The Alpha's Mystical Mate

Chapter 2 : Rejection

The next morning, Ashley came banging at her door. It was not even five in the morning when Laurel had to squint her eyes and limp her way out of the attic.

Her body was broken and repaired so many times that sometimes it acted up after a night's sleep. Occasionally it was her arm that refused to work, or her head would feel extremely groggy. This morning it was her leg that refused to coordinate.

"Get ready to leave!" Ashley screamed in her face.

Laurel washed up, changed into a decent pair of T-shirts and jeans, picked up her bag and followed Ashley out.

It was not the first time she had to follow Ashley somewhere. Anytime she needed someone to carry her things or even a visit to a shop, she had Laurel go with her to carry her things. This time Laurel was going to act as a proper assistant.

Before leaving, Laurel was pulled aside by Ana. Her long fingers were poked into Laurel's face with a warning flashing in her eyes.

"Make sure Ashley is fine. If there is as much as a scratch on her body, I will skin you alive and not even your own father will be able to recognize you!"

Ana's threat was not scary enough, but Laurel knew it was true. Laurel thought her father wouldn't be able to recognize her even if she was not skinned. After all, he had not bothered to look at her for so long and shouldn't remember what she looked like.

Despite thinking so, Laurel nodded solemnly as she still held an immense fear of death. She followed Ashley to the car. Max was going to drive them to the spot and later her friends would drop them back home. Laurel only then found out what so much fuzz was about.

In fact, the place they were going to hang out all day was none other than the outskirts where rarely people showed up, and they wouldn't be returning until late at night.

Laurel was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the thought of having to be around Ashley's friends. They were Ashley's friends and definitely wouldn't be generous enough to spare her any point of humiliation.

The moment Max left them on the spot, Laurel gripped the bag and convinced herself that nothing they did could be worse than Ana's beating. At least she could run away or something if they thought it was fun to bully her.

It wasn't until she spent some time with them that Laurel found out just how naive her thoughts were.

Laurel had three friends who she was going to hang out with. Two of them were young boys and one girl. The girls and boys were the best of friends. Laurel did not plan on knowing their names, let alone talking to them.

She was too busy preparing for Ashley's comfortable picnic and arranging everything they needed her to. Ashley commanded and Laurel did it. That was her job.

It went on until evening when the sun started to set over the horizon and a scary nighttime started to arrive.

That was when an uninvited guest arrived to crash their party. Laurel was in charge of grilling the food in a corner of the abandoned park, so all she could hear was the excited screams of the group and inhaled a load of smoke into her lungs.

Grilling was not for the weak.

At first Laurel did not think anything of it. All she could see from her spot was another young man who drove over and hugged the group of four one by one. Ashley then refused to let him go and clung to him. An idea flashed through Laurel's mind, but she quickly threw it away because it was none of her business.

As they were singing together by the camp fire, Laurel went over to serve them freshly made skewers of meat and vegetables. The bruises on her arm were well covered by the dark long sleeved t-shirt and her timid movements were almost unrecognizable in the darkness.

It was just as hard to see where she was going when they did not even give her a torch to see clearly in the dark. Moving closer to the group, Laurel was able to see the young man who arrived and took a quick gasp.

He was handsome.

Maybe it was the load of smoke messing with her internal organs, but Laurel was actually able to sense his fruity scent all the way to where she stood. Distracted momentarily, Laurel did not see the rock on her foot and tripped on it.

The tray of skewers falls on the grass and pebbles, making a harsh clang.

The food dropped and Laurel squeezed her eyes in horror. Her body hurt like hell when the bruises and wounds that were not fully healed came into contact with the hard ground. It was not easy to get up, but before she could even try, a foot landed heavily on her outstretched hand, and she pressed on it.

Laurel screamed in pain.

"Useless!" Ashley exclaimed angrily, "You had one job, and you couldn't even do that properly!"

Laurel wanted to say something but unexpectedly could not find any words. She was overwhelmed by the fruity scent that was getting closer. The group of friends were a step late in following Ashley.

They circled around Laurel, every one of them had an expression of amusement as if they were watching a show. The moment that young man with the fruity scent came closer, Laurel's eyes flashed darker.

She has a hunch.

No...

Laurel lifted her eyes to look at him with desperation leaking like tears from her eyes. They were a result of pain or prayer was unknown.

The young man seemed to have felt it too, but his reaction was completely opposite to that of Laurel. The disgust in his eyes couldn't be hidden. The sneer on his lips was more hateful than Ashley's.

"What are you looking at?!" Ashley found her staring at Justin and kicked her arm away.

Grabbing her by the hair, she lifted Laurel's head off the ground and pushed it back into the grass before rubbing her cheeks onto the grass and tiny pebbles. The harsh edges of the pebbles scrapped her cheeks until they were raw and blood showed.

Laurel kept crying in pain, but the tears only made the wound hurt more. She cast another desperate glance at the young man in hopes of being saved.

"Ashley wait!" Justin finally spoke up. Laurel's eyes lit up with hope and joy. Finally...

"Are you going to kill her?" Justin frowned upon thinking of the consequences and added, "If you are, then let me do something first."

Laurel's heart skipped a beat, but it was not out of excitement but something similar to horror. He did not seem to be helping her …

Ashley was not happy about it.

"There is nothing to think about. I can't kill her, but I can beat her to the point of losing consciousness," Ashley kicked Laurel's torso hard, "She won't be able to do anything. What is it that you want to do?"

The young man named Justin crouched by Laurel. Her body was sprawled on the ground, tears streaming down her face.

She looked pitiful but at the moment there was no one who had even an ounce of sympathy for her. All she was reduced to was the butt of a joke that Ashley and her friends could laugh at whenever they thought of her.

