire castle to know about.

“I do.” My father took a seat on one of the couches and I poured all of us a drink. I was still in shock after what I had done, and my wolf was howling in pain, but I couldn’t show any of that. Not even to my parents. Especially not my mother!

“You do realize that he will only be stronger with his destined mate by his side?” It had been the same old conversation we have had for a couple of years now. Destined mate, blah blah, stronger king, blah blah, healthier heirs, blah blah. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes as I heard it yet again.

“Mother, I don’t need to be any stronger than I already am. Besides, it’s done. I’ve rejected her and now it’s over. Don’t you have a party to plan or something? I really do have a lot of work.” My mother looked sad and I felt awful for being the one to make her feel that way, but what I said was the truth. It was done and there would be no going back.

A slave girl could never be a queen. My father escorted my mother out of my office and I felt as if I could breathe for the first time since I rejected my mate. My wolf was furious by now and put up a block so I couldn’t speak to him. Luc returned and I could see that he had loads of questions, but he respected my privacy and we focused on work as much as possible.

My mind, however, kept drifting to the slave girl downstairs. From the little I saw of her, she was in a bad way and Luc was right. She probably won’t survive the week. If I was lucky, she wouldn’t and it would all be over in any case. I forced my mind to focus as we worked through the reports until lunch, at which time, my body was screaming for food. I couldn’t face people just yet and Luc had our lunch brought to my office since I also couldn’t face my mother just yet.

“Your mother has cancelled this evening’s ball.” Luc laughed and I looked up from the report I had reread about three times already.

“What? Why? It’s too short notice. It would look bad.” I sighed and he quickly explained that, according to my mother, there was no use in having any more balls if I wasn’t going to accept the mate I had been given. She was throwing a royal tantrum the only way she knew how and since I had been fighting the pain all day, I didn’t have the energy to fight with her.

“You know what?” I smiled at Luc, who looked a little bewildered at my smile. “Maybe it is a good idea. Maybe cancelling is the best idea my mother has had all week. Cancel them all. I’m done trying to find a mate this way. I’m done trying to make my mother happy. I have a kingdom to run. I don’t have time to dance and faff about women who clearly do not have what it takes to be a fucking queen!” If my mother could throw a goddamned tantrum, well so could I!

“I don’t think that’s what she meant …” Luc tried to calm me down, but I was on a roll. I was done. I was tired and I had had enough of being traipsed out to prance around like a fucking peacock in front of these women!

“I don’t care what she meant. Cancel all the balls that are meant for me to find a mate.” I put a little bit of my alpha tone in the command and Luc would have no other alternative but to do as I said. He looked really nervous. “And if my mother asks you why you did it, you tell her to speak to me.” That was that.

Ariana

AFTER HE LEFT SO ABRUPTLY, I could hear people talking. I could feel them staring at me and I turned my back on the lot of them. I didn’t need to be the mate of a king! I didn’t need any of them to feel sorry for me!

“That’s right! If he doesn’t want us, we will find someone who does!” My wolf’s voice was filled with the same pain I was feeling, but she nonetheless tried her best to be strong for both of us. If I thought the pain I felt in the cell during the night was bad, I was mistaken.

The pain of being rejected was threatening to completely black me out, but I fought it. I fought as hard as I could to stay conscious and I got back to the job at hand as if nothing had just happened. Nothing did happen. He didn’t want us. The king of the werewolves cared so damn little that he didn’t want his destined mate, and if that was the case, well then, we sure as hell didn’t want him!

He hadn’t even taken the time to get to know us. He simply decided that because we were a slave girl, we weren’t good enough. I rubbed the stain in front of me with such vigour that the shirt tore and I gasped. It was the shirt. The one that previously smelled like our mate. It was his shirt and I had torn it in two. I didn’t even realize I possessed that kind of strength anymore.

“Look what you did!” A voice shrieked from behind me and my entire body went cold as I realized the supervisor was standing right behind me. For a split second, I could actually see myself dying. I was going to be killed because I was the rejected mate of the king who tore his damn shirt! “You are going to pay for that!” She gripped my wrist and I winched in pain as she pulled me out of the laundry room down a dark passage.

We turned left and then right and then right again and she burst into a cold room before turning to look at me. I wondered if this would be the last room in the castle I would ever see before I died and then something inside me snapped. I looked at the woman in front of me and, for the first time, I noticed worry in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t ask in front of the others, but are you okay?” Her voice softened as she asked. Nobody had ever cared about me before. I nodded and she pulled me into her arms. “Oh, goddess, you really are skin and bone. If you are going to survive this, we will have to fatten you up a little.” Before she could say anything else, a knock on her door interrupted us. A guard had come to find out where I was and when I looked at her, she had the same cold look in her eyes as before.

The kind woman who spoke to me just moments ago was gone.