Betrayed from Birth - Alpha's Unvalued Daughter

Making hard Choices

Chapter 7

Justin’s POV

I felt physically sick. The second Raven fell out of the tree my wolf, Lorne, has been going nuts. She smells like vanilla musk, and it is calling out to us. I barely caught her scent when I first found her, and I had been enraptured. I had told a version of the truth to Reagan. She would have been furious if I had told her that I was coming up to her room for a visit and was pulled away because the light scent of my mate was bewitching me. I was outside Raven’s room for 20 minutes warring with Lorne because he still wants her. Reagan opened her door to check and see where I was when she realized that I was late coming to get her. We cannot accept Raven as our mate, and I told Lorne this. There was only one clear choice for who we needed to be with and that was Reagan.

Raven is the pariah of the pack. The pack has been picking on her in one way or another, her whole life. There is no way that I could take over the pack with her as my mate. We all know that she is the firstborn, but we also all know that Reagan is the clear choice for the Alpha couple. She will get the pack, she will get to be the Luna. That was set in motion a long time ago. I don’t know why the two sisters are treated so differently, but it is Alpha approved, and that is all that mattered. There is no way to change it. Reagan made a lot of sense when she came to me with her deal. I was soon to be Beta, but I did have some Alpha blood in me, so I am stronger than a regular Beta. I was born to lead a pack, and now I am finally being given an opportunity to do just that.

I was proud that Reagan thought of me as her perfect mate and wanted me to be her chosen mate. I had to put some thought into it, as I really did want my true mate originally. I mean I could still be Beta of the pack and have my true mate. But then I realized that I might not be able to take over the Beta position if I rejected her offer. Reagan is known to be vindictive and nasty when she doesn’t get her way. I didn’t want to have to deal with that, plus she is pretty hot. I can’t say that I haven’t thought about it, with her dressing in those skimpy short skirts, trying to find her next boyfriend. I remember her doing that in high school, bending over to try to entice the guys in our school. I did want her, but I wanted my mate more and didn’t want to upset her by having slept around when I did finally find her. What really drove Reagan's offer home was the fact that she said that Raven had been interested in me, for quite a while. When Reagan told me that Raven might be my true mate, my heart stuttered in fear.

I am a strong wolf, but I didn’t want to have to fight a battle in the pack every single day. I mean it would be us, against the whole pack. Reagan would never let us live a peaceful life. I know that for a fact, plus accepting her as my mate would take my worth down to hers in the rest of the pack's eyes. She is just not worthy enough to be my mate. She doesn’t even have a wolf. At least that is what we all thought when I made the deal with Reagan. We just found out how wrong we all were. When she hit the ground and was knocked unconscious, her scent flooded the forest glade and I immediately stopped having s*x with Reagan. Lorne was howling in my head begging me to go and help our mate. I felt terrible because I knew that she had passed out and fallen from the tree because of the pain I had caused her. I never thought that Reagan and I were going to get caught before the announcement could be made.

Raven had no idea I was her mate, and until she did, she wouldn’t know that I was sleeping with Reagan. I was actually going to nicely reject her tomorrow, away from Reagan. That way she wouldn’t be as hurt by it, but all that is out the window now. She knows that her sister and I decided to be chosen mates, and even knew that I was aware that she was my mate and slept with Reagan anyway. I cannot imagine the pain that she is going through right now. I know that I have broken her heart, and I am disgusted by my own behavior. I am overcome with guilt, and I doubt that Raven will be forgiving me when she wakes up.

“You SHOULD be ashamed, she heard you tell Reagan that you were always interested in her and that you are getting the better sister out of the deal. How else do you expect Raven to feel? I can feel anger coming from our mate, and she won’t even tell me her name, Justin. You have made my mate hate me. There is nothing wrong with this beautiful girl. She is special, and you are an i***t” my wolf Lorne tells me, and he is right. I brush her hair gently away from her face with my fingertips and I see just how gorgeous she really is. I have never been this close to her before, and she is just stunning, or it could be part of the mate bond driving me towards her. Her eyes are closed, and she looks like she is sleeping peacefully, but I know that her landing knocked her out. This is all my fault, and shame washes over me again.

"I told you that our mate would be perfect for us. You didn’t listen to me and now look at where we are. Our mate really hates us, and from what I am getting from her wolf, we will never be allowed to be with our mate. You have ruined everything, all because you wanted more. I guarantee you now, just like I told you when that hussy came with her offer, you should have waited for our mate. Now it is too late. I swear to you Justin, I will pay you back for this” Lorne told me and then faded away to the back of my mind.

