Page 1 of The Alpha's Bullied Pregnant Mate

Chapter 1 - Isla

The cable car seemed to glide over the snow like a ski board. The tracks in front of it were completely submerged in a few inches of snow, but the cable car rumbled on effortlessly, it’s wheels firmly locked on the track below.

The snow fall was bad this time of year at Frost Peak, and the cable cars were the only efficient way to travel around the town. Roads were almost impassable, and driving meant running the risk of getting stuck in the snow, or getting derailed on slick ice and taking a tumble off the side of a mountain. Ugly.

The cable car network was extensive. Several parts of town were connected with overhead gondola lifts, with stop points in between the mountains. All in all, Frost Peak sometimes had the appearance of a city wide amusement park.

Isla hated heights, and only used the gondola lifts when she lacked options. She was content sitting in the train-like cars, although it took longer to get from one destination to the other. She didn’t mind so much, as long as she was safe on the ground.

She often wondered why the old wolves had decided to settle here. The land was treacherous, and the avalanches were unpredictable. The weather was unforgiving and brutal, as were the people. Nothing grew here.

Quite frankly, it was a fucked up place to live. But the people of Frost Peak loved their town. Buried under snow, impassable, cold, dangerous and deadly, they loved every part of it.

And so she had always felt out of place here, because she hated everything about it.

Maybe hate is a strong word, but I do feel something close to it. It didn’t used to be so bad, but it did not take long for her feelings about her home to morph into a strong dislike as she got more and more reasons to be dissatisfied with it.

She’d been off the mountain before, several times.

Every time she left, it was always the hardest thing in the world to return here. A long time ago, she’d come to the decision that the town held nothing good in store for her. There was nothing here for her, but no matter how far she went, she always returned.

She loved precisely two things in Frost Peak—her parents, who lived half an hour away from her, and her job at the library. Barring these two, she couldn’t place a finger on anything else that was worth the effort of living on this mountain.

It was not the biggest library in the world, but it was impressive by all accounts. The elders and the Alpha had a big budget for the library, and it was utilized excellently in acquisition and maintenance.

Often times, it was a quiet job, but the people of Frost Peak did like to read quiet a bit, so it wasn’t entirely lonely, although it would not be so bad if it were a lonely job. Despite the constant traffic in and out of the library, Isla couldn’t boast of having made a single friend there.

Sure, they were polite when they spoke to her, and sometimes tried to make small talk, but it never developed more than that. Isla didn’t mind, she was content enough to listen to heavy metal music through her headphones, with a book nestled between her legs.

“It’s not healthy, Isla,” her mother constantly grumbled. “We aren’t meant to go through life alone. Tell me, how are you ever supposed to find a mate, if you refuse to let anyone in?”

It was an old argument, one that she was tired of having with her mother. It was one of the reasons she had made the decision to live alone, as far from her parents as was possible in the town. She missed them, but she enjoyed the solitude more.

Isla had come to the conclusion that many things were out of her control in this world, and this was one of them. She’d tried to tell her mother as much a hundred different times.

There was also the fact that she didn’t see herself having a future here in Frost Peak. She was as much without as she was within, and it was no longer a case of ‘if’, but now one of ‘when’.

She had finally made up her mind to leave, and it was the single most difficult decision she had ever made in her life. She was smart enough to keep that from her parents, of course, and she hid her detachment as well as she could on the occasion when they visited.

The cable car jerked on the solid cables attached to it and slowed to a stop on the track. Isla put down the book she had been holding—she’d barely read a word in the last ten minutes—and stared out the window at the platform.

A handful of passengers stepped out of the transport, while a few others waited on the platform to get into the car. She watched the shuffling activity with little interest, thankful for a break from her oppressive thoughts.

There was no jostling or pushing—law and order existed at the heart of every wolf of the Frost Peak pack, was imbued in every single wolf from your days as a cub and into adulthood.

Isla’s eyes were still on the snow-packed platform when she heard laughter erupt from beside her. She turned immediately to the side and saw that the sound had come from two young wolves who had just boarded, and were walking past her to a pair of empty seats near the back.

She watched the man and woman whisper to each other, and immediately felt self conscious. She watched them take their seats just before the cables whirred overhead, and the car resumed its grinding journey on the icy tracks.

She was certain that there was nothing out of place about her that would make the pair laugh at her. That didn’t stop her from checking herself out, though.

Just as she’d thought, there was nothing out of place and she looked fine enough. Unless, of course, one took into account the fact that she was wearing a yellow blouse, and a matching knitted yellow cap as well.

Isla turned to the couple, and sure enough they were watching her with smirks on their face. She grinned at the pair and then waved elaborately at them, and was satisfied to see the mocking smiles fall from their faces.

They looked at her even weirder, like she was wearing a prop from a terrible sci-fi movie. She couldn’t have been more out of place if she was sitting upside down. Assholes.

Isla held her gaze on the couple, smiling, although her eyes said something else. She was tired of people looking at her like that, dammit, and she was moments away from snapping.

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