"Let me reject her first…" Justin said, extracting a series of gasps from the rest of them.

Ashley was so shocked that her eyes were about to pop out of the sockets. She grasped Justin's jacket collar and asked, "What do you mean?!"

Justin rolled his eyes and touched her fingers, "I mean that this girl unfortunately happens to be my mate. Whatever you want to do with her, do it later. First, let me reject her, so I don't have to live with this burden for another second. I really can't bear it."

"What is her name?"

Laurel pressed her nose to the ground. The ground was mixed with the smell of crushed grass, dirt, her blood and tears were mixed into it, ruining the refreshing scent.

She should have known.

Why would anyone accept her for what she was? Laurel was a broken, useless thing. No one in their right mind would want her. And definitely not someone Ashley was acquainted with. Laurel could already tell that Ashley had some intentions towards Justin, and they were not just limited to friendship.

Not only was she going to be rejected, but also beaten up more by Ashley.

Justin's next words came like an unstoppable arrow towards her heart.

"I, Justin Aguera, reject you, Laurel Hopewell, as my mate."

It was that easy.

That sentence was said without a second thought.

The simple words held so much weight and so much pain that it felt like Laurel's heart was being ripped apart. Laurel gripped her chest with the hand that was still working. She squirmed on the ground in pain. She couldn't even make a sound. Her body was covered in dirt but none of them had the sympathy to help her.

They only sneered at her and left one after the other. Ashley was the last one to leave and she did so after leaving another kick to Laurel's ribs and a harsh curse.

The camp fire was still a few feet away. As long as they sang loud enough to drown out Laurel's painful gasps and turned their backs on her, they could forget that they left Laurel alone in pain.

Laurel was used to the pain, but it did not mean she was not afraid of it. It hurt all the same even after so many years of experience. And the pain of being rejected was a hundred times worse.

When the pain was so intense, it was impossible to keep track of time. Laurel only remembered the pain slowly receding and her eyes drooping with exhaustion when dawn lit up the sky orange.

Laurel had not relaxed for ten minutes when she felt a kick in her back. Her entire body twitched due to the numbness.

"Pack up everything! We are leaving!" Ashley unceremoniously kicked her again and ordered.

At once, all the memories of the night before poured into Laurel's mind. From seeing Justin and thinking he looked good to the point he rejected her. It took no more than half an hour between the two points. Laurel must have set a world record of being rejected within half an hour of meeting her mate.

As much as she knew that eventually she would be rejected by her mate, she was not expecting it to go down like that.

With her body limping and arms shaking, Laurel picked up everyone one by one and placed them in the car.

The skin on her cheek was rubbed raw and dead blood was mixed with dirt. Laurel was too busy dealing with the pain of rejecting to heal those words.

Besides, at this point, Laurel couldn't even bother with it. She did not see the necessity of healing it when her heart was already broken into shards.

As hurt as she was, Laurel still couldn't stop herself from stealing a glance at Justin. He was laughing with Ashley and others as if last night had not happened at all. As if he did not just inflict the pain of a thousand swords on Laurel.

The residual pain from last night was still lingering all over her body. The central point being her heart as it spread to every limb.

Self-depreciation came in the form of tears when she realized that the one thing she looked forward to with hope was gone from her life.

She did not think her mate would be happy to have her, might even reject her, but definitely not like that. Never like this. It shattered a part of her that could never heal.

Besides, her only hope of leaving behind the dreadful life with her stepmother and Ashley was now gone as well.

Even Lauren did not know how she managed to clean up everything and filled it all into the large trunk of the car. It was more like a minivan than a car.

Laurel was left to be stuffed in the back with miscellaneous things. She sat in a crouching position, slowly using all her residual strength to heal herself. After all, she still had to go back home and resume her daily life of serving Ana.

As she stared down at her scrapped fingers and the sting on her cheek started to come back again, Laurel came to terms with the fact that her life was never going to get better from this point forward.

The only thing she hoped that could bring about good things in life had appeared and disappeared from her life within the span of a few hours. It was ridiculous, no matter how much Laurel tried to tell herself it was not.

No one was as pathetic as she was.

Still, Laurel had to live. She survived at the cost of her mother. She couldn't give up despite her life being synonymous with hell.

Rubbing her shoulders until they were warm, Laurel closed her eyes to help herself accept the reality of her life. At least not, it couldn't get any worse than it already was. Nothing else could possibly throw her down any further.

As the minivan drove back to the packed city, one by one each person was dropped with their own things. The van belonged to Justin as he joined the group at the end.

In the end, only Ashley and Laurel were left. Justin drove over to their house and helped Ashley out of the passenger seat. Laurel opened the door and got out, slowly taking out Ashley's things before she started complaining.

"It was nice hanging out with you guys. I am so glad mom gave me permission. I'll be able to do such outings more often now!" Ashley excitedly hugged him after saying that.

Laurel's fingers tightened on the bag. She stood behind the trunk of the car, hidden from their direct view, but Laurel had a clear picture of what was going on. Laurel knew Ashley hated her and that she liked Justin. It couldn't be any more obvious from the way she behaves around him.

Laurel was not in love with Justin either, so it did not hurt in that way. But it still stung as Justin was the one person who shared a bond with her and how ruthlessly he severed that bond. That's what hurt. She was not even someone worth considering. Just a piece of useless trash they could beat up anytime they wanted.

With the idea of not watching them being like that, Laurel hung her head and carried Ashley's bags back into the house. Behind her, Ashley turned her head and glared at her hunched back. She snorted in disgust and reached for another hug from Justin.