Rejection on the Alpha #1

09. Challenge Accepted

(New and edited)
CHAPTER 9: Challenge Accepted

I stare into a deep abyss, it felt familiar in a way. Lips indent a kiss against my inner wrist, decorating my skin with light, butterfly pecks that he thought was attractive. I stare at Martin, we were both fully healed in a matter of minutes, but that didn't change the fact I could feel him in my veins now. It's what terrified me the most, that I could enter his thoughts as if walking through a doorway, like it was easy now. His wolf purrs, soft and quiet, but very much a presence in my own clouded, struck mind that felt sickly like spiders, cobwebs, fangs and blood. Everything horrifying all coloured in my mind.

"We need to alter the clan systems, Alpha." Vulcan initiates around the bend of the library table. I didn't think he had much of a rank, yet he spoke freely to Martin, but while I wasn't invisible, I wasn't directed. I'm a bloody prized, breeding cow for the leader beside me. No matter his caressing touches or side-glances, I was never, ever an equal, wherever I stood. Wherever I was now. He brushes his fingers over my mark, the mark he left on me. It stains, the scar tissue not formulating an invisible connection, if it did, the scar would have healed and there wouldn't be evidence of anything there in the first place.

"We'll deal with it later." Martin's voice tone is flat, dry.

We'll deal with it without present company.

I pulled my hand out from his, "I'm finished with my meal anyway." I mutter, leaving him without a spare glance in the direction of any member who eyed me with disdain, because they believe I'm the cold-hearted villain who never gave Martin a chance. I never gave the bond an important, vital thought. For that, I was painted as the enemy here.

I just couldn't care about their thoughts on that, I cared about whether I would be assaulted in my sleep, whether he'd shove me in his demonic cage again for retaliation of stabbing him and henceforth me. The bond, it snapped into place like a puzzle piece on a board, the image so blurry, so unclear, but memorised and made to connect properly, yet that was a failure in and of itself.

I couldn't connect to the abusive son of a bitch watching me from behind.

He could insert a bond.

He could bite and order, demand and force all he wants.

I will never not stop, and I will find the truth behind the binding. The tricky thing was, I couldn't remember what was said in that library, the one I step into now as if I'm sneaking in again. I stare at the chair I recall sitting on, the book I had, the information I was reading about, but when he came in, when he sat down, when he told a story I can't even remember now...something happened.

The bite, but I don't remember how it happened. I know why it did, but the how is an image in my mind, a memory I can't see into. My computerised brain, it locked the file, an outside hacked it. That outsider—Martin Julius.

When I say his name, it feels wrong though.

Julius, I know he overtook the first leader, how is a simplified version of a duel, a challenge and then a terrific death of the vile Alpha, overthrown by Martin. Witnesses secluded to those who lived here, it was supposedly considered a fair fight. No fight, however, is ever, ever fair.

He wasn't thrusted into the spotlight for winning the challenge, instead, his decorative, dangerous reputation proceeded itself over the years and soon he just became a global supernatural figure, and that was it. It was declared, accepted and understood. Accepted by the council. Declared by his clan, this clan. And understood by everyone outside of those two groups. I hadn't cared about him, until now.