Night and Neera: A Rejected Mate Story

Chapter 1: The Alpha's Howl

He rejected me.

On the morning of my twenty-first birthday, I came awake slowly, feeling different, and I knew it was because my mark had appeared while I had been in an unnaturally deep sleep -- I had been warned that would happen. With my eyes closed, I put my left wrist  in front of my face and then slowly, slowly, opened my eyes. 

The mark wasn't there. 

I shot up in bed, looking frantically at my right wrist, my arms, even my legs. Once, twice, three times I checked all of my limbs.

Nothing. I had no mark.

Since that left only one option -- impossible though it seemed -- my heart began pounding wildly as I raced to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

And there it was, curving along the outside of my left eye. My mate brand.

I sucked in a breath, disbelieving, my fingers gently following the slightly raised lines.

Somewhere between a brand and a tattoo, the mark was permanently etched into my skin. A few simple lines showed a wolf with its head thrown back, his neck dissolving into a few sharp swirls.

It was the Alpha's mark, and everyone knew that mark because the Alpha's mark was the symbol for our pack. The fact that my mark was on my face also pointed to me as the Howl.

I was the Alpha's Howl.

Only the Alpha and his Howl had the mate marks on their faces, leaving no room for anyone to doubt our places in the pack.

He was the Alpha.

I was his Howl.

He was eight years older than I was, and his mark had been there since he had turned twenty-one. His girlfriend's mark did not match his and hers was not on her face, so he knew -- everyone knew -- Lindsay Morgan was not his Destined One. She was not his Howl.

I was. He was mine.

A surge of possessiveness rose up in me, and I felt my wolf snarl, her jaws snapping at the thought of another female with my Destined One.

She was immediately territorial. Restless. Wanting to get to her mate so we could Take the Blood and mate.

After I threw on some shorts and a tank top, I ran barefoot to the Alpha's house, about a mile from my apartment complex. His house was a small log cabin set by the river's curve -- I had the idle thought we would have to build onto it to accommodate all of our children since Alphas were known to be prolific -- and I finally climbed up the steps and knocked on the front door. A minute later Lindsay Morgan opened the door, and I took a step toward her, baring my teeth, not liking the scent of the Alpha -- my Alpha -- all over her.

The color drained from Lindsay's face as she noticed my mark. I'm sure she'd been dreading this day for years, since the very moment they'd become lovers.

It took her a moment to find her voice, and when she did, it was shaky when she called for him, my mate, her as-of-this-moment former boyfriend she'd been with for the last three years. Every pack member thought Night had been foolish to have a girlfriend, especially so serious a one, when she was obviously not his Destined One. Yet he had backed everyone down when they had brought it up to him as an unwise move -- he had boldly declared the two of them to be in love. Again, I felt my lips pull back from my teeth, and Lindsay bared hers in return as the Alpha walked up to us.

Reeking of her.

That was going to end. Maybe an acid bath was in order to remove her nasty stink from my Destined One.