Rejected, Then Reborn
Chapter 3

“Why isn’t she waking yet?” Reed asked his best friend and healer of the Pack, Xavier, for the umpteenth time.

“She will. Eventually.” Came the same answer. “Whatever’s keeping her in this state is most definitely mental, meaning she’s the only one who can get herself out of it.”

Alpha King Reed Alderon Winchester observed the girl. She was beautiful, with her jet black hair and her perfect heart shaped face and her creamy skin. Her long lashes framed her closed eyelids beautifully, and her full, pink lips were drawn up in the most adorable of pouts.

Who was she?

And what was she doing in his territory?

She had passed out when she saw his wolf… and even he could understand how that could knock any girl unconscious, especially a human girl like her, but he was pretty sure that her bumping into that tree had equally played a part in her unconscious state as well.

He remembered it now… she was being chased, that was how come she had stumbled into his kingdom. The question was why? And by whom?

He didn’t know her… didn’t know anything about her, and yet he felt weirdly drawn to her… weirdly responsible for her, which was absolutely crazy.

He remembered the last word she had whispered before she passed out before him. Mate.

Had she been searching for her mate?

If she had, then it all made sense. Being human, it was highly possible that her werewolf mate hadn’t filled her in on the feud between their species yet. That would explain why she had dared to venture into Lyken Territory.

Another thought struck him.

What if her mate had ventured into his territory?

If he had, and he was werewolf… chances of him being alive were slim, given that Werewolves and Lykens couldn’t stand each other. His clan did not even need his permission, the mate would surely be killed by anyone who sighted him, and that was just the natural order.

Centuries old hatred and resentment still held that much weight in their modern times, and Reed for one was grateful for it. Nobody was going to convince him that those vile creatures were ever capable of change… hell, even if it was staring him in the face, he was most certainly not going to believe it. A mutual consensus had been reached by both parties, for everyone to stay on their side of the woods and not be seen another’s territory…. And for years, it had worked in establishing peace. Tension filled peace, but peace nonetheless.

The littlest of things was going to blow that peace up into smithereens and throw everyone into that kind of chaos that only came with war and mayhem. Reed did not want that for his clan. It did not matter that they were the dominant specie… that winning the battle that could ensue would be a breeze. He just wanted peace.

It was why he needed to know who the girl was ASAP.

As it was now, the fact that she was human was the only thing he knew about her… it was the only thing saving her life right now, for she would have been long dead otherwise.

“You still haven’t told me how you met her, Reed.” Xavier asked with interest, taking his gloves off and tossing them into a bin in the corner of the large room.

“She was being chased.” Reed started, “I didn’t see who they were exactly, but they were certainly werewolves. You know how dark the woods are, she heard me and panicked, bumping into a tree.”

“Hmm,” Xavier snorted in amusement, “Interesting girl.”

But before the Alpha king could bite back any retort, his chief warrior, Henderson mind linked him, “The rogue is ready to talk now, your highness,”

“Good job. On my way.”

“Trouble?” Xavier inquired curiously at the way his friend’s striking blue eyes suddenly became blank, a tell-tale sign that he was mind linking someone, “Nothing that I don’t have under control,” Came the Alpha King’s terse reply, and then he turned to leave… “Woah, woah, Reed… what about the girl? What do you want me to do with her when she wakes up?”

Reed took one last look at the passed out beauty, his eyes hardening instantly, “Have her tossed in the dungeons… I’ll take care of her when I get back.”

Dr. Xavier Mendoza stood staring at the girl long after the Alpha King was gone… wondering what was so special about her that had made his best friend spare her life like so.

You see, it seldom happened that the Alpha King was that lenient. It was common knowledge, his ruthless nature. Once the name Reed Alderon was mentioned, people everywhere visibly shivered with fear, such was the enormity of his vindictiveness. Xavier had seen it with his own eyes a lot of times to know that it was true, and in the end, even he couldn’t deny his friend’s cruel nature… it was almost as though the Lyken relished in drawing b***d… in inflicting pain.

