Rejection on the Alpha #1

CHAPTER 17: Clock Strikes Midnight

“You did brilliantly tonight.”

I glance over, removing my eyes from the scene of the Beta holding his mate in close, fingers curled tight around her upper arms while Councilman Kade Knight steps out from the shadows, hands clasped behind his back while I stand in the gardens. I had my attention sharpened on that Beta female, she caught my eye, she’s soft, vulnerable but from appearance. I couldn’t see through her, not in a way where I could understand whether she’s hiding her strengths or not. Whether it’s just a play, from what I was seeing above. Seeing the view of rooms and just who was where from such a vast sight down below.

I turn back to Kade, not in the mood to go into employee mode after the stunts he let happen in that courtroom.

I clench my jaw, “What do you want?” I mutter.

“Celestine, Charles is his own person. His choice of games and trials are for this year. We must stand by his decisions, no matter their challenge and cruelty—Ah, Elder Elias, I did not see you there.” He says the last part in mild surprise while I watch the Beta girl move from the window after loosening her male’s grip and stepping aside.

“Councilman Kade, we were only in the middle of a few meditation exercises, when I noticed Celestine out here in the dark.” Elias’s voice is smooth in the slight chill of the air, a deep black and blue gush of wind that ruffled my curls.

Kade nods, standing at ease next to me, “Very well. Celestine, I just wanted to wish you best of luck during the trials. Based on recent winnings, I’d say anything you wish to take on, will crumble at your feet.” He murmurs to me, smiling with a wink before leaving for the edge of the hotel where I caught the hood of a figure before they moved.

I turned away from my old professor and the elders as I face the night, stars and crescent moon that skyscrapers couldn’t eclipse with the grassy span in front of me. It’s usual colour tone silhouetted in the deep night, “Still upset with me?” He asks me gently, stepping in next to me with the remaining elders behind us.

I study the moon, “I shouldn’t have snapped, losing my temper wasn’t professional.” I mutter. My type of apology.

He turns to me in the dark, only the lights of the outside on his face, “I am the one who owes you an apology, what I advised you to do on Julius territory was an act of professionalism, not of my true opinion.” He begins with, hesitant yet strong.

I side glance him, “There’s nothing that can be done now.” I murmur, trailing my eyes toward the stars. It’s a deep twirl of midnight blue and black, contrasting the silver moon I’m not eager to howl to, as if the moon goddess herself does not answer my calls, my prayers, she does not confirm my beliefs or respond to questions that never seem to have clear, concise answers.

“Do you feel something for your Alpha? The way he acted this evening, I know it is normal, but...” He trails off when I face him and stare into his eyes, mine holding a resolved touch that was about as deceptive as this place was. Yet the old man before me, who looked like he still had a handsome side to him, looked so convinced and so stilled but it.

“You told me to learn to love him.” I mention.

He studies me, “There is a difference between true love and devotion compared to something far darker and inhuman.” He quakes, his cloak bristling in the light wind.

I glance at his group of elders who never remove their hoods, “You’re all of the elemental lineages, correct?” I ask because I’m digging. Fishing for random, insightful information now. I felt familiar when they were near. Before, I couldn’t put my finger on it, now, it felt like something was pulling me, beckoning my eyes, reaching through my bloodstream in an alluring, intoxicating manner and it was coming from more than one direction.

“Indeed, why do you ask?” Elias asks me, confused as to why I’m interested.

“The pool of truth, Elias. I need to know.” I confess, snapping my eyes back to the moon, since she won’t answer me, I must look elsewhere. That remote connection, the string between a werewolf’s soul and the bond made to the goddess of the moon should have been impossible to feel so ripped away from. So side-lined, like a new footballer trying out for the big leagues, or even a girl not knowing where her puzzle piece would fit in a world of billions of pieces, and she was too afraid she wouldn’t have a piece that fit at all.

