Rejecting my mate

5. She's really gone

Melissa's POV

I wasn't really aware of what happened the next few days, I was in limbo, too broken by my loss to notice what was going on around me. I know that at some point Paul came and found me. He helped me up and tended to me, until I noticed he was hurt and returned the favor, or at least I think I did. I was moving on automatic, not really aware of my actions. I was too consumed by the pain of losing my mother to care about anything else. I think that at some point I ate, even took a shower, but most of it was a blur.

I don't remember much about my mother's funeral, it was hard to see anything through the tears. I heard people talking about how great she was and how loved she was by everyone, and the anger inside me burned higher. They had all turned their backs on her when my father died, she had been their female Alpha and they had ignored her for years, not caring about her pain or her problems. How dare they speak of how much they loved her if they had abandoned her long ago?

I couldn't wait until I could leave the Pack, I wanted to walk away and leave all of them. They could all drop dead for all I cared. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I knew that the first step was to go and find my mate. It wasn't until the first full moon after my eighteen birthday that I could recognize him, but I was a few days from turning eighteen and only a few more from the full moon. That day I would be able to renounce my Alpha and leave the Pack, something my mom and I had planned to do together, but no matter how painful it was to leave her behind, I needed to keep going with our plans, I needed to go and live my life. I wouldn't allow my mother's sacrifice to be in vain, I would honor her by fulfilling her wishes for me.

I noticed the funeral was over when I was pushed away. The numbness still remained, I wasn't sure if it was still a consequence of the Alpha command, or grief that was keeping me under, but at the moment I welcomed the feeling. I needed to think and plan for what was coming, and the numbness was a good place to be while I did that.

I was just walking in the direction they pointed, until Paul came and put his arm around my shoulders, trying to take me in the other direction. As soon as I stopped following, the enforcer that had been guiding me turned on us.

“She has to come with us,” he said.

“She will be coming with me,” Paul said.

“I’m sorry, but she has to come with me to the Pack House,” I hadn’t realized they weren’t taking me home, and I frowned at that, some of the numbness clearing for a moment at knowing they were taking me to the Pack House, also known as the Alpha’s harem.

“Why?” I asked the enforcer.

"The Alpha didn't want you to stay alone," was the response, but I knew that wasn't the reason.

“She won’t be alone, she will be with me,” Paul said.

“You better stay away from this is you don’t want another beating,” another enforcer said. Five of them gathered around us.

“It’s okay,” I told Paul. “I will go looking for you as soon as I can.”

I went with them to the Pack House, I had no other choice, but I knew exactly why Hunter wanted me there. I was lucky that I was underage, even if for some people shifters were base and animalistic people, and even if sometimes we were overtaken by our animal instincts, the fact was that we have some rules that no one would dare to break. Since you couldn't recognize your True Mate until you were considered an adult, underage s*x was prohibited. Not that a few decided to experiment anyway, but it was not something that most people indulged in. True Mates were very important, but not everyone could find theirs, you only had one and some died before finding their other half, while some waited for years for the chance of meeting them, some choose to mate with someone they knew or trusted if they couldn't find them. If I didn't find my True Mate in the next full moon, I knew the Alpha would start pressuring me to become one of his w****s, and even if r**e was not allowed and highly punished, there was nothing to stop him from finding ways to force me into accepting him, like he had tried with my mother. She had chosen to die rather than be with him, but I hoped I could run away before having to make that decision.

I was taken into the common area on the first floor, and for the first time since I could remember, the Alpha's brats didn't attack me as soon as they looked at me, they gave me space, something I welcomed, even if it was suspicious. I couldn't believe they were doing that because they cared about me or respected my pain, they were too sadistic for that. Either they were planning something and needed me to lower my guard, or their father had given them the instruction, and I wasn't sure which option was worse. The enforcer that had taken me there said his goodbyes and left, and I just stood there, not knowing what to do. When the brats and the w****s started staring at me, I decided it was time to move, and went to a corner where I could sit and think. A few hours later, maybe just a few minutes, one of them put a plate of food in front of me, I think I ate it, not that I remember, but then it disappeared. People started to leave, until the room was empty, it was then that the Alpha walked in and looked at me.

"Are you going to stay there?" he asked.

"I want to go home," I said pitifully, “or with Paul, I know him, he would take me.”

"Forget about it, this is going to be your new home, you are underage, and shouldn't be alone or with random males. Here, come with me," I followed him until we walked into the kitchen. "That will be your bed for now," he pointed to what looked like a dog bed, one so small my wolf would only be able to fit her head in it. "Once you turn eighteen and go past the ceremony to introduce you into our Pack, you can move to my bed," he finished with a smile, the real reason he didn’t want me with Paul clear as day.

I didn't say anything, in part because I was too surprised and angry to talk back, and in part because I knew that once I started talking I wouldn't be able to stop, and I couldn't make him angry, couldn't give him an excuse to hurt me before the ceremony. Once I was recognized as an adult, I could reject him as my Alpha and move away. Something I was sure of, I would never share a bed with the man responsible for the death of my parents.

I thought I was too angry to sleep after he went away, I sat on the bed and went over my options, but I must have fallen sleep at one point, because I was waken up by the banging of pots.

"Oh, good, you're awake," one of the w****s said, "then you can earn your keep, help prepare breakfast."

Moving hurt, after sleeping on the hard floor in my human skin, my body was aching, but I got up and went to help. The Pack House was supposed to be the Alpha's house and a safe haven for those who needed somewhere to be, and I was sure that's what it was under my father's reign, but now, only the w****s and the brats lived in it. Some other women lived for a few days or weeks, women that needed a favor or were coerced like he had tried to do with my mother. I suspected that the women that cooked and cleaned the Pack House were women that like my mother, were being punished for not sharing his bed. All they had to do was to agree to sleep with him and wouldn't have to keep working. And I was one of them now.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked Letta, she was just a few years older than me, and still was unmated, which was the reason the Alpha was after her.

"Just stay here, so it seems you are working and no one will try to bother you, but there's no need for you to work," she said kindly. "You shouldn't be here, you are still mourning and he mocks your pain by keeping you here."

"It's the law, she is underage, and falls under the Alpha's protection," another woman whispered. I didn't know her name, only knew she had come following her mate, who died a few years later, and had stayed instead of returning to her own pack. I didn't know if she had children, but I suspected that was the reason she stayed, for the children would be under the Pack's protection and couldn't leave with her. Trapped, just like my mother had been.

"Only for a couple more days, and after the Full Moon ceremony, I will be able to leave," I said.

"Do not speak such things where you can be heard," Letta warned, "females don't leave their packs unless they go with their mates."

"That's just custom, not law," I said, something I had heard my mother said a thousand times.

"Better not to risk it, don't give anyone a chance to make you change your mind, keep the secret and stay safe," was the other woman's advice, and I realized it must be something she had already considered.

I followed their advice, I stayed silent and out of the way, I didn't want to attract the attention of the inhabitants of the house, especially not the Alpha's. I tried to help in the kitchen, to help with the cleaning, everything I could do to keep busy, and make time go faster, I wanted... no, I needed time to fly by.