Granted, the people he punished deserved it, but watching him fulfill the role of punisher was something that Xavier wasn’t sure he’d get used to any time soon. It truly was frightening to watch, and coming from a doctor, s***h chief healer, that had to mean a lot.

Xavier’s gaze shot to the sleeping girl one more time. He wasn’t sure she’d wake up any time soon… perhaps he could cross a few things off his task list before she came to.

*****

Lacy woke up with a start, a terrible throbbing in her head as she took in her surroundings, trying to figure out where she was.

A hospital?

It looked like it.

She winced as she got down from the bed, the earlier happenings all rushing back.

The chase.

Her supposed mate!

She thought he had finished her off, so why was she still alive?

Lacy looked around once more, she was alone in the room, which was weird, but she didn’t really think much of it. What she needed to do was talk to someone, so she could be on her merry way. She had no care for any mates? No. None of that utter tosh anymore, she was not going to make it cloud her thoughts like it had the first time, convincing her to renounce her family like that. This was a second chance she had been given, and she was going to use it well, not waste it by some mate’s side.

Besides, it was equally possible that her mind had just made things up.

Maybe, there was no new mate after all… perhaps, she had just been feeling things, overthinking things.

With all the duress she had been through, that was a highly likely explanation… one that she hoped with all her heart was true.

All she wanted to do was go back home… back home to the only family she now had,

Her human family.

She just needed to thank whoever it was that had taken care of her, and then she could leave. Lacy was pretty sure they would even be kind enough to show her the way back to human territory if she got lucky.

With that decided, Lacy tiredly fixed her long, ruined flowy white gown about her, noting with relief that she hadn’t been touched in any inappropriate way—she preferred to be in her messy clothes than to be in clean clothes without knowing who had changed her— and then she went out the door in search of a her savior.

The corridor was dark and just as empty as the room she had been in. Lacy roamed about for a while, and then when she still didn’t see anyone, she began to wonder if she hadn’t been brought to an abandoned castle after all. Because she was most certainly in a castle if the sheer size of the rooms and the never-ending corridors were any indication… but the place was too spick and span to be abandoned.

And so Lacy continued on in search of one person at least, but her search yielded no results.

When Lacy finally heard something—a loud shout—her heart picked up in excitement, her feet going in the direction of the voice as a smile of relief broke out on her face.

Her steps led her out of the large corridor and into a weird-looking room. She could hear muffled voices and the occasional shriek of pain.

Wait, occasional shriek of pain?

What was going on?

Now, she was scared.

Lacy knew within her heart that she had to go back. Lord knows that she had seen too many frightful things in the last few hours, and for once, her conscience agreed with her, but just as she turned to go back the way she came, she caught it once more,

That wonderful, intoxicating scent.

Her fated mate.

He was real.

Lacy wanted to see him. Being indoors, she was pretty sure that he would be in his human form. She wanted to see him, see how he looked like. Would he be handsome? As handsome as Lucius or even better? What if he was utterly hideous instead?

Why did she care anyway?

She was leaving… there was no way she was going to stay with someone she barely knew because of some mate declaration, like she had said earlier, she had closed this chapter of her life… she was moving on to something new.

But a quick glance and a thank you wouldn’t hurt, would it?

She was just being courteous. And so with that settled, Lacy tiptoed towards the inner chamber in the weird room, the very place the noise was coming out of. She winced with each shout—with each wail of pain, wondering what the hell was going on in there.

The raven-haired beauty’s jaw dropped open as she observed the scene before her. Torture devices of all kinds filled the room, about five burly men standing by watching some people closely. Lacy felt sick to her stomach, but her legs wouldn’t stop moving, and then she saw him.

Her fated mate.

No one had to tell her he was the one, she could just feel it in her bones. Yes, it was that inexplicable. He was handsome… way more handsome than she had been hoping, so handsome that he put Lucius to shame in leaps and bounds, but in that moment, that was the last thing on her mind, because right before her, he planted a sharp dagger in the eye of the man being tortured, twisting savagely… a delighted gleam in his striking blue eyes as he relished in the man’s wails and screams. He roughly pulled out the dagger, taking the man’s eyeball along with the motion, and then his gaze finally met hers,

And Lacy let out a b***d-curdling scream.