He sighs next to me, “You cannot enter that realm, Celestine. There is no way of confirming or denying something that should feel natural and intoxicating. A love so distinctive and raw, igniting and bewildering must come from the soul, and heart. I still don’t quite understand why the werewolf culture is far more brutal than most, especially when assessing love.” He changed his tone now.

Before he was insisting I give Martin my all and even then, give him more.

I eye him now, with disappointment and it takes him off guard, “You’ve never contradicted yourself before, Elder Cardinal. I wouldn’t start now. Good evening.” I tell him, accenting and dragging each word so slick and slow.

“Wait a moment, Celestine.” He urges, stepping forward. I hold the urge to huff, folding my arms, almost defiantly. His eyes hold mine, I purse my lips as he stands in front of me.

“Do you love him?” He asks me slowly. There’s something in his voice that I couldn’t place. Was it fatherly worry? Was it a change of mind in whether he actually cared about a past student or not? I hadn’t known, reading his mind didn’t seem so easy now. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t be bothered.

I barely blink at him, finding it only in my heart not to. I just stare at him, before turning away without another glimpse back, why did he care? It’s not like this was his problem.

I felt the tense atmosphere when I slid into the shared room I had with Martin. He was seated on the couch, a few pillows scattered, he brushes his finger over the rim as I close the door with a soft click behind me and step into the room stoically, “Where were you?”

“In the field. I needed air.” I mutter, taking a seat opposite him with the fireplace to the side between us both, he studies me in a way an astronomer studies the stars, anyone else would find it so hypnotic, where I felt nothing more than the gaze I was forced to see, like rotting fruit on concrete, like dead grass in the middle of Texas. It just didn’t have the kind of effect someone would stop to look at. At least I didn’t.

He lowers his cup down, “What happened tonight...I think we should...talk about it.” He says slow. Slower than usual.

I stare at him, “What is there to question?”

“What you saw, what never happened and the way you reacted, I want to talk about it.” He states, intertwining his fingers as if this is such a disturbingly serious conversation that needed to be underway.

“You mean my lack of a reaction?” I ask him.

He narrows his eyes, before he hmm’s, without following up with something to add onto that, I lean back in my seat, removing my shoes and getting comfortable, “Your Beta didn’t give me the information I needed tonight, not like others had gotten. Your incessant, domineering need to scar me because of disobedience, perhaps even disloyalty is immediately shamed. You did not give me the information I needed to save a goddamn man’s life.” I state, eyes penetrating his silver irises.

His nostrils flare, “Reina acted alone in that, and I can’t say that I blame her. I should have told you, I realise and understand that, but you have showed no interest. I never,everknow where I stand with you.” He stands, hands on bare hips as he moves behind the couch, hands the grip the back of the couch rest.

I bet you he wished it were my neck instead of the hardened back on that precious couch.

“If you had the whole picture, it would be pretty boring.” I add, looking at him in just that: utter boredom.

He tilts his head at me, almost intimidating...almost, “Explain to me why the fuck you can’t love me?”

“Because you cannot force anyone to love you. Especially those who prefer use of torture and abuse over acceptance of rejection.” I counteract, knowing it always makes his atmosphere colder, tenser, like dipping an ice cube into blood, everything sticks and is bitter but diluted and alter all at once.

Suddenly he’s at my side, ripping me up before him, his hand squeezing my upper arm in a threat, a warning he’s giving me, I meet his eyes, feeling loose in his arms, “I’m too tired to deal with anymore of you this evening.” I tell him, truthfully.

“Tough shit,” He spits, getting right in my face. He grasps my jawbone in his hands, eyes flickering from my eyes, to my nose, to my lips, he looked ready to take what he thought was his, before some sort of gas shudders in through my nostrils and before either of us could do anything, my eyes are drooping closed in a deep and dark void of a world.

