Her Rejection's Revenge

CHAPTER TWO: SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING

My mother’s words stayed with me for quite a few days. Days of me dodging Brax’s calls and texts because I was still processing what happened and I needed a moment of reprieve to come to terms to my mother’s epic words of encouragement.

I should have seen it coming.

Braxton Cooper bloody cheated on me, and the only thing that my mother could come up with was that he was too good for me?! Aside from that hierarchy thing, I was in every way better than him. I was smarter in school, I was a hard worker, and I was also a much greater human being. How did that mere Alpha bullshit got to make him too good for me?

That was something that I was not buying. Not at all. However, it had been a mistake telling my mother about Braxton’s indiscretion. She was a big fan of my boyfriend, and she wanted to cling to that relationship only because it would elevate my whole family status in the pack. Desperately so.

Agreed that it was a rare thing for an omega to be accepted by the Alpha as his Luna, but is that something I will pay for the rest of my life? Did everyone expect me to forgive Brax and pretended like nothing was wrong? What other choice did I have anyway? If I rejected him now, he would choose another one as his Luna in the crowning ceremony and forsake me without thinking twice about it. Was I prepared to serve his Luna as an omega servant after he rejected me? The mere concept made me cringe in despair.

Sometimes, I wished I were bold enough to make drastic changes in my life. Some real life-changing decisions which would give me better options than staying with a cheating boyfriend or living in the same neighborhood him even after breaking up with him. But I was not bold enough to leave the pack. I doubt my wolf would survive it anyway.

“Have you talked to him yet?” she pounced on me the minute I got back from my classes. I dropped my keys on the counter, removed my coat with lethargic movements and hung it on the stand without replying. I was too depressed in my own thoughts to cater for her insistent needs for once.

You should have seen it coming, my wolf kept telling me as a reproach. It was all my fault. I should have made more efforts to please him. Self-doubts and insecurity plagued me, and my shoulders dropped a little more. Will I never be enough for him?

I’ve already sacrificed my dreams of being a doctor, I changed my whole personality for him. I stifled the smallest of my desire just to keep him happy. What more did he want from me? There was so much pressure on me lately that I felt the tension pulsate over my shoulder blades once again.

“Honey, listen,” my mother was using her pacifying voice which only served to annoy me further. I squinted a look towards my father who was standing next to my mother not speaking a word, but his thunderous expression sent alarms down my spine. “The crowning ceremony is only two days away. You need to patch things with Brax before his ascension to the throne. You know he’s going to announce his Luna on the crowning day, so why don’t you make the first move for a change? Don’t make things harder for him, sugar.”

I was making things hard for him? How about the fact that he had his d*ck buried inside another woman behind my back? Should I be the one making concessions for his atrocious behaviour only because he was experiencing some pressure.

“Zel, are you even listening to me? He phoned so many times for the past days. You should talk to him at least once. Besides, are you going to break things off with him? You won’t survive a day without him. So, I suggest you cool things in your mind and move on from that unfortunate incident.”

Unfortunate incident. I wished I could pin that horrendous scene as an unfortunate incident. But it was an incident that broke my heart to smithereens. Despite our differences, I really fancied myself head over heels in love with him. How was I supposed to accept the fact that my boyfriend had cheated on me?

How did I move on from this and continue to pretend that nothing had happened? I knew why was my mother so adamant for me to fix things with Braxton? She was desperate to climb the social ladder and her daughter married to an Alpha would suit her purpose. But couldn’t she see that in the process, the pressure she was putting on me was too enormous and at the expense of my own happiness?

“Zelda?” my father spoke in his autocratic tone, and my head whipped in his direction, fear filling me. My father Joseph Settlemire was not one to be trifled with. His anger was legendary within the family, and if I defied him, he would have my hide. Although he was an omega, he directly served Alpha Finn and in our hierarchy, my father was considered as royalty. “Your mother’s speaking to you. Why don’t you answer her?”

I was cornered. Flustered, my eyes met my father’s harsh grey slits, and I swallowed hard at the familiar coldness that I found there. I gave a subtle nod of submission.

“Yes, Mom. I will call him right away,” I replied resignedly. Three days. That was all the time I had been spared to mourn my situation. Now, I was supposed to act like nothing was wrong between Brax and me.

Hot tears scalded my eyes, and I fled to my room without giving them the time to drill me any further. I wanted to howl my misery at the unfairness of the situation I found myself in. Why was I being forced to forgive him when I didn’t want to?

My phone rang making me jump, and I peeped at the screen with lackadaisical movement as I was not in the mood to speak with anyone. But when I saw who was calling, I sat up abruptly and connected the call.

“Zen!” I exclaimed in a whiny voice. “Oh how I miss you, honey!” I cried immediately. Zendaya was my elder sister, and since she had moved to Philadelphia a few years ago, nothing had been the same in West Bronx. Zen hated the werewolf hierarchy rules, and she was the rebel who refused to bend to their imposed rules.

She told me the day she would submit to a stupid and arrogant Alpha would be the day of her demise. She even disregarded the mate bond to join an academy in Philly on her own while our parents had disowned her.

“What’s wrong sweetie? What happened to your voice? You sound like you swallowed a frog,” she teased, and I laughed through the tears immediately feeling better at the sound of her voice.

“Oh, Zen! I miss you so much. I really want to visit.”

