RAINA'S POV-
“You’ve been avoiding me,” an angry voice came from behind after I descended the glass-bifurcated stairs of the exquisite Saturn Striders Hotel.
“Alpha Kain.” I swung around to the six-foot man with hands crossed that made his biceps appear larger and ready to crush me for neglecting his messages. “I didn’t know that you were coming.”
“You would if you had replied to my recent messages.” Dropping his hands to his side, his vexation toned down.
The seventeen-year-old Alpha of an external pack licked his lips as his steps approached me with a cocky swagger. His nomad eyes lit up as he roamed them over my body and I took a deep breath. I was not afraid of him, but he has been one of those guys who constantly expressed an interest.
“May I have the pleasure of enjoying your company or am I too late?” He stood too close to me with a taunting smirk as he gazed at my rose-mauve-coated lips.
Tonight was Valen’s eighteenth birthday party. It was the bash of the year since Alpha Females gathered from around the globe because we expected him to scent his Luna Queen mate tonight.
Valen was my childhood crush. Every second that dreadfully went by ticked on my heart with anxiety.
Alpha Kain was my espresso brown-haired friend and a visitor to our pack tonight. He wanted more, but that was his problem. He disregarded my rejections.
“What’s this, Alpha Kain?” Vaheed, my overprotective best friends, jumped from the top of the stairs and flashed between us, shoving the guy back. Harlequin-green eyes dilated full black and his warning was a barbaric growl, "Get the fuck away!” Then he turned to me and brushed the fringes of his medium-length black hair slick back. He gently touched my right arm to ask with concern, “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I shook my head and assured him, “He’s a friend. Not a stalker.”
Vaheed growled to demonstrate his dislike of my friendship with the Alpha. Treading away, I glanced over my shoulder to give Kain an apologetic expression.
“You’re finally here,” Azara hugged me. Her auburn orbs sparkled with glee. Her bouncy, cinnamon, soft, kinky hair slapped against her forehead when she bobbed her head to the rhythm.
Vaheed left me in their care and left to hang out with his boys.
“Kain is here. Did you see him?” Venus asked with questioning harlequin green eyes, knowing about our friendship. With hands at the back of her neck that lifted her mid-length, layered black hair with side bangs, she did a pivot turn before jumping up and down to the beat.
“Yeah, and your brother chased him away.” I began swaying my hips on the dance floor, throwing my hands up in the air and waving them from side to side.
Venus and Azara chuckled. We drank and danced to every pop and hard rock song. Suddenly, the strangest thing happened. An intoxicating scent of cardamom and amber swirled into my nasal passage.
My body froze in disbelief and perplexity. I sniffed again. That scent! Could it be what I think it meant? Impossible!
A certain scent of cardamom and amber lingered in the air. The spicy taste teased my tongue.
"Mate," I heard, puzzled.
Riveting a full three-sixty degrees, I scanned a wide scope to see who was saying that. Who had found their mate? Despite the blaring music and loud chatter of the partying bunch, one voice was the clearest.
"Mate! Find mate!”
Venus saw me flinch, with fingers rubbing my forehead, and inquired, "Rai-rai are you okay?"
"Um, yes." I lied and resumed dancing to avoid drawing attention to myself.
An essence was inside of me and growing. "Find our mate, Raina." There it was, very resounding and exclusive.
"Who are you?" I pondered internally.
"Silly girl, I'm your wolf." The voice heralded, “Call me Hera.”
“How?” I was stupefied. My wolf was not due yet.
“I don’t know either. But I’m here now. Don’t you want me?” Hera queried, sounding sad.
“Of course. I’m just shocked.” This was remarkable. I was overjoyed.
“Go to mate, please. Follow the scent.” She urged.
A bullet of panic rose in my throat. Which guy was my mate? My heart raced in exhilaration and fear.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I told Venus and Azara. They nodded as I weaved through the mob, tracking the breathtaking scent. As jerking bodies brushed against mine, my chignon was pulled apart and my burgundy bundle rolled down to my lower back.