*****

I woke up in a harsh rush, snapping my eyes open, mouth ripped apart in a gasp of needed breath. The second my lungs filled with air and that blurry dizziness that stung my vision snapped to reality—or at least my reality, whatever this was, it looked like an Alice in Wonderland kind of setting. I tense, looking around among the furry green moss under me, not grass, a meadow-like moss that was soft enough to bounce on. A grassy trampoline making me uneasy when I grunt, standing with a hooked in hunch in my stomach, filled with tense knots and mazes of its own, I was hungry. It was daylight.

But was this kind of daylight real?

Or something else?

I couldn’t sniff anything from the air, moving around a vines tree just to shriek and grab ahold of the tree when almost dropping off a cliff.

The games...they had begun.

And so had I.

I swallow, peeling myself from the tree and turning around, almost expecting to get a jump-start from danger around, but I couldn’t sniff anything in the air, I couldn’t feel it against my skin, before I look down at the suit I’m wearing. Not a dress, I had clearly been changed into something of a deep brown, a camouflaging gear as I feel a breeze and a change of flicker of colour signals that feature.

I stare around the trees that struck out of the ground in magnetising ways, but dizzying too.

I step further away from the cliff edge, what was the objective of this? Not even I knew, with no backpack, no supplies, no food or water...not even a weapon, which was rude. I still at the sound of something ticking all of a sudden, my senses parading and pointing north, I move around the hypnotic placement of the trees, rays of sunshine in some spots and blobs of snow in the other, too unreal and yet here I stood in the half-to-half seasonal environment that was darkening with each step I took.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

It kept going with one of those dark dongs. And that’s when my eyes capture the clock ticking in a seat of moss, like it has its own throne, but it’s pure silver, bright with Roman numbering and sharp arrow-hands pointing directly to midnight.

GROWL!

An extravagant swish of the air has me stilling, but not because of the burly growl that sounded more like a rapid bear, it was the dark shadow among the trees at least thirty metres ahead of me, east to me and running fast in a thunderous, yet suffering way. Deep, it moved like that of a demon, fast and hungry for pain, for fear and for a darkness that can consume someone, no matter how big or small, no matter the creature.

The chime echoed, and I ran. I pump every bit of power into my limbs before that roar and then an inevitable crunch of tree trunks, the clock struck harder, harder than a thunder storm. Mud squished under its paws, I could almost taste how close it was, darting straight towards a set of vines and losing focus, taking a vertical free fall down into a shocking whirlpool before smacking against ice.

Ugh!

“Fuck.” Fuck, it hurt.

My legs felt unmoving, there was the odd tingle, but that recognisable metallic tinge flows paste my lips...blood. I spat out rather than swallowing it back down, I hated the taste, knowing I was healing but still couldn’t move against the ice that should have been a waterfall, given the goddamn sound in the cave, like running water while the ceiling above me looked like a galaxy of stars. Goo-worms I figured, but looked like a pretty image before possible death, after a jump like that.

I grunt, trying to get up and finding I needed just a bit more time, all before the growling moved through the vines and my heart alleviated while I try to shimmy underneath the rock formation I jumped from, I hitch a breath when I see its jaw search left and right above me. I hold my breath as it sniffs the air. The fucking thing can’t of been human...all until I hear a howl. A woman’s howl and the wolf above me snaps it’s head around, before darting out like a terrified pup searching immediately for that howl.

I dump my head down in relief, breathing out, shit—that might of been one of the Alphas. Strictly trying to kill me, how fucking unbelievable?

“...I heard something, we should still split up.” I tense at the masculine voices I heard.

“You heard the Alpha, we’re suppose to be searching for his mate. Alpha Marcel said he was chasing a girl he thought was his, but she ran. Evidently it was his girl, his wolf almost snapped her neck before they started getting it on like rabbits, that calmed him down just to find reasonable thought.” I heard a snicker and rolls my lips in disgust.

“Territorial bastard that one, men don’t need sex just to find reasonable though, you idiot.” I hear one curse.

“Most of the Alphas do. Did you see how miserable the alpha females were in the courtroom? Dude, they treat their women like fucking roaches.” Huh, this conversation actually got interesting.

“All of them? That Collins Luna looked happy.”