There was a moment of loaded silence, and I could feel her processing the impromptu sentence which I blurted out. I wasn’t sure that I was ready for Zendaya to find out that Brax cheated on me. She would probably land in the Ocean Howl pack with the butcher knife I had in mind and chop his manhood.

The idea made a giggle escape my lips and I pressed a hand to them as the mirth turned into a bubble of hysteria. But it was too late. I started crying and Zen had already picked up the vibes coming from me.

“Out with it, girl! You are crying. What happened? Did that cocky Alpha of yours break your heart again? I told you to break up with him years ago, but you’re still stuck in his arse like a…. okay, okay,” Zen stopped long enough to take in a breath while I burst into tears at her words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to hurt you. You know I can’t control my mouth. Why don’t you calm down and tell me what happened, quean?” she suggested gently.

More tears gushed from my eyes, and I wiped them away impatiently. I hated myself with my very soul at that moment. How I wished I had the courage to disregard everything like Zendaya had done and get on with my life. I was too stupid to realize my own worth.

“Zen, he cheated on me. I caught him in bed with another girl,” I whispered, wincing as the scene played in front of my eyes once again. Braxton’s face scrunched with pleasure as he reached his pinnacle of pleasure, and the loud moans of that b*tch. I shuddered as another bout of nausea hit me.

“What?!!” There was the expected shocked outburst followed by a moment of silence which I knew Zendaya was processing the information. My sister was never one to pry in anyone’s private matters except mine, but this time, even she was hesitant to utter something. “With whom?”

“Anna Calhoun,” I blurted out, feeling good to have some of the heavy weight off my chest as I confided in my sister.

“Get out of here! Beta Tim’s daughter? I thought she was the school saint. Plus, I didn’t know she was Brax’s type. But then, do we actually know that son of a b*tch? Back in the days he used to be so flaky that I was never sure which was a façade, and which was the real him. Are you sure you saw them?”

I winced as I specifically told my sister that I saw him inserting his thing into Anna’s hole and she refrained from any comment for such a long time that I thought she’d given up on me.

“Oh, quean. That’s such a bad thing to happen,” she sighed using my childhood nickname. I ignored the much-hated moniker because I had other things on my mind at that time. I used to proudly state that I was a queen when I was a five-years old, and Zendaya would correct me saying that I was a quean instead of queen. Quean which meant an impudent shrew.

“I know!” I exclaimed in sheer relief that she was not telling me otherwise like our dear parents. “And mother is telling me that he’s too good for me. Can you believe her? They don’t want to hear about me breaking up with him.”

Zendaya grumbled under her breath. The reason which had spurred her to leave our pack was when I discovered that Brax was my mate. My parents became so desperate for the reunion that they shamelessly pushed me in his direction. The mate bond between us had been strong for either of us to resist.

“Oh Zen. Where did I go wrong? I clung to that relationship against all odds. I mean, everybody was so sure that it was doomed since the beginning, and I did everything in my power to make it stick. Where did I go wrong?:

“Maybe that was where you went wrong in the first place, honey. You held on to it too desperately.”

I groaned in misery. “I really thought that I should work for that relationship given that I was not worth him. I really…”

“See!” she interrupted in an irritated voice. “That’s exactly where you went wrong, sugar. You always underestimate yourself around him. You’ve always been the one to compromise your happiness, your needs as opposed to his. You put him first in every aspect that you lost yourself in the way.”

“What’s wrong in that? I love him. Of course, I would do anything to make him happy,” I protested feebly.

“Well, not at your own expense. Loving someone does not mean that you lose yourself in the process. That you cease to exist without that person. Look at where this leaves you now. He blatantly cheated on you and you’re thinking twice before breaking off with him. If I were in your place, I would not only have ditched his sorry ass, but I would have punched him in the face too. Not questioning whether I went wrong in our relationship. Why don’t come stay with me? We’ll figure things out on our own here.”

I was silent. That was my ticket. Life was offering me a chance to make things better for me. Start over. I deserved someone who treated me better, not some cocky Alpha who bossed around me and illtreated me. However, the picture of his smile caused such a mammoth pain to overwhelm me that I had to take a moment before drawing my next breath.

“I can’t leave him, Zen. I love him too much,” I admitted with a lack of self-respect which made shame crawl over my ears in a surge of blood. I was a damn fool!

My sister sighed but she didn’t judge me, for which I was grateful. “Okay, don’t decide now. Just go to that crowning ceremony wearing your best dress and dazzle everyone. Make him regret what he did to you.”

“You mean the peach dress?” I asked hopefully. That was the dress which Brax and I had chosen together. In fact, it was a gift from him.

She snorted. “Definitely not that one. It looks more orange than peach by the way. And it’s hideous. But a new dress. A sexy one. Which would show that you don’t give a damn about him and that you’ve moved on. Make him sweat.”

The idea seemed to lift my spirits and I pondered about the solution with great interest. It wasn’t a bad suggestion. Shopping was therapeutic, and if anything I would have a new dress which would make me feel better,

Besides, the idea of dazzling everyone had a certain charm. I was pretty enough to make the whole West Bronx fall for me. So why not? With a deluge of thanks to my dysfunctional sister, I dialed the only other person in my circle whom I trusted with my life. My best friend Beatrice Larson, known as Bee.