Page 4 of Rejected By the Alpha

Unfortunately, it also meant that I was doomed to a life of solitude within the pack. My parents had always prevented me from socializing with others so they could have control over me. While other children played outside and participated in pack life, I was relegated to staying by my parents’ side whenever I was out of the house. After years of this, I became known as the strange little wolf girl.

My parents always made a point of dressing me in designer clothes when we left the house so their status in the pack would increase. They wanted to be known as rich and powerful people. Despite my fashionable belongings, I’d always found it difficult to make friends. No one wanted their children to play with the pack outcast, and the other children seemed to fear my parents.

The only exception to this was my best friend, Sienna. I watched as my father grabbed the photograph of her from my nightstand and tossed it into a box of my belongings. My friendship with her had been the one constant in my life.

I was in the third grade, and after years of being treated like an unwelcome addition to all my classrooms, I had gotten used to being alone. But one day, on the playground, a group of boys took my harassment a step further.

As I sat on a bench on the edge of the playground, they began pelting me with pebbles while the teachers’ backs were turned. As a small, unathletic, quiet child, I didn’t know how to respond. I crawled underneath the bench, covering my head with my book, praying that they would lose interest in their sick game.

A pair of girl’s shoes suddenly appeared at eye level, and I wondered if more children were about to escalate my abuse. But instead, a confident voice shouted at the boys.

“Leave her alone!” the voice said.

“I wouldn’t stick up for the freak if I were you,” one of the boys replied. “Unless you want to get hit, too.”

“See what happens if you do,” the girl replied cockily.

I peeked out from behind my book just in time to see the boy pull his arm back, ready to throw a rock into her face. Without hesitation, the girl took one step forward and swung her other foot up, connecting between the boy’s legs. He collapsed on the ground as the rest of the group scattered.

“You kicked me!” he wailed.

“I’ll do it again if I see you bother her again,” she said nonchalantly.

I crawled out from under the bench as a teacher rushed toward us. The boy was in tears as the girl smiled down at him.

“What happened here?” the teacher asked.

After a rush of explanations, Sienna was carted off to the principal’s office, still smiling, while the boy was escorted to the nurse. I was worried she would get in trouble at home for defending me, but after school, I found her waiting outside the building.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured me. “My parents don’t care if I stand up to bullies. Want to be my friend?”

That was it. We had been friends ever since. Of course, that friendship was even further complicated by the fact that Sienna wasn’t a member of the pack. Instead, she belonged to a local witch coven.

Many of the older wolves in the pack warned my parents about allowing their daughter to cavort with a witch, but there wasn’t much they could do—not when Sienna had convinced them that she could curse them whenever she felt like it.

As time passed, Sienna had become one of the most beautiful girls in town. Her vibrant green eyes and bright red hair added to her mystique, and she became the focus of romantic affections among the boys in our classes. Despite her growing popularity, she remained a true friend to me, ignoring the invitations to class parties in favor of spending time watching movies at my house.

My parents had always tried to dissuade her from being around me, but Sienna had never been afraid of them. Her family, unlike mine, treated her with kindness and respect. She had been taught to give respect when it was given, which meant that she met my parents’ passive-aggressive comments with sarcasm and indifference. No matter how many times they tried to make her leave, she always returned.

As her photograph disappeared in the cardboard, something inside me snapped. How would I survive without the only friend I’d ever known? I would be fine without my parents, but I couldn’t imagine leaving Sienna.

“What if I refuse?” I countered.

They stopped packing as they both turned around to face me, anger written as plain as day across their faces. It was a look I had seen often over the course of my life but not one I had ever truly gotten used to. Most parents seemed to love their children. But not mine.

“If you embarrass us today by refusing to say your mating vows, I promise that you will regret it,” my father threatened.

“You are leaving this house and this pack today, whether you leave with a mate or by yourself,” my mother continued. “If you don’t marry the alpha, we will disown you and make sure that you are no longer welcome in Sparkle Hollow.”

“Then I’ll go somewhere else,” I countered, still in disbelief that they were making me marry a stranger.

“Where?” my mother sneered. “We’ll make sure all our allies will turn you away as well. There will be nowhere left for you to go. Unless you want to become a rogue and risk what kind of treatment you’d receive among the other werewolves whose families have sent them away, then I suggest you cooperate.”

Dread crept over me as I realized that I was trapped in my parents’ scheme. There was nowhere for me to run, and no one to turn to who could help me. I had been cut off from the kind of support it would take to go against them. My best chance at some semblance of freedom was to marry the alpha, who had agreed to take me and pray to the wolf god that he was a kind man.

I didn’t have high hopes that he was compassionate or intelligent, but anything was better than continuing to live with the monsters who had raised me.

“That’s it,” my father said, zipping the duffel that contained the last of my clothes. “Leah, grab your stuff and meet us at the car.”

---