Rejected, Loved, Mated

Chapter One: Blame

After that night so many years ago, my life had seemed to go down the drain. My parents were never found and, after two years, they were assumed dead. That night, after finding out they were taken, emotions had been high and people had been angry. My parents were so loved by the pack that they needed somebody to blame and, when they couldn't figure out anybody else to put it on, they blamed me.

Why hadn't I been strong enough to fight back? Who sleeps through their parents getting kidnapped? How could I live with myself? Constantly, I had to worry about these questions. Everybody began taking their anger and pain out on me. I was beaten constantly and called names in school, it was torture most days. It was teenagers looking for a reason to hate me and they found it. People I thought were my friends turned on me.

For part of the first year, my brothers had stood by my side but slowly they began to side with the other pack members. They never hit me but they became indifferent to me. That had been the blow that had hurt the most, especially when it came just before my birthday. I know it might seem petty but I thought the least they could have done was wait until after my birthday, after my first shift which I had needed their support to get through. It would have meant the world to me for them to have been there to give me guidance on such an important part of my life but they were already taken in by the pack's views. Even my Alpha and his family had begun to blame me and it had become too much. They never touched me but it was just the way they acted. I felt like an outcast. I wasn't even sixteen yet and I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, so I left.

Three days before my first shift, I grabbed a large dufflebag and filled it with all that I could fit in it. Once it was filled, I made sure my brothers weren't home and went into my parents room. My mother and I had always talked about what to do in case of an emergency, so I knew they had a large amount of petty cash in their closet. Werewolves' finances were passed down from generation to generation so we were pretty well off and I could take it without having to worry about it being missed.

Because of our belief that they were still alive, we kept everything where it had been when they had been there so I went straight in and grabbed what I needed. With the emergency money in tow and all of my important stuff, including my laptop, packed and ready, I took some of the money to buy a cheap car and got out of town. In just one short day, I was four states away from my tormentors and in neutral territory so I didn't have to worry about anybody saying anything about me being there. I was a rogue but at least I could be happy.

Once I got in town, I found a nice place that hired me despite my rogue status and age. The elderly owner, Sarah, knew I needed a place to stay so we worked out for me to live in the apartment above the restaurant I was going to be working in. She knew how hard it could be for a brown skinned girl to get a job in most places and she gave me mercy. I started working two days later after I got settled, eager to get started.

Later that night, I made my way out into the woods and my first change came. The pain was excruciating but I kept pushing through. Finally, I was shifted and I could hear the voice of my inner wolf coaching me through. I had shifted into a deep russet wolf with deep, icy blue eyes. I was quite large for a new wolf and a female, I could probably give an Alpha a pretty good fight if I worked at it.

"That's it." Nina, my wolf, said. "You're doing great. Now, turn back. Just imagine yourself in human form and you should turn back to your human." She coaxed. I did as she said and I felt my bones snapping into place. I screamed as I turned back into my human form and staggered my way into my new apartment. "It's over, you got through it. I'm so proud of you." She whispered in my head as sleep took me over.

The next morning I had woken up with a new best friend in my wolf and an eagerness to find a school to go to. I made sure to set my new job schedule so that I had time to finish high school, there was just one problem I had to fix first. I knew, before I enrolled in school, I needed a new identity and that was going to take work. I had always been good with computers and all I needed was a good printer. Our pack had had a hacker for all of our undercover stuff and I had been close to him before I left. He taught me everything he knew.

I took some money down to the electronic store in the town and brought all the supplies I needed. After hacking a few systems back in my apartment, I was Leanna Owens and I was ready to enroll in school. I took my records from my old school, after I hacked their system and made sure it was untraceable, and I changed all the important information to match who I was supposed to be then made sure all my background would make sense. I knew it wouldn't be perfect, I was only sixteen and all my hacking experience wasn't as great as the man who taught me, but the work was good enough that nobody would look too deep, it wouldn't be traced back, and that's all I needed.

Weeks turned into months of me working and going to school, providing whatever I needed for myself and staying under the grid so that nobody asked too many questions. The area I was in was a large area that remained unclaimed by any packs and the school I attended was just big enough that the wolves that went there just ignored each other.

I had a few run-ins with some rouge-haters but soon I learned to defend myself and became faster and stronger, I became a fighter. The world I lived in didn't give you chances to screw up and I learned that quickly. Best thing to have when you're a rouge? A survival instinct. Survive at all cost and take no prisoners. Because of that survival instinct, I was able to do more than I thought possible for myself. I wasn't proud of some things I did but I made a living doing them.

I quickly excelled in my classes, pushing through to graduate a year ahead of my schedule, then it was time for college. I hated leaving the restaurant and my apartment but I needed to make it through a decent college and the area I was in didn't have any. I had been accepted to a lot of colleges, some of them the best in the United States but some of them weren't affordable for me. The only place that had given me a decent deal on tuition and scholarships had been the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities and I jumped on the offer they made me. Ninety percent of my tuition was paid and the only thing I needed to worry about was my books and living fees.

Over the years I had stayed in Washington, I hadn't spent more than needed so I had a good amount of money saved from the emergency money I had gotten from my parent's room before I left and basically all the money I had made working. Two months before classes started, I went back to Minnesota to ensure that I would have a job and a place to stay when I got there then I headed back to finish out my time in Washington.

After my two weeks notice ended, I packed up everything I had and moved to Minnesota, close to the campus and my new job. I had found work as a waitress again and, though it wasn't the perfect job, people were always nice to me and I got good tips. When classes started, I struggled to make it through work and school and still kept a near perfect GPA. For somebody who had been blamed for her parent's disappearance, I was making it good for myself.

Five years after my parents disappearance and I was now twenty, finishing my final semester of my Bachelors degree and, basically, the head waitress at my restaurant. I had worked my butt off to get where I was and I wasn't going to stop yet. I was set to go to graduate school already the fall semester, since I was graduating in spring, and I was going to reach my goals no matter what. I had always wanted to be a lawyer and I was one step closer everyday.

The one thing I was completely grateful for was never seeing anybody I knew. I had taken the blame while I was with them, I was no longer going to play their blame games.