The music died. The cutting of the cake was announced by Luna Sianna. There was a low stage where the trolley with the super-sized birthday cake with eighteen colorful candles was.
As Valen advanced in his Greek god-damned glory, whistles and hoots went off from the audience. He was so handsome. He wore a gray denim jacket suit with a white dress shirt underneath that did nothing to conceal his bulky chest and paired that with leather low-top sneakers. The sleeves were pushed up to his elbows to reveal portions of the tattoos along both muscular arms.
Oh, goddess, his wavy long, glossy, black hair, which flowed over his shoulders, ideally complement to his chiseled features. The raw and intense sex appeal he radiated demanded everyone's attention.
Tall and confident with a powerful gait, he strode with grace as he passed me, leaving behind him a rocketing aura trail. The scent I'd been hunting hit me like a boulder. My heart beat wildly. Our skin is connected. Sparks produced instant shockwaves through my body and I gasped.
It was him. Valen was my mate!
My heart fluttered and my eyes beamed with happiness. Hera purred in my head.
“Valen! Valen! Valen!” The scream crowd chanted in excitement as Valen took the stage and blew out the candles.
“Have you detected your mate, son?” Luna Sianna's icy-blue eyes gleamed with hope. Alpha King Vance embraced her around the waist, waiting for his response.
Our gaze collided and electricity sizzled through my veins.
A pin-drop silence permeated.
Then he tore his eyes from me and landed them on his Mom to deny it in a deep velvety voice, "No."
“Aw!” The crowd sympathized.
My heart panged and my brows furrowed in confusion. The humiliation carved a deep hole in my chest.
"Well," Luna Sianna hugged him and kissed his cheek. "The night is still young."
Heartbroken, I stared at Valen while he exited the stage. Hera whimpered.
Brazenly, he trod the same route that he'd taken to the stage. He paused at my side with a smirk and whispered right in my ear as his hot breath tingled my skin, "Stay away from Kain."
"What?" I peered up into his mesmerizing emeralds that hacked into my soul to stir up a fervent desire I had never experienced. My cheeks blushed red.
"Go back to the girls." The coldness in his voice extinguished the heat and he rejoined his clique where Theo, Thaines, Devin, and Jason stood. Not to mention the women who flocked around them like that ever-present strawberry blonde girl.
Hurting in the process, I growled lowly with my chest heaving. I was doing my best not to crumble and break down.
And now, I endured the dreadful hallmark moment, wondering when and how my crush would reject me.
-
One year and some months later…
-
-VALEN’S POV-
"Enough, Vaheed!"
We tumbled out of the back door of the bar into the drenched, cold, drab alley and landed in a pool of water. Rolling around in a tussle on the hard urban street, we aimed to score a blow once one of us took the top position in the struggle. Unbothered by the chilly night’s drubbing rain, our wrestling prolonged through the commotion of our wrath.
Quickly, I flicked upwards to land on my two feet, while Vaheed was on his back. My soaked abalone button-front shirt clung to my sinewy body, missing a few buttons. My hands automatically cleared the curtain of dripping black strands from my face, tossing the long hair slick back. The steady shower that doused the two of us could not extinguish the enmity between us.
“I don’t want to fight you!” I hated raising my fist against him and I watched him rise to his feet, glaring at me with contemptuous harlequin green pair of eyes.
He wasn’t drunk, but he was not thinking straight either. I never thought I’d live to see the day that my younger brother of two years would look at me venomously. Though his medium-length black hair covered past his eyes, my eyesight pierced through to see the reflection in his orbs. The green in them disappeared, leaving only flames.
“Will you calm down?” I encouraged because I truly desired to end this fight.
“Go and fuck yourself!” He snarled. The anger in him built like deep water currents.
Drawing his arm back, Vaheed drove his fist into my nose. My head flew as my eyes locked on the sky. I stumbled back. My left foot slid on the pavement and I braced the heel of my sneakers against the rough ground. Raising my hands to cover my nose, my eyes squeezed shut. As my head jerked forwards, my nose throbbed and I scowled at Vaheed over my fingers. He was progressively pushing for a hardcore ass-whooping.
