Once Upon A Rejection

Grayson Ward’s POV

The sound of my mom shouting instructions in the garden woke me up before the sun had even come up. It seemed as though she wasn’t willing to give up on the dream of having a huge alpha and luna ceremony quite so easily. She seemed determined to make the house and gardens ready to receive hundreds of guests within the next few hours.

Molly and Talen were still fast asleep. They were holding onto each other tightly while I had my arms around Molly and my body pressed up against hers. I slowly removed my arm from her waist and slid out of bed. I didn’t want to wake them but I had to stop my mom before she pushed everyone too far and someone ended up in tears.

“What do you think you are doing? The stage needs to be higher, how is everyone going to see them?” My mom shouted as I walked into the garden.

There were omegas running around the garden, rushing to get everything set up in time. They were making sure to keep their heads down as they went about their tasks so that they wouldn’t draw my mom’s attention. I was relieved that I had got my outfit prepared the night before, if I had taken much longer to get ready then I was sure that someone would have had a breakdown.

My mom wasn’t normally like this, she was usually calm and collected in all aspects of her life. The only exception to her calm demeanour was when she knew other packs and alphas would be coming to our pack. There was something about having other people coming to our pack made her feel insecure and I knew that it had something to do with how she and my dad met. She was always worried that people would judge her and that made her determined to make sure everything was perfect.

“Mom, you need to calm down. You are scaring the omegas.” I told her. She looked from side to side, taking in the chaos going on around her before looking back over towards me.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to turn into a bitchy luna again.” She replied, her cheeks turning pink.

“Maybe I can take over here and you can get Molly and Talen ready for the ceremony.” I suggested.

She nodded her head in agreement before walking back towards the house. She looked as though she was already much more comfortable, just knowing that everything was no longer on her shoulders was doing her a lot of good.

The next few hours flew by in a blur of decorations and food preparation. The omegas weren’t happy that everything had to be prepared in such a hurry but there was still an undercurrent of excitement in the air. Get-togethers like this one usually had members from other packs in attendance. For most unmated werewolves that provided them with an opportunity to meet their mate.

The alphas who were invited would often bring a few unmated pack members with them. Usually it was expected that the newly mated couple would wait until after the alpha ceremony to claim each other but sometimes it didn’t quite work out that way. I had been to a few alpha ceremonies when I was keeping up the appearance of searching for my mate, some of them ended up being rather eventful.

Even though the last minute change of date meant that there would be less packs in attendance, I was still sure that something interesting would happen. All it took was for one alpha or beta to find his mate to make all the plans fly out of the window. I wouldn’t mind that at all, I found formal events to be a little difficult, you might even say dull, so I would be glad for the distraction.

My dad came into the garden to help finish our preparations shortly before the first guests started to arrive. A lot of the nearby packs were using the ceremony as a way of meeting up with their missing pack members. Our small pack was now the scene of many emotional reunions, people were hugging all around me. I even thought I saw one couple sneaking into the forest to get some time alone.

“This is a good way to start your leadership. You will have a lot of new allies after this.” My father told me as one of the neighbouring alphas walked towards me.

“Hello, My name is alpha Andrew Lane. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He said, holding out his hand for me to shake. I only knew of alpha Lane by reputation. There were only a few alphas who were considered strong enough to take over a pack without finding their mate first but he was one of them.

“The pleasure is mine,” I replied. It was a pointless platitude but we all did what we had to. Right now I needed to build alliances, especially seen as the council weren’t particularly fond of me or this pack at the moment.

He started to give me advice on how best to lead a pack. He was speaking as though he had been running the pack for ten years rather than ten months. I was so close to making a comment about it when one of my pack members started walking towards us. I recognised her as Gemma, she was one of Molly’s old friends who had volunteered to help out with the ceremony. Right now she was walking towards us carrying a tray of drinks.

She wasn’t an omega but our pack didn’t have enough omegas to deal with so many guests, so we asked for volunteers. What I didn’t know was why she had decided to volunteer, I had a few theories though. I thought that it might have something to do with trying to repair her relationship with Molly.

“Hi,” Gemma whispered. Her voice was low and she didn’t say anything further but I saw the look in her eyes. Alpha Lane was her mate but she was nervous, she wanted him to claim her so that she didn’t have to be the one to say anything in front of all these people.

Alpha Lane took a drink from the tray that Gemma was holding, then waved his hand to dismiss her. Gemma’s eyes went wide in shock, she stood in place looking at him for a few seconds before she finally turned around and started walking away. I could see her pain in the way she moved, her slow steps and the regular glances over her shoulder so that I could see the pain in her eyes.

“Anyway, where were we?” Alpha Lane stated, as though he hadn’t just dismissed his mate without so much as a second glance. I wasn’t even sure how that was possible, I could never have been so cold to Molly. I had to have constant battles with my wolf not to hold her in my arms every time she was within half a mile of me.

“Didn’t you want to speak to her?” I asked. He looked around to make sure nobody was close by before speaking again.

“I didn’t want to make a scene. I will wait until after the ceremony before I reject her.” He replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

“Wait a minute, why would you reject her?” I forgot to keep my voice low and a few people nearby glanced in our direction. Alpha Lane looked annoyed with me but I didn’t care, he was the one who was being ridiculous.

“Why would any alpha accept an omega as their mate?” He asked.

“I would have accepted my mate no matter who she was.” I replied. He laughed hysterically, as though I had just told the funniest joke he had ever heard.

“Well your mate isn’t an omega anyway. Which is something you would have known if you had taken the time to talk to her before making a snap judgement.” I replied.

“Oh.”

His eyes started scanning the crowd as he searched for his mate. She was nowhere to be seen, she had probably left the celebration early to hide from him. He could hardly blame her for that after the way he treated her. If he wanted her forgiveness then he would have to work for it.

Alpha Lane didn’t even bother to say goodbye to me, he was too focused on trying to locate his mate. The sudden change in his demeanour made me laugh but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. So many other alphas wanted to talk to me. I listened to their words and tried to remember their names as best I could until I heard Molly’s name being whispered through the crowd.

When I looked up she was heading in my direction with Talen at one side and my mom at the other. She was wearing the most beautiful dress I had ever seen, it made her look like a real life angel. I could no longer hear the words that the alpha in front of me was saying, the only thing that existed to me was her.