Rejected and Forsaken

Prologue

At eight years old, Lily considered herself quite the grown-up. She was only two years younger than her brother, after all. That didn't mean she could walk home alone, though, which was why she was following after her brother, Sam, and their neighbor, Kyle.

They always walked home together, but Lily didn’t mind. It meant she got to see Kyle every day after school. Kyle may have been her brother’s friend, but he was also the boy Lily was planning on being with forever.

She just knew that he was the one: her mate. She hoped that one day he would look at her the same way her dad looked at her mom—as if she were his whole world. Even if Lily’s dad was sometimes mean, he loved Lily’s mom, and once day, Kyle would love Lily that much.

She’d planned it all out, and it would be perfect. Unfortunately, Lily was so busy daydreaming about their future that she didn't notice the two boys had started running home without her.

"Sam, wait!" she shouted, trying to catch up with them on her too-short legs. "Kyle!"

Either they didn't hear her, or they didn't care that she was now half a block behind them. They kept running until they were so far ahead of her that there was no way she could catch up. Lily tried to run faster, hating that they had left her behind, but she tripped on the uneven sidewalk, scraping her knees and hands on the rough ground.

She looked down at her knees. When she saw the torn skin and the blood, she couldn't hold back her tears. Lily hated crying because Kyle always said crying was for babies, but she hated blood even more.

After looking at her scraped-up hands, she cried even harder, her sobs loud and ugly. Lily wanted her mom.

Even though she knew the way home, she didn't know if she could walk there all alone now. She waited for a few minutes, hoping Sam and Kyle would come back for her, but when there was no sign of them, she struggled to her feet. Her legs felt stiff and sore as she stood up.

Lily started hobbling down the street but stopped when she heard a car driving slowly next to her. She looked to the side to see a man pull over and get out of his car. He walked over, stopping a few feet away from her.

"Hi there. I saw you fall. Are you okay?" he asked.

Lily knew she wasn't meant to talk to strangers, so she kept quiet and took a small step back.

"Hey, it's alright. I just want to help," he said, his voice soothing. "I can see you're hurt."

Lily nodded, letting a few more tears escape. "It's sore," she whispered, but he seemed to hear her quiet words.

"I know, honey. Maybe I can help you get home," the man suggested, pointing to his car.

"Mom said I mustn't get into cars with strangers," Lily said with a frown.

"But I'm not a stranger,” he told her. “I know your parents."

"If you know them, then what are their names?" she asked, thinking that was a good test to see if he was telling the truth.

He smiled at her. "Rose and Gabriel. And your name is Lily.” He took a step forward and knelt in front of her. “I can take you home to your mom. I'm sure you want to see her, don't you?" He held his hand out to her.

Lily bit her lip while she thought about it. Her mom only said it was strangers she shouldn’t trust, and this man didn't seem like a stranger. "I guess it's okay," she eventually agreed.

She had just taken the man’s hand when she heard her mom screaming her name. Lily looked over her shoulder to see her running toward them.

"Mommy," she exclaimed with a smile, her tears forgotten. Lily tried to run to her, but the man didn’t let go of her hand. She looked at him with a frown. "I want my mom," she told him.

But instead of letting her go, he pulled her toward his car.

"No! Let her go," Lily’s mom screamed as she got closer.

Lily started crying again. She didn’t understand what was happening. The man tried to push her into the car, but her mom grabbed the fingers that were circling Lily’s hand and bent them back. Lily heard a snap.

The man screamed in pain and released his grip on Lily. "You b***h," he roared.

"Run, Lily!" her mom shouted.

Lily watched in horror as the man slapped her mother across the face. He hit her so hard that she landed on the ground a few feet away. He walked over to her and picked her up by her hair.

"Mommy!" Lily screamed, running over to help.

She kicked the man's leg, hoping he would let her mom go, but it didn't seem to affect him. He shoved her away before taking hold of her mom again.

