The Rejected Omega’s Destiny

5. Aftermath

*** ALARICK’S POV ***

My chest felt like it was about to cave in from the pain that squeezed my heart harshly enough to make me consider I was having a heart attack. Breathing was hard, and I could not bring myself to do anything but stand in my spot and watch Morrighan as she put more distance between us with each step she took.

Fenris itched to chase her. To take back what I had said, to beg for forgiveness. The chance of a mate was once in a lifetime. Rejecting your fated mate was a crime against our own nature, against our Goddess, as we only had one chance. She always picked the right one! She always chose with care and love and a genuine understanding of our need to have one mate for our entire life.

Yet, here I was. Denying who I was, for the sake of a steady alliance with one of the biggest packs.

Morrighan ran right towards the pack house, and I knew that for as long as we lived under the same roof, Fenris would never let this slip from him. He’d crawl to her, and he’d do anything to have his mates’ forgiveness. But I could not let that happen.

As Morrighan runs past the house and her figure disappears into the woods, realisation strikes both Fenris and me.

We won’t find her in the morning. She won’t be in the kitchen cooking breakfast. She won’t be in her bed… she won’t be in reach- and I couldn’t deny that it terrified me to an instinctual level.

Fenris forces me to take a step forward, howling in pain, and despite the cacophony of feelings that almost overwhelmed me, I don’t follow Morrighan. She’d come back. She’d come back in a day or two. That’s how Morrighan was, after all. Where would she go? Who’d take someone like her in?

I keep repeating that to myself, trying to silence Fenris who has gone borderline rabid with his desire to chase after her. It takes a while, but eventually, he calms down, and I am able to snap out of the initial shock of the rejection, which is a strong headache making the edge of my vision slightly blurry.

Each step sends a bolt of pain through my body, and it takes every ounce of power I have left in my body to make it to the porch of the pack house. Just before I am about to enter the house, a loud howl fills the forest, waking almost every beast within it while clouds start to gather in the previously starry sky.

The wind picks up, and a chill rushes through my body.

‘Our mate is in danger!’ Fenris growls, and I almost snap.

“She is not our mate!” I bark, making the wolf within me still in surprise. “Omega is not fit to be our mate! And omega is not fit to bear kits for us! An omega is nothing but worthless trash!” I repeat the words that have been repeated over and over in the house.

They felt bitter on my tongue and I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit the truth behind my thoughts.

‘Mate or not… she’s part of the pack.' Fenris starts again, and I think my head is about to explode. ‘We need-'

“We need to do nothing! Call it natural selection, and let me be!” I hiss under my breath, as I press my hand over my forehead and let out a pained grunt.

The door of the pack house opens, and Miranda locks eyes with me. She seems to have been wide awake, and she presses her lips together as she reaches her hand up, picking a strand of grass out of my hair. I tilt my head out of her reach and push past her into the house, ignoring the thunderstorm that was about to start.

Miranda hesitates as she peers out, wrapping her arms around herself. Something was wrong, and I could not shake the feeling that by now the whole back knew about what I had done.

“Close that god-damned door and get back to bed!” I snap as I hear the wind howl through the woods, which makes me even more anxious.

The girl flinches and unlike most of the time, she does not comment back. She shuts the door close and rushes past me, up the stairs, to her bedroom, leaving me alone and miserable as I replay in my head how Morrighan’s figure disappeared in the darkness.

*** MORRIGHAN’S POV ***

‘STOP RUNNING!’ A voice echoes loud and clear in my head as darkness surrounds me, making me stumble on a risen root and fall face-first onto the mossy ground, my palms digging into the dirt.

The voice was so loud that I couldn’t believe that I was actually alone. I crane my neck from side to side, scurrying up on my feet as fast as possible, my breath heavy and uneven.

“H-hello?!” I croak, my voice broken by my sobs, still trying to figure out who had followed me this deep into the forest.

The forest was bathed in an unnatural silence. The wind howled over the top of the trees, making them sway graciously, but there were no other sounds. The beasts of the forest were far and yet, and I felt like I was being watched.

With the back of my hand, I wipe the stray tears from my face as I lean against a tree trunk, to at least protect my back from a possible attacker.

My vision was already accustomed to the darkness, but I couldn’t see much around me. Darkness. Endless darkness, which made me painfully aware of everything that had just happened.

Rejected. Abandoned. Alone.

I could see the backpack I had hidden under a loose plank in my room, with money and all my documents that could have helped me start a new life, clearly in my head. I couldn’t go back and grab it. I can never go back.

A heartbreaking sob escapes me, and before I know it, I am crying again. And I cry… and I cry until my tears have dried, and my throat hurts from my pained screams.

And eventually, it all went numb. Numb enough that not even the cold rain made me feel anything anymore.

As I feel my body fall to one side in exhaustion, and I curl up on the bed of moss at the base of the tree, the voice in my head resurfaces.

‘I will care for you.'

Softer, gentler, sweeter. It did not demand anything from me. For a moment, I thought I was dying, and my mother had come for me. But this was no icy touch. No heartless departure from a cruel world that never wanted me. It was soft, it was gentle… and I allowed it to embrace me.

A brief moment of pain shoots through my body and claws tear the tip of my fingers. My bones snap and my muscles break and the numbness disappears.

I am free.