Rejected and Saved by my Alpha

3

LILY

For a long, awful moment, a terrible silence fell on Connor’s study.

I didn’t remember a period of my life, ever since she and her mother had come into it, in which I hadn’t hated Jane.

My dad had remarried four years after the death of my mom with Willow, a woman from another pack who’d come with her own daughter from a previous marriage – my stepsister: ever since the first day she’d never missed an opportunity for a mean word or joke, often with her friends, to blame me for something she’d done or to pull a cruel prank on me. It had started when I was five and she six and had never stopped.

Never once I'd managed to get the upper hand with her – I only ever got some respite whenever I stayed with my mom. Willow constantly excused her daughter’s behavior and actively joined her in bullying and blaming me for everything, and my father had always been a very non-confrontational man: he had tried, sometimes, to defend me, but had eventually succumbed to Willow and Jane’s fake cries and screams and asked me to bear it “for the good of the family”. There had also been some instances in which he had believed their lies, and so I had been punished for things Jane had done.

Finding out Connor was my mate had meant more, to me, than just finding love, or a forever partner. It had meant that I now had a new family – that I’d build a new family, with him, one in which such things would never happen, in a beautiful, warm home in which everyone felt loved and cherished just the same.

He’d known what I’d gone through with my birth family. He’d known how much I’d suffered at Jane and Willow’s hands.

And he … he had betrayed me with her.

Was having a baby with her.

Jane was the first to break the silence, and with a giggle that sent shivers of pure disgust down my spine.

“Oh. Looks like I’ve interrupted something,” she chuckled. “Hi, sissy – what are you doing here? Didn’t you have a sad bachelorette dinner to attend?”

I had to suppress the urge to vomit.

I couldn’t believe it. She was actually, gleefully, mocking me, in front of my mate – the man I was supposed to marry in less than a day.

“Connor, what is this?” I asked in a whisper.

A choked sound escaped his throat, and I clenched my hand into a fist as I felt rage surge into me.

How dare he? How dare he act all sad and shocked when he had cheated on me?!

“Baby, I’m sorry” was all he said. “I …”

“Oh, for f**k’s sake,” Jane huffed. “Isn’t it clear enough for you, you retarded b***h?”

“Jane …” Connor sighed.

“Oh, come on, baby. It’s obvious she’s missing a marble or two. What Connor here was trying to say, Lily dear,” Jane smirked. “Is that he is sorry he had to put up with you for such a long time. With your stupidity, your whiny personality and … well … I mean, I think we all know who’s prettier and f***s better among us, don’t we?”

Another chuckle. “He is sorry, but he has chosen someone better for himself. Someone who’s about to give him an heir”.

At this point, I could do nothing to keep tears at bay.

Connor’s complete and utter silence was the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life – a silence that spoke volumes, that, second after second, confirmed each and every poisonous word that had left Jane’s mouth.

My wolf let out a long, pained howl inside of me, curling over herself, as if trying to shield herself from that terrible pain.

I wished I could do the same – curl up and hide myself, forever, to spare myself the utter humiliation I was experiencing.

Instead, I swallowed down.

“And when exactly were you planning to tell me?” I asked that man I couldn’t even recognize anymore. “At the altar?”

Once again, Connor didn’t speak – just looked down at his feet.

Now? Now you feel shame? When your dirty little game has been exposed?

A hollow, coarse laughter escaped my lips. A laughter full of pain, of shock, of pure disbelief.

I couldn’t believe I’d been cheated on – with my own stepsister out of all the women, that she was pregnant, but most of all, I couldn’t believe Connor’s behavior.

The man who’d told me he loved me and kissed me goodbye just that morning, who’d sent flowers to me at lunch, who’d reminded me he loved me less than an hour prior – a man I always thought brave, kind, honest and honorable … was keeping silent, letting his mistress speak for him, behaving like a scared weasel.

What the honest f**k?

“Honestly, I’ve been asking him the same,” Jane commented. “I mean, you can’t ride two horses at the same time, right? Well, more like a purebred and a … mule, in our case,” she added with a chuckle. My vision tinted red, and I clenched my fist harder.

It was at that moment that the hallway outside the door filled with the sound of people approaching, and less than two seconds later, Willow, my father, and my brother, Alex, appeared on the threshold.

A wave of relief crashed upon me as I saw him: unlike my father, my older brother had always been on my side, always tried to defend me.

Finally, I was no longer alone.

“Lily! We were looking for you!” Alex exclaimed. “Cassie texted me saying you girls were supposed to meet down in the hallway, but that you never came”.

I swallowed down and tried to wipe my tears. “You should tell her I won’t come at all,” I managed to say.

“What? Why?” my father asked. “It’s your bachelorette dinner, honey!”

“She won’t go because there is to be no wedding,” Jane stated, with a grin so disgusting and wide I had to suppress the desire to wipe it off her face with a fist. “Well, there will be a wedding – just not hers”.

Another moment of silence.

“What do you mean, Jane?” my father then asked, slowly.

She shrugged. “Connor and I are having a baby,” she then simply said, with another smile. “He loves me, not her”.

“This isn’t true, I …” Connor started, but before he could say anything else, Willow cut him off.

“Is this true? Is my daughter pregnant with your baby?”

After a few moments of silence, Connor nodded.

“Yes,” he then said. “Yes, she is”.

Those words felt like a sentence. Like a blade had just been laid on my neck, just waiting to strike.

Willow nodded. “Well, then, I believe you must do your duty. I will not have my grandbaby born a bastard. Don’t you agree, darling?” she then asked my father, looping her arm with his own.

My father’s eyes swiped briefly in my direction, and I tried to make eye contact with him, to plead hwith im, just for this one time, to side with me. To choose me, at least this once.

There was no one else I could ask – clearly, Connor was no longer an option.

And Alex … Alex was being unusually silent.

But his gaze quickly fell off me, and he nodded.

I felt like dying.

“I agree,” he said.

The world around me became muffled – I was aware they were talking, discussing the next steps, but I couldn’t focus on their words, just on the way my heart was screaming and breaking.

Just on how awful and burning that pain felt.

“Of course, we must also decide what to do with Lily”.

Those words, spoken by none other than my brother, passed through the barrier of pain, and another wave of nausea hit me.

If possible, that betrayal hurt more than all the others combined.

We – Alex had used that word. He had included himself among those who had to decide what to do with me, which could only mean, and his previous silence bore testimony to it, that he was not on my side.

Not this time.

This time, he’d sided with Jane, with our father, with Willow.

“Alex …”

He didn’t even look at me.

They were talking about me as if I weren’t even there. As if I were just a discarded piece of trash.

And I was.

I f*****g was.

This time, it was Connor who spoke first.

“I think you should leave”.