Her Rejected Mate

5 - Beginning Preparations for Battle

Dane

    When I turned eighteen, I had mixed feelings about whether or not I found my fated mate right away.  The reason for those mixed feelings was because of the crush I'd had on Princess Alana since we were young cubs.  

    However, when I looked at her now, she didn't look any different to me, nor did I feel the need to stay close to her all the time.  Somehow, I just knew she wasn't my mate, and that bummed me out a little.  On top of that, my mate wasn't part of the Jungle Pack or the Midnight Pack.

    The combination of those factors made me feel extremely depressed, and I was having a hard time keeping my spirits up.  That became even harder when my bestfriend, Prince Lance found his fated mate.

    Lance was the future King of werecats, and we had grown up together.  His mum was what we called a legend.  

    She was actually born a werewolf with a rare heart condition, but her werewolf mate killed her.  The Moon Goddess brought her back to life as Celeste the werecat.  The original Celeste was bestfriends with Lance's dad, but she died after falling and hitting her head on a large rock.

    His mum wasn't allowed to tell anybody who she really was, so she had to pretend she was the real Celeste, even though she was actually named Alana.  That's where Lance's sister got her name.

    Long story short, the new Celeste was given the task of uniting the werewolf and werecat species.  She ended up killing her werewolf mate to get the job done, then she was able to tell everybody the truth about who she was.

    Queen Celeste had a dormant werecat gene in her blood, and that's why the Moon Goddess was able to bring her back with an actual werecat soul.  However, it turned out that wasn't the only special thing about her blood.  She was the only living werecat with royal blood flowing through her veins at that point in time.

    Her werecat mate ended up being her bestfriend Lance who became the King of werecats.  Together they have been a force to be reckoned with.  They have remained fair and just while ruling over all of us, but they didn't put up with any nonsense, and I was confident my bestfriend would follow in their footsteps.

    My mum was Queen Celeste's other bestfriend, and my mum was her chosen Beta, whereas my dad became King Lance's chosen Beta.  Upon learning that I was chosen to become the future King's Beta, my parents started training me, so I would be ready when the time came for Lance Kyle to be crowned the new King.

    His mate had only recently came into the picture, and she was definitely something special.  At first, we were all under the impression that she was simply a witch.  

    However, the first time she visited the waterfall, the enchantment spell reversed a spell that had been cast on her to make her werecat genes go dormant.  It was then that we learned she was a hybrid, part witch and part werecat, but she wasn't just any werecat.  She was a were-snow leopard.  One of the rarest subspecies of werecat to inhabit the earth.

    We were all just starting to get to know Princess Snow, but from what I had seen, she had an extremely powerful witch side.  She was also very skilled with a bow and arrow.  Snow would somehow make a ball of fire form on the end of her arrows, then she would send the arrow soaring through the air with the perfect precision to pierce through a rogue's body.

    The pack's trackers spent days searching for Snow after Lance spotted her on the free territory.  That is where she had grown up living with her parents, who weren't actually her biological parents.  

    I wasn't entirely sure what the story was with that, but I knew they had taken care of her, and Snow was intent on getting rid of the rogues that plagued the area.  I completely understood why she felt such a strong need for that to happen.  I wouldn't want my parents living in an area that was unsafe to that extent.

    Lance had recently informed me that his parents agreed to help do something about the rogues, and that helped to keep the sad mate thoughts from consuming my mind.  When the King and Queen returned from the Great Forest Pack, they informed everybody that we would be advancing on the rogues and taking control of the free territory with the help of the Midnight Pack and the Great Forest Pack.

    They put into place a new training regiment, and everybody that had been training and was able to fight was expected to train during their assigned time slot.  It seemed like the entire pack came to life with the news of an impending battle.

    It had been awhile since our warriors had a reason to go to battle, and the excitement could be seen on everybody's faces.  It definitely helped my own mood, and that was a relief.  I had never been the sulky type, and I didn't like it one bit.

Emily

    A new training schedule had begun, and I was excited to learn some more fighting strategies.  My dad was a great warrior when he was alive, and I definitely followed in his footsteps.  I was good at cooking like my mum who was the head cook at the castle, but I preferred to fight.  It was my passion.

    I could have left to search for my mate months ago, but I had no desire to find him.  I didn't mind talking to or hanging out with guys, but I couldn't fathom the thought of kissing any of them, much less letting them do other things to me.  The thought completely grossed me out.

    For some reason, it was the females in the pack that seemed to catch my attention.  I could gaze at a beautiful woman for hours and not think twice about it, but put a muscular man in front of me, and I'm trying to find something more pleasing to look at.

    I never made a move on any of the females in our pack, but that didn't stop me from daydreaming about them.  I found our future Queen to be especially pretty, and she was the one I usually daydreamed about these days.  Princess Snow had the milkiest skin tone, and the prettiest light pink lips that I wanted to kiss every time I saw her.

    Of course, I wouldn't act on that urge, because she was mated to the future King, and that would be disrespectful to both of them.  However, I was extra nice to Princess Snow whenever I got the chance to hang out with her.

    Princess Alana was also very pretty, but she was still a cub, and I could never think about her like that.  She was also my bestfriend, and I considered our friendship to be one of the most important relationships in my life.  She was the one confided in when I was upset about something, and vice versa.

    Also, she was definitely into guys.  She formed a crush on Dane when we were all cubs, but recently, he had been pulling away from her more than usual.  I got the feeling that he realized she wasn't his mate when he turned eighteen.  She still had several months before she would turn eighteen and know for sure, but he was still keeping his distance.

    I could tell it was bothering her, so I had Princess Alana come with me to the training grounds.  It was hilarious watching her go into beast mode on the dummies that were set out for us to practice our moves on.  She definitely practiced her moves and the end result was total destruction for one of the dummies.  

    After that, we went back to the castle, where my mum made us both a hot fudge sundae to help us cool off.  I could tell it helped to lighten Alana's mood, because she started cracking jokes again.  

    That was the thing about Princess Alana.  When she was around her family, she would act all polite and proper.  However, when I got her away from them, she was quite the jokester.  

    I had a feeling she was going to be the one who shined at parties and brought the fun out of others.  Whereas, her older brother was the more serious type, and her younger twin siblings could go either way.