Claimed By The Wolfless Alpha

7.

"Did you say you are a werewolf?" I asked, trying to calm the racing in my heart.

"Yes. I am a shifter. A werewolf. I'm sure you might have heard stories of us or... Whoa! Easy there," Elian said softly as he captured me in his arms.

"Do not touch me!" I flinched, recalling the gruesome experience I had with what they called a rogue, and an almost similar experience with Elian as well.

"But..."

"Just don't touch me. Please," I whispered, my voice breaking at the end.

I rested my head against the headboard of the bed and sighed. I felt lightheaded. The room seemed to spin. I shut my eyes tightly, holding onto the bed as I struggled to steady my breath. This can't be true. It made no sense.

His name was Elian. How? The Alpha rejected was also called Elian.

"Is your name Elian Amir Abdu?" I asked again.

'Do not act rashly, Anisa. Listen first.' I chastised myself.

"How did you know..."

It has been confirmed. That was his name.

"Are you twenty-five years old?"

"Do I look twenty-five, Anisa?" He asked with a light chuckle. "I was twenty-five, three years ago. I am twenty-eight now."

He's twenty-eight? Three years ago? Then that's fine, he's not the one. What was I thinking? That I was in a book? I scoffed, the raging in my heart calming to a certain degree.

I had been imagining things. But just to be sure, I asked him another question.

"This mate..." I gestured between us. "Didn't you already have one? Belinda?"

His eyes widened. And I stayed still with bated breath, waiting. God, please, let it not be what I think.

"How do you know all this?" He asked, furrowing his brows before he inched closer to me. "Belinda..."

"She rejected you, right? As per the werewolf culture, she rejected you because she doesn't want you, right?" My mouth was suddenly dry as an icy wave hit me.

I was shivering, feeling some moisture begin to gather in my eyes as I waited for his answer.

"Yes." He simply replied, the shocked look on his face intensifying.

The sob I had been holding back escaped my lips. This can't be. It made no sense whatsoever. This can't be a book, because there was no way anyone would ever get into one.

Absolutely not.

But then he confirmed it. All the little details I had learned from the single page I had read from Mel's copy are right before my eyes.

Because truth be told, I can't remember what I had read from the first thirty pages of the book I had read alone. But somehow, the one scene I had read from Mel's stuck with me.

"Arwa..."

"You think I am stupid, right?" I cried furiously, refusing to wipe my tears or stop them. "You think I am stupid enough to believe I am inside a damn book, right?" I yelled, throwing my hands around.

"What book..."

"I don't know what is going on here, but I refuse to believe that I am in a book. A book where you are the Alpha and had been rejected by your mate, Belinda, in a forest after you had gone for a run and came across a beautiful brown wolf!" I said the words the same way the scene had played in my head over and over ever since I had read the scene.

Heck, I even remember how Belinda had called his full name and told him she had rejected him and wanted nothing to do with him. I remembered the words, as though I was the one that had uttered them. It was how I got to know his full name.

Elian Aamir Abdu. The star of the book: The Rejected Alpha.'

"How do you know all that?" Elian asked quietly, stunned, and I felt my world crash around me. I choked on my breath, trying to focus my eyes and steady the rhythm of my heartbeat.

I was in a book!

The reality sent a crashing wave around me, and soon I was hyperventilating, gasping for air.

This can't be true.

"Anisa, is everything okay?" I heard Elian's voice far ahead, as though he was miles away from where I sat.

I abruptly felt myself being pressed against a solid chest, and the smell of tacos and burritos filled my nostrils.

"Stay with me, Arwa. Please, don't give up on me," Elian stuttered, pushing my hair away from my face. "Stay with me before I get the pack physician. Stay with me, Anisa, please."

But even as his voice filled my ears, it filled me with other thoughts as I struggled to gasp for breath. It made no sense that I was in a book, but in all honesty, that was the case. I was in a book! I don't understand how I got here or why.

Something had snatched me away from my life. From my sick mother and little brother, my studies and from Mel, the only person I ever got the chance to call a friend. Something had dragged me away from everything I had ever held dear to my heart. And now, I was in a book, replacing another woman who had rejected this man as her mate, to be his new mate.

Why must I suffer through something like this?

As I continued to struggle to breath, I opened my tear-filled eyes and found Elian's combined orbs of brown and golden staring back at me. Funny as it may seem, though, I felt the edge of my lips tug into a smile before I welcomed the darkness.

Perhaps I may wake up to find that this has been nothing but a dream.

Perhaps...