“She had the servants ensure she always had a drink in her hand, don’t be fooled. Be glad we’re not Alphas or even Betas, high ranks use to be well-respected in the community, especially for having good morals, now their dicks with podiums to stand on and titles that soon might just die out, man. Look, I need to find Lillian, I thought I heard something and our best chance at finding any of our females lies with bloody Alpha Julius.” I blink, wait, what?

“You think he’s a better alpha? Are you kidding me? Did you even see his Luna? She fucking hates him, Henry.” Ain’t that the truth.

“...she did reject him, though...” Their voices were growing distant.

I swallow and lift up after feeling my legs heal, snapping back into place. I grunt lightly, the raw pain of it had gone, but that ache was still prominent. I tense into a stand, looking around the weird room before hearing lines of footfalls, orders that echo but never quite reach an audible balance. Not in a way I could understand who gave orders and what orders were given in the first place.

I step forward slowly, almost sliding off the ice before immediately moving into the shadows when those footfalls rage nearer, closer and I drop into weirdly warm water separated from the ice and rock, hidden underneath more rock the further I move before shockingly seeing Robert getting five other men to jump back up onto the rock by the mouth of the cave, “Let’s head out, daylight will be soon and then we can branch out and cover more ground. Alpha Terrence says he’ll meet us at the rendezvous point.” He instructs stoically, just before I see him help Reina and I raise an eyebrow, that was fast. He kisses her long and hard.

“We don’t have time for this, Robert.” His deep voice has me tensing with only my head above water, and the light brightening in a way I don’t want.

Robert sighs, before leaping up with Reina snuggling into his arms. Martin stills from the rock and looks down, I hitch a breath yet again, he lowers down onto the ice and picks something up, I freak out when I see him pinching what looks to be a strand of hair. He stares at it for a second, before clenching his jaw, “Fucking delusional.” He mutters under his breath, dropping it and lunging up out of the cave,

I close my eyes in utter relief, about to get out when something hisses.

Dear goddess, what now?

I stare wide-eyed at the snake-like creature that slivers up the vine, it’s dragon mouth camouflaging as it crawls up to the mouth of the cave and follows...well, that’s karma. I shrug, slowly, quietly pulling out of the water and finding intrigue in the fact the suit dries. What I noticed was that none of them, not even Reina, was wearing a suit, nothing like mine at least.

I grip the rock above me, lifting up. I move around the wet rock wall, straight towards a tunnel-like structure with glow-worms along the walls. Blue, green and white, they curled and moved, danced and even sparkled. My eyes burn from the smell when I see dead deer, rabbits and other creatures that can no longer be made out bleeding in the corner.

I inch away, scrunching my nose at the filthy smell as I move around a make-shift table with imprints on it, of maps. The splinters made from pinning paper to it. I look around, feeling the nape of my neck tense as I move slowly into the shadows at the curl of blood that moves as if it has its own body and mind to it.

I breathe in slowly, out painfully when it starts choking the air.

Run.

Run.

I didn’t know this power, I didn’t understand it, but it was damaging. Damaging until it moves into the room with the naked body of a woman, ”Step out, little bird.”

I close my eyes, moving into the light involuntarily, “What are you?” I ask her, opening my eyes.

She stares with no eyes. Breathes with no lungs. Moves without limbs. All I see is blood and shapes of an hourglass body, ”A genie in a bottle. What are you?"

Lovely, she has humour.

I blink at her, “Obviously a wolf but there are other things in play. Do you come with mountains of blood like some creepy summoning?” I ask casually, as if we were discussing the weather while I try hard not to vomit.

She moves closer, ”You aren’t afraid. You shouldn’t be.”

I purse my lips and nod with a whistle on my lips, “Uh huh.” I hmm.

“What do you wish for?"

I stare at her, “Freedom.”

Her arm turns into a tsunami of blood, ”You must defeat me to be granted such a thing. Fly, little bird. Fly.”

Run.

Run.