"Reject her!" He shouted with heavy breaths.
"Never!" I wrestled to keep my wrath at bay. I took a step back to show that I was giving him the emotional space that he ought to take. Once I shifted, it would be over for him. My Alpha wolf would tear him apart for his disrespect to his superiority.
Enraged, he bared his teeth and lunged at me. "How could you take her away from me? You of all people!"
Defensively, I covered with my arms and forearms up and in front of me. “She wasn’t yours to begin with. Let's talk instead of fighting!”
Lowering my hands, before his next move, I took a stride forward, pulled my left leg back, and struck out. With a solid crunch, my instep slammed into Vaheed’s shin. He yelped, lifting his right knee off the ground and lowering his head as he leaned forward. Seizing the back of Vaheed’s head with my fingers, I forced his skull down and rammed my knee upwards into his face.
The blood that oozed was washed from his face by the cascading rain. He staggered and lost his balance. When his body rotated, he fell on his tummy into another puddle of dirty water that splashed into his face. “Pfft.” He spat both blood and water from his mouth. For only two seconds, he lay there before getting off his stomach and standing again.
Vaheed whistled and charged at me once more. A low growl escaped me. His eyes were two cold black abysses with faint lines of dark veins popping up vines around his eyes.
I dodged each blow successfully. Rabidly, he tackled me. Trying not to do any real damage, I shove him off every time. He swung a powerful right, I met him halfway and struck out with my own right. My punch was faster and connected with his mouth. He spat blood and wiped his lips with the back of his hand as we stared at each other. We were at it for a while.
The alcohol in his system and the strumming emotions beat him into rapid exhaustion. He rarely drank, but I supposed he felt the need to numb his sentiments into several bottles of bourbon. With half of his energy depleted, he was before me in a half-kneeling position before he sprang at me with tireless determination.
This was therapeutic for Vaheed to get the anger and hurt from his system and move on to wait for his own mate. All wolves had mates.
“You don’t even love her.” He accused with an aggressive stance, pushing against me as I reinforced my posture, unmoving.
“Of course, I do. She’s my mate.” I demolished his argument. The hair on the back of my neck bristled. No one could have loved her more.
“You haven’t told her and you ignored her for years.” Sneering, he supported his previous statement. “You gave her the cold shoulder. How is that love?”
“Shut up, Vaheed,” I warned, and delivered two palm blows on his chest that forced him to retreat. He was oblivious to a lot that I did or endured which was a secret to me.
“Does Dad know?” His gaze challenged me. He cocked an eyebrow. “What about Mom?”
“Apart from Devin, you are the second one to know,” I admitted. I had my reasons for not broadcasting it.
Yesterday was Vaheed’s birthday. He's been crushing on Raina for years. Mom planned a grand party at the pack house for him. Sadly, the celebration downturned when he realized there was no mate bond between the two of them. Disappointed and hurt, he shut down and didn't want to talk to anyone and drove away in his car. I tracked him at an old bar miles away from town. There he sat on a stool around the pecan wood counter drowning in liquor.
I hated seeing him disheartened. So, I waited until today, to tell him that she was my mate. Now he expected that, for the sake of our sibling bond, I should reject Raina and let him have her.
Raina's interest was something that I worked on keeping and there was no way in hell that I would break the mate bond with her. For the record, they were not a couple. Hence, we will iron this out here and now.
The rain was incessant. Like bracken pods in a bush fire, it snapped and crackled.
“Why did it have to be you?” He asked stiffly.
"It’s destiny,” I replied firmly. “Anyways, the choice will be Raina's to make." My wolf and I refused to deny the mate bond. However, if Raina actually loved him and wanted to reject me, as much as it would kill me, I'd want her to be happy. But it has to be her choice, not mine. Simply because I loved her.
"MINE!" My wolf growled his disagreement. He was adamant about keeping our mate and honoring the bond. I understood his resolve.
We'll just have to wait to see what happens when Raina turns eighteen in a month. Although it was pretty clear that it’s time to get rid of my brother.
