Atonement (#2 of the Spike pack)

22… I was 22 on that horrific day… I had woken up, just like any other ‘normal’ day. My alarm had gone off, I had gotten up, taken a quick shower, jumped into a pair of black jeans and a black tshirt, gotten out of my room and went to look for Ash and Jamie, my two best friends, or maybe even closer than that. We did, however, see each other as ‘brothers’, maybe not by blood, but with far deeper meanings than that, we needed to, especially when living inside this shithole of a pack under Alpha Michael's command. Yup, a pack. I lived inside the Spike pack. A pack of f*****g werewolves, where I had lived for most of my miserable life. Yup, I said it, miserable. My life was f*****g miserable. My dad had been stupid enough to get a human girl pregnant, but didn’t make the effort to change her into a werewolf herself along the way, making that during the delivery, she had simply died, giving birth to me, yup…a werewolf. I had gotten those strong genes from my screw-up-dad. Maybe my mom had loved me? I would simply never know, but there was no love between my parents, there never had been. To my father, my mother had been a quick f**k, and I simply had been a stupid mistake, which had followed that quick f**k, nine months later. So, with a dead mom, my dad didn’t have any other choice, but to take me into the pack where he lived, the f*****g Spike pack. Until one day, he had died as well, dueling another wolf for some stupid argument they both had. Leaving me all by myself at the glorious age of 11. Ever since then, it has been Jamie, Ash and little old me against the world. And even though Ash’s father was the Alpha of the Spike pack, the three of us still felt like we were all orphans. Parentless, or just with one shitty one of them left. Growing big and strong to take over the world one day, together. But that day, that f*****g day when I was 22, when I was just heading down the stairs, minding my own damn business, I had felt it. It was like a 'ping' that went off in my mind. I had heard stories about it, I had even seen it from time to time, although not a lot inside the Spike pack, since there weren’t so many of us living here, but it was there. My heart started to race as I picked up a particular scent. MATE! My nostrils flared, as I went after the particular scent, following it, and searching for its owner, who was my mate, my true mate. There weren’t a lot of mates inside our pack, but I knew that having a mate was a f*****g blessing. Finding your mate, was finding your partner for life, your other half. And because of being on my own for most of my life, a hidden part deep inside of me, secretly had been craving for it, desired it. I didn’t want to be alone, I wanted to share my life with someone, I wanted to matter to someone. I wanted to be able to be happy, to love someone and be loved in return, unconditionally. And before I knew it, I wasn’t even able to get my damned smirk off of my own face, as I walked through the pack house, the scent pulling me right into the kitchen, where a few she-wolves were standing and talking to each other while making breakfast for the pack house, until I could see that one of them tensed up, her shoulders pulled up and I knew for a fact, that she could sense it too, she sensed me too, her mate. She was my mate! However, when she turned around to face me, my heart dropped inside my stomach almost immediately. Francesca? Really? I am mated to Francesca? My hands fisted while they were still inside my pants-pockets while I was trying to come off as relaxed, cool. Francesca was well known inside the pack, well known for her slutty behavior towards almost every male wolf. And she shared her bed with a lot of them as well. Fuck, didn’t Ash have s*x with her at one point? Feeling how anger filled me up, as I thought about that, I was still able to look up at her, make eye-contact with her, and to my surprise, she was staring at me with big eyes, as if she wasn’t expecting this to happen at all. Relax get over yourself So what if she’s not a virgin anymore? Right? That just makes her... experienced? SHIT... My wolf, Sem, was growling inside of me. Hating the fact that our mate had not saved herself for her true mate, I should have been the one to kiss her first, to touch her first, f**k… she was mine! Why didn’t she wait for me? And how the hell was I going to talk to her, without me flipping out about it? Without me losing my s**t… the pack whore I am mated to a f*****g pack w***e! My life is a f*****g joke. But I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. I needed to relax, we would be able to work this out, I was sure of it. The mate bond would make it work. We will make it work. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I asked her, seeing how other Omega’s inside the kitchen turned to look at the both of us. Francesca seemed to be thinking about her answer, before she laid down a knife which she was using to cook, and nodded, stepping over towards me. Her scent became stronger, and I had to fight the urge to hold her, her scent was a f*****g drug, pulling me in. I needed to relax myself, first talk, The rest would come after that. Francesca walked straight past me and walked outside, and I followed her, closing the kitchen door behind us, giving us some privacy. But I was surprised, as I turned to look at Francesca, seeing how she had her arms crossed in front of her chest, and looked at me, as if she was pissed off by all of this. “Seriously?” She asked me, making me frown. “Seriously, what?” I asked her, having no clue what she was talking about here. “It’s my birthday today, I just turned 18.” She sighed, shaking her head, as she looked away from me. “Ok? Happy birthday.” I