Chapter 122

KATHERINE.

So I had been rejected. Not directly though, so I was still bound to that asshole, and now I had to think of how I was going to break the news to my pack’s council. I also had to think of how I was going to get him to reject me with him insisting that we weren’t mates. Those were the two problems I had right now and even though it had been hours – ten hours to be exact – since I’d spoken to Blake, I was still seething. I couldn’t believe he was the one I came here to find. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do now,” I muttered and Tiffany and Helena gave me sympathetic looks. I was currently lying on my bed and on a video call with both of them.

“I’m so sorry, Katherine,” Helena said, sadness evident in her voice, while Tiffany asked, “Are you sure he wasn’t just joking?”, and Helena and I raised a brow.

“Sorry, that would be an expensive joke…” she added, shaking her head sideways before she let out a harsh breath. “Man, he’s a real piece of shit. Are you sure he’s your mate?” she added and I really wished that he wasn’t.

My phone buzzed on the bed and I picked it up to see a message from Josie. [Josie: Aww, want me to come cheer you up?] She’d asked me if I was in the mood to go to the mall with her a couple of hours ago and I’d told her that I wasn’t because I was feeling quite down. The corner of my mouth turned up because I knew she’d most likely do something ridiculous to cheer me up before I replied to her text.

[Me: I’d like that] After dropping my phone back on the bed, I returned my attention to my laptop and found my friends staring at me hopefully. ”What?”

“Was that him?” they asked in unison and an exasperated sigh escaped me.

“No, it’s Josie,” I replied and they both muttered an ‘oh’ before a small frown appeared on Helena’s face.

“Can’t you tell his friends about this?” she asked and I shook my head sideways as I adjusted the pillow I was lying on.

“You said it. ‘His’ friends. Pretty sure they’d end up taking his side.”

“They might not,” Tiffany added with a shrug before I shot them a look.

“Lenore is getting married to someone that’s not her mate just like he’ll end up doing, so she’ll take his side. Priyanka and Theo are from Lenore’s pack and since she’s not getting married to her mate, they’ll understand him and take his side. Josie and Hunter are from his pack so– you get what I’m trying to say. They’re tightly knit; they’re practically family.” The moment I was done talking, I remembered what he’d said to me today and gritted my teeth. Then I remembered the picture of him and Lenore I’d seen in Hunter’s book and wondered how he felt about Lenore getting married. I hoped he was hurting.

“I’m so sorry, Katherine,” Helena repeated.

“You’re not the one rejecting me,” I said and she nodded but the sadness didn’t leave her face.

“I wish we were there with you.”

“I wish you guys were too…” I muttered. “I’ll probably go home for the rest of my suspension.”

“Have you told Uncle Lander?” Helena asked and I shook my head sideways. “Have you told the pack’s seer?”

I shook my head again. When I went home, I’d asked her if she’d seen anything else, like me ‘being’ with my mate after finding him, the only thing she told me was, “You have to be willing to take a leap of faith. Finding your mate is a journey that could be filled with twists and turns, setbacks and failures. But in the end, it’s all worth it. The end result will be worth it.”

She could have just told me yes or no.

“He sucks. You don’t need him,” Tiffany cut in, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I mean, River Ash is in pretty good standing right now. There’s a high chance Silver Bow’s case to dissolve it will fail so you don’t need him to take over the pack.”

She was right, but I still needed my mate… someone to be with, because once a person was rejected by their mate, it would be hard for someone to find a partner. Sure, I had a crush on Theo, but even if he ended up liking me back, his mate was out there so nothing could happen between us… well, nothing ‘else’.

“Yeah,” I muttered absent-mindedly before heaving a sigh and glancing at the time. “It’s pretty late. I should go to bed.”

“Okay,” they replied and we said our goodbyes before I ended the call. I wasn’t actually sleepy, I was just tired of them feeling bad for me.

I got out of bed and stretched my arms, went over to my refrigerator to grab a drink, before heading over to the window to stare outside. It was peaceful outside and the thought of a ghost showing up to get rid of the peace popped into my mind, but that wasn’t possible since the school was making sure none of them would escape from their haunting places. Apart from the old school clinic, they’d also demolished all the buildings containing malevolent ghosts and cleansed the land, and at the rate they were going, the CMES club would be officially disbanded before the end of the semester.

I was kind of going to miss it.

I sighed and drank from my soda before glancing down and a smile crept onto my face when I saw Lenore. ‘Finally,’ I thought because I hadn’t seen her all day. Then I realized that the person she was currently standing with was Blake and my smile slipped off. ‘Asshole.’

The thought of throwing the bottle in my hand at his head popped into my mind and as I thought of the fact that I’d probably miss and make a fool of myself, Lenore pulled him down and kissed him. The bottle slipped out of my hand.

‘What. The. Hell?’

It could be argued that I was seeing things wrong – I mean, I was on the third floor and it was dark – but I was one hundred percent sure that I wasn’t. She was ‘kissing’ him. And he was kissing her back.

I don’t know how long I stood there watching them – it could have been a minute or an hour – but by the time they separated and Lenore headed into the building, I was so angry, I was seeing red. “What the fuck?” I muttered under my breath as rage flowed through me like lava while Blake looked excited. In fact, excited was an understatement; he looked like he just won the lottery. “What the fuck?”

I was still standing in the same spot when Lenore got to the room.

“Katherine,” she said, her lips curving into a smile, when I glanced at her and her smile made my anger flare. “When did you get back?”

“What’s going on between you and Blake?” I replied, my tone harsh, and she paused before tipping her head to the side.

“Huh?”

“He’s rejecting me because of you.” If his pack’s council had chosen someone for him to marry, it’d be spreading through the school but nothing of the sort was, so they hadn’t. That meant he was pushing me away because of Lenore and it was easy to come to that conclusion because of that picture of both of them.

“Rejecting you?” It wasn’t just a question, she sounded and looked extremely confused too, and I scowled. Of course, he didn’t tell her.

“He’s my mate.”

Surprise washed over her face. “Oh! Uh…” She looked like she didn’t know what to say, but when she finally figured it out, what she said made me angrier. “I think you’re confused.”

“No, you’re the one confusing him! Besides, aren’t you engaged?”

She glanced at the diamond on her finger and when she lifted her gaze back to me, her brows tugged together. “To Blake,” she said and the words slammed into my chest, making me take a step back.

“What?” My gaze bounced between her ring and her face as I remembered how I’d thought Blake’s pack’s council would want someone like her to be his Luna instead of me. “Why are you doing this?!”

“Katherine–” she started while walking towards me but I cut her off, making her come to a stop.

“You already have everything you could ever want! Why are you taking him too?!”

“Uh, Katherine, how about we sit down and talk about this?” She sounded friendly and like she was trying to be helpful, but she was anything but.

“No,” I replied while she closed the distance between us and I moved to get away from her, but she grabbed my hand.

“I just want to–”

I yanked my hand out of hers and shoved her away. “Fuck you, Lenore.!” I burst out and she looked taken aback while the lights in the room flickered, drawing my attention for a moment. “You masquerade as a good person, but you’re not. You’re horrible. You’re completely horrible!”

I was lashing out. I was lashing out at the wrong person. She wasn’t controlling Blake and a voice in the back of my head told me to act rational, but I was way too angry for that right now.

“Oh…” Lenore muttered but before she could say anything else, I marched past her and into my dressing room.