The man shook the woman. "Stop struggling," he yelled into her face, making her flinch. "I was told to get the girl, but the Alpha's wife might be even better," he said with a terrifying grin.

Lily’s mother turned her face toward Lily and mouthed the word 'run'. Lily stayed long enough to see her mom knee the man between his legs and then kick his chest when he fell to his knees. She turned and ran for home, knowing she needed to get her dad.

Lily sprinted as fast as she could. It didn’t feel fast enough, and when their house finally came into view, she screamed, "Daddy!" at the top of her lungs.

She could see him playing catch with Sam and Kyle in the yard, but at the sound of Lily’s scream, his gaze snapped to her. His eyes widened, and then he was running to her. When he reached her, he looked her up and down.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes locked onto the blood on her knees.

"You have to help Mommy," Lily told him, tears thickening her voice. "There's a bad man."

He didn't wait to hear another word before he started running in the direction she had come from. She followed after him, and Sam and Kyle joined her, overtaking her within seconds. By the time Lily got to where she had left her mom, everyone else was already there. The man's car was gone, but Lily wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

Her dad was kneeling on the ground, cradling something in his lap. Lily walked closer and saw that it was her mother. Sam and Kyle were staring down at her motionless body with wide eyes and serious faces.

"Mom?" Lily said softly, but her mother didn't move, and her eyes stayed closed. "Mommy?" she said louder, but her mother still didn't wake up.

Lily looked at her father, hoping he would tell her everything was going to be okay, but tears were streaming from his eyes.

"Daddy?" she whispered.

"She's dead," he said flatly. "She's dead," he repeated in a daze. His words shattered Lily, but he didn't seem to notice that he’d broken her into pieces, even when his gaze turned to her. "What happened?"

She was too shocked to answer him, his words echoing cruelly in her heart. She's dead. She’s dead. When Lily only shook her head in denial, he shouted the question again.

"It...it was the bad man," she explained through her sobs. "He saw me fall...and...and he said he would take me home. I was going with him, but then Mommy came, and he didn't want to let go of my hand.”

Her dad looked angry now, and she didn't like that. Her dad was an Alpha, and Lily knew that meant he was the strongest in their pack. He lifted her mother's body off of his lap. He placed it gently on the ground, but his clenched jaw showed he was ready to punch something like he often did when he was mad.

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Lily said desperately.

He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and shook her. "Didn't we teach you anything? We told you not to get into cars with strangers!" he screamed at her.

"He knew our names, so I thought it was okay to go with him," she told him, trying to make him understand.

"Are you stupid?" he shouted before shoving her to the ground. "Why didn't you just run home? Maybe if you had, she would still be alive." His voice broke as he pointed to his mate’s body.

His words were like knives slicing into Lily’s skin. She felt every one of them cutting her open. She looked to her brother for help, but he averted his gaze, remaining silent in the face of their father’s anger.

"Sam?" she said brokenly, but he refused to look at her. She turned her gaze to Kyle next, only to find disgust in his eyes.

Lily’s mother was dead, and everyone else she loved thought it was her fault. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe her dad was right.

Lily walked to her mom's body and tried to take her hand, still holding out hope that the woman might just be sleeping. When she reached out, though, her dad slapped her hand away.

"Don't touch her!" he screamed.

Kyle added another wound to the collection of invisible cuts on her skin by stepping up to her and pushing her back. "Just go away,” he spat. “This is your fault!"

Lily stumbled away from them, not understanding how everything had gone so wrong. She turned and ran home, not stopping until she was curled up under the blanket on her head. She wanted to hide from the world and from her family and Kyle.

She prayed that when she woke up the next day, everything would be back to normal and her mom would still be alive. She hoped it was all a terrible dream, and she’d wake up to her mother’s smiling face and to the smell of pancakes or bacon wafting up to her room from the kitchen. She wished she would wake up, and it would be just like any other day.

But it was nothing but fantasy and useless hoping. Lily should have known that things would only get worse—much, much worse.