told her, seeing how she rolled her eyes and seemed bored by the presence of me. “Seriously, Luke. This was not what I had signed up for.” She spoke, shaking her head as she looked at me. “Signed up for what? Francesca, what the hell are you talking about? You are my true mate, you can’t choose who you are mated to. The Moon Goddess made us for each other.” I told her, again, seeing that my words seemed to be annoying her. What the hell is her problem? “I didn’t sign up for this.” She yelled, waving her hand between the two of us. “You are a nobody, Luke. Maybe one day, if you’re lucky enough, you can become a Gamma, a f*****g Gamma… third in line...I can’t believe this shit.” She sighed, as if she was speaking more to herself than to me. “So?” I asked her, lifting my hands in wonder. “I want more, I deserve more.” She spoke, shrugging. “I want someone like Ash.” She told me, looking me straight in the eye as she said it. And even though I knew who she was, and even though I actually didn’t even like her that much, because of her reputation, her words broke my heart on the spot. My mate, my true mate, the person that the Moon Goddess had made just for me, just said out loud that she wanted someone else, more than she wanted me. She just said that she wanted my best friend, more than she wanted me, her true mate. And besides heartbreak, I felt something else, I felt anger growing inside of me, so much f*****g anger. My mom had left me when she had given birth to me, my father had left me because he couldn’t keep his damned mouth shut when he needed to. And now, as if fate would have it, my own mate was about to leave me, because she claimed I wasn’t good enough for her, just for a f*****g title? What did she rather have? A good Gamma, or a dead beat Alpha who treated his own people like s**t? And as anger filled me up even more, and made me livid, made me see red, I took a step closer to her, my eyes never leaving hers. “Well, if I’m that low for you, get this s**t over with.” I growled at her, seeing how Francesca looked up to me, I spotted something in her eyes, maybe something that the mate bond was doing to her right now, but clearly, I wasn’t important enough. Her inner b***h was far greater than the mate bond towards me, so she just grinned at me, sticking her chin in the air. “I, Francesca Henderson of the Spike pack, hereby reject you, Luke Fergon, future Gamma of the Spike Pack, as my true mate.” My hands fisted even further, as a sharp pain went through my heart, hearing her words. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, I wanted to crawl into a dark corner and just kill myself, but I couldn’t. I was so f*****g mad, I felt like a statue, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, all I could do was let my anger and my hate have the best of me at the moment. “And I, Luke Fergon, future Gamma of the Spike pack, hereby accept your rejection, Francesca Henderson of the Spike pack.” And I leaned in closer to her, as I whispered at her. “Nobody would want the pack slut anyway.” And seeing that she was fast, I still was much faster than her. She had lifted her hand and wanted to slap me in the face for saying what I had just said, but it was useless for her to even try. I had gripped her hand and held it in the air, shaking my head as I looked down at her. “And let me make a promise to you right now, sweet Francesca. There will not be one day when you will ever be on my mind again. You just lost the best thing in your life.” Francesca pulled her hand loose, looking at me and, for the first time, looking at me as if she feared me. “One day, I will be Luna of this place, and that will be the day when I will make you pay for this.” She growled, her free hand rubbing her wrist which I had just held in my hand. Oh, did I hurt the little slut? Boohoo. But all I could do, was shake my head and grin at her. “Do you really think Ash would want you, after almost the entire pack has f****d you? Because honestly, then you don’t know the man at all. Who knows what kinds of diseases you have on you.” And with that, I turned around and left her alone at the kitchen door, not bothering to look around again. I made my way back to my room, where I slammed the door shut, ran into the bathroom, started the shower and found myself in there, two hours later, sitting under the stream of water, crying my eyes out, because once again, someone did not want me, someone had left me. My heart was broken, my soul was scattered. How in the world was I ever going to function normally ever again after this? How was I supposed to live here, being forced to see her every day? The one who did not even want me as a mate… To see her around other men, to hear the stories of how she was trying to f**k her way up the tittle-ladder… Once, my tears ran dry, and my sobs had long stopped. I formed a little plan inside of my mind. I was living a shitty life. I was living inside a shitty pack, and the Moon Goddess had given me a shitty mate to match, who had just rejected me in a shitty way. My whole life was just pure s**t. There was no way in hell that I would ever be given a second chance mate, and if I would, then she would probably be shitty as well, just like Francesca was. Romance stories only happened on TV or in books, they just simply weren’t real. They were a fantasy, and these fantasies would not play around in my head anymore. So, I made a promise to myself, I would feel no rejection anymore. I would live my life the way I wanted it to. I would never, ever give someone the chance to reject me again. I wouldn’t give anyone the chance to be able to walk out on me, ever again. Nobody would ever leave me again, because I would never, ever let someone inside of my heart, ever again.