I can fix this. I used to catch her checking me out all the time when I was in my senior year. She was really pretty and very shy. She never tried to talk to me, only stealing glances occasionally when she thought that I wasn’t aware of her looking at me. Her blushing when she got caught was charming and sweet, and if she had been anyone else except who she was, I would have accepted her wholeheartedly. But she is an outcast, she is not worthy of me, and I cannot allow myself to be pulled down because I got dealt a bad mate. Reagan was right, we will have strong, attractive pups. We will run this pack well together, and that will be that.

Maybe Raven will stop being mad at me in a year. I am sure that I can make her see the value of maybe being my girlfriend. I had not thought about this before, but my running my fingertips on her face to brush away her hair is causing some very strong tingles to happen. They are powerful and I cannot stop thinking about burying myself inside her to see if the tingles will be everywhere that I touch. I am getting hard just thinking about it, and I am glad to see that happen. When Raven fell from the tree, I instantly softened up upon catching her scent. I couldn’t continue to have s*x with Reagan anymore, as I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Reagan was really pissed off that I stopped. It is almost like she wanted Raven to wake up from the pain that she would be experiencing from our having s*x again.

I started to make plans, maybe I can speak to Raven, take her for some coffee, and explain why it was better for me to the Alpha. Then I can explain how we can continue our relationship together, without anyone else knowing about it, especially not Reagan. Reagan will then be Luna, and that should keep her happy. Plus, I knew about how she was, she liked the company of men, and would not be satisfied with just me for long. She was only loyal to me right now because we have a deal, and until it is complete, she is going to be the perfect mate. I am sure that the moment that the deal is done, she will probably go back to what she was doing before. A lot of other Alphas have girls on the side. Even her own dad uses some of the willing women here in the pack to ease his needs. But with them being sisters, I think their family might have a problem with it.

As long as I can trick Raven into doing it though, I am sure that I can keep it away from Reagan. I wouldn’t have to reject Raven, and we could sleep with each other and be treated to the powerful feelings that come with being with your own true mate. I feel my pants getting really tight and I need to calm down. I also don’t need Reagan to find out that her sister who is just lying here on the ground out cold, is turning me on like this. It will not go over with Reagan very well. I may have to get Raven out of this pack, and maybe set her up in the human town in a nice apartment. I can take care of her, and we could have our own children. Maybe one day Raven and I could lead this pack. Especially after she has been gone for a while, and if her parents, and sister are gone.

“You really are an i***t, especially if you think that Raven will ever fall for that. Or sleep with you after she caught you sleeping with her sister. You will not be getting a second chance with her. Her wolf is strong and nothing I am saying is making a change in her opinion. You put your needs over ours. I don’t get it, we were totally together about staying focused on finding our mates. It is absolutely disgusting to me what you did. If it didn’t involve me being hurt in this too, it would almost be funny how bad you screwed yourself in this” Lorne mindlinked me. I can feel his disappointment but what can I do? I had made the deal already, there is paperwork completed on it. My hands are tied right now, there is nothing that can be done about it, I can't back out now.

“When she wakes up you need to reject her,” Reagan said to me and that is all I can hear, repeating over and over again in my head. Lorne goes nuts and warns me that I better not. I am trapped. I don’t know what to do, and then I see Raven wake up. Seeing her beautiful eyes open I cannot look away. How did I not notice how beautiful she was sooner? The first thing she did is move back away from me, which hurts. I was worried about her when she got hurt. I made a mistake, that happens. I made a bad decision and now it is affecting us both, and our wolves.

I can hear Reagan yelling at her, but I am in a daze and not listening. Seeing her beautiful face, I wanted to mark her, not reject her. I cannot do this. I know I made a deal, but I am going to back out of it because I have changed my mind. I cannot hurt my mate like that. I will tell her what happened and hopefully, they will give me and Lorne another chance. We can leave this pack and go somewhere else, as long as we can stay together. We will be totally happy as long as we can get away from here. I will tell her, and she and her wolf will be happy with us again. I am going to choose her, I want Raven to be my mate. I am so thankful to the Goddess for giving her to me. She is sweet and kind, and she would truly make the better Luna between her and Reagan.

I turn to see the Alpha couple arrive with some warriors and I realize that Reagan was clearly trying to get Raven in trouble, and potentially hurt. I just can’t allow that. I will have to be the voice of reason for the group if I need to be, and then the unexpected happens. Raven just shreds out of her clothes into a very large black wolf, her emerald green eyes looked right at us. Her eyes don’t carry a shred of fear. I know that I am not the only one who cannot believe the sight in front of us. The wolf then turns and bolts away and for a few seconds I am still sitting here in shock. I notice that everyone is now phasing into their wolves and chasing her. I won’t let them hurt her. My large dark grey wolf was the last one to leave the glade, but the closest one to her when she easily sails over the border into Blood Walker territory. I wanted to follow her and keep her safe, but as soon as we phase back into our human side, Reagan grabs my arm and starts smirking at Raven. She wants to piss her off and make her jealous.

I cannot stop staring at Raven as the arguing continues. I can only focus on her, she is in pain, and she needs me. I finally decided that I am going to phase back into Lorne and just go over the border myself when I see a tall, strong man approaching my mate as she turned and started walking away from us. I started listening then, as he is way too close to my mate, and I will not allow him to hurt her. I heard the threat in what he said, it was not hidden at all in his words. If I go over, he will kill me, and I know that he was not bluffing, especially when he threatened and taunted Alpha Sullivan to come on over himself. If he is willing to kill our Alpha, he won’t hesitate to kill me as well. My heart is breaking as another man comes out of the dark, almost as big as the first man, and I can no longer see Raven anymore. They are protectively blocking her from our view.

I have no idea if she is going to be safe or not. She could be r***d by them or even killed, and I have no idea what the hell is going on now. I should have been listening to what had been said earlier, but after looking into Raven's eyes, I was completely hypnotized by her. Her family starts screaming horrible things at her. They are even threatening her. How did I not know she was living in this bad of a situation?

I cannot stop myself from calling out to her to come back to me. Reagan is furious and looking at me like she is about to lose her s**t. The Alpha is really angry, steam is almost coming off of him, and our Luna looks completely terrified. I don’t know what their deal is, but the warriors with us are clearly upset too. The cat is out of the bag now and tomorrow, when the Alpha has the town hall meeting, the whole pack will know that Reagan and I lied to them about us being mates.

“Not one word of this gets out. Tomorrow at the town hall, I will be announcing that Reagan and Justin are true mates. If I hear of anyone finding out anything different about them not being mates, I will torture you all until I find out who told. I will then have the guilty party's whole family killed. The pack needs to support its Alpha couple. Do not think that I will let anyone off in this. I will note who was out here with us tonight. Do not let the secret get out, as it will be a death sentence. I will not allow dissension in my pack. You will all do as I say in this. I will also announce that Raven went mad, and trespassed onto the Blood Walker's land and that she was tragically killed. Do not contradict me when I do this, and we will get past it. No one really cares about Raven anyway. She is more trouble than she is worth, and I am finally glad to be rid of her. I am quite sure that they will take care of this mess properly over there. I have never seen a trespasser on Blood Walker land not be dealt with. We won’t be seeing Raven again” Alpha Sullivan said to the group.

He is a monster, how did I not see this before? The pain in my heart at the thought of Raven being killed hurts me. He has us all thinking that he is a good leader, but he isn’t, and neither is Reagan. I am tied up with them both now because I was not thinking properly before. I can’t even blame it on them, as I wanted to sleep with Reagan at the time. I am ashamed that I didn't wait for my mate. I have been blind this whole time, I am smarter than this, and I should have seen it. Just from how he treated and allowed the pack to treat Raven. She was a young innocent girl who was abused in this pack and that was never the right thing to do. The ranked wolves are supposed to protect the weaker pack members, and that included Raven.

As we head back to the packhouse Reagan keeps trying to hold my hand. We are taking our time walking back as we are all caught up in our thoughts. I shrug Reagan’s hand off my bicep and increased my pace. I am just as bad as they are, I might have been tricked into it, but I knew right from wrong, I wish I could go back and reject Reagan's offer. Gently, of course, and then I would be sure to be around Raven when she turned 18, so I could accept and mark her right then. I am screwed, and there is nothing that I can do about it.

“Justin” Reagan coos at me in a tone that earlier today would have got my blood flowing because she talks to me like that when she wanted to have s*x. I have been conditioned. I realize that now, and I feel sick about it.

“I need some time alone Reagan, I will see you later on today,” I told her and watched as she rushed forward to try to touch me again. She was going to try to have s*x with me, to try to keep me under her power, but that ploy wasn’t going to work anymore. The guilt that I was feeling was making me feel sick. Raven is right, the Moon Goddess doesn’t like us to change her carefully laid plans. She makes them for a reason and there will be punishment for our actions coming to Reagan, and me. Honestly, we earned whatever the punishment will be. I have a feeling I know what mine will be, a lifetime with a hateful, shrew. I knew that she was like that before, what possessed me to allow her to con me into this deal?

I watched as her father grabbed her wrist as she passed him and shook his head at her. He knew I needed some time alone. He also knew that I was absolutely trapped by the contract that I had signed. There was no escape for me, and he knew it.