Reject & Kidnapped

Chapter 18

Melody POV

The past couple of months has been a rollercoaster for us, Duke training to take down his father and rebuilding my trust in him. Today we decided to take a break and head back to a diner in town, to celebrate everything and our return to the pack soon.

As soon as Duke marked me, we would return back to the back and finally expose Blair and the Alpha.

Tonight, tonight my wolf yipped in my head.

Yup, tonight Duke would mark us and I couldn't be more excited.

We walked in the diner hand and hand, taking a seat away near the back.

"Are you excited about tonight?" Duke asked

"My wolf and I are super excited, she can't wait for you to mark us," I said with a light blush.

"I know the feeling, I've been waiting for this day since the first time I recognize you as my mate, I love you, Melody." He said before placing a light kiss on the back of my hand.

It's not the first time I've heard him say he loves me, but just like the first time hearing him say he loves me causes me to go completely red in the face and my heart beat to increase.

"I love you too," I said shyly which caused him to laugh.

The server came up and asked if we were ready and after placing our order, we just sat there comfortably in our own thoughts. Duke playing with my hands and me lost in my mind.

That's probably why I didn't smell her the moment the diner door opened or even pay attention to the blond walking towards our table.

I heard a gasp first and an "oh shit" from Duke before looking up and meeting Lauri's watery blue eyes.

"Mel--"

"O"

"Dy" she broke out between sobs, causing some of the people in the diner to look our way.

"Please sit down" Duke encourage her, as not to draw any more attention to us.

I just sat there shocked, I can't believe Lauri was seated across from me. I started looking around, wondering if my parents or Ariel was also with her, noticing my movement Lauri said: "your parents and Ariel isn't with me".

Minutes past and Lauri sobs had died down, I was still frozen and our server had brought out our food, asking if Lauri wanted to order anything.

"How did you find us?" Duke broke the silence by asking.

"I've been searching for Melody all summer long, my cousins even came to help," Lauri told us.

"Do anybody from the pack know that you found us?" Duke asked her.

"No, I haven't had a chance to tell anyone. But OMG Duke, I'm so happy I found you with Melody. Your father had everyone looking for you, and Blair is about to have the baby soon, she's going to need you." she said causing a growl to come out of my mouth, my wolf did not like hearing about Blair and her fake Duke baby.

"That is not his child" I growled at her, Lauri looked shocked and confused at my reaction.

"What's going on here?" she asked noticing Duke still holding my hands

"We're mated" Duke answered for me.

The look on Lauri's face was absolutely priceless, her eyes looked like it wanted to pop out of their sockets and her mouth dropped open.

"You're mates, but Blair, the baby... I'm so confused" she said looking at myself and Duke.

"I'll tell you everything, but first, you have to promise you won't tell anyone that you found us. You have to promise Lauri" I told her sternly.

"No problem, I don't understand what's going on but I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Wait let me call my cousin's really quick to let them know not to come in here after me," she said before pulling out her cell phone and calling her cousins.

"Hey Oliver, y'all don't need to come to the diner. It was a false alarm, ya I'm just gonna take a couple of minutes to get a drink of water before I get back to moody Parker." She told Oliver, and I smiled remembering my crush on Oliver growing up. Lauri's cousins used to come over all the time and we would end up playing with them and based on the last sentence I see not much has changed with Parker.

"Ok I took care of them, they're not going to come in here," Lauri told us.

"What happened to looking for y'all mates this summer?" I asked her hoping they didn't cancel that to look for me, Lauri had been looking forward to that trip.

"We kind of use this trip to look for you also, don't worry we did also try to find our mates but luck wasn't on our side until now," Lauri said

"I'm glad to hear that," I said with a sad smile, seeing Lauri really made me miss home. Duke noticed the change in my attitude and leaning over to give me a kiss on the cheek, which caused Lauri to grasp again.

"You guys are really mates, huh?" she asked

"Yup, Blair was never my mate and that baby isn't mine. Melody was always my mate," Duke told her.

I went through the storytelling Lauri everything that we knew about the situation and at first, she couldn't believe that Blair and the Alpha would do something like that.

"OMG, that is some crazy shit," she said out loud, grabbing a fry off my plate, the food we ordered still untouched.

I nodded my head, yes and Duke finally picked up his burger and took a bite out of it.

"So what now, are you guys ever coming back to the park or this goodbye forever?" she asked me.

"We're coming back to the pack but not yet, we need to work out a couple of things but we'll be back soon."

"Good because Blair doesn't deserve the attention she's getting," Lauri said.

"I mean what about her mate? What is she going to do when she finds him?" she asked herself, which made me wonder what about her mate, Blair had to have a mate, so why was she doing all of this knowing that she has someone.

"Duke, do you know if Blair has a mate? Somebody who rejected her? If we can find him and talk to him we can find out why she's doing all of this" I asked him.

"I don't know if she has a mate or not, I've never heard any rumors about her getting rejected either," he said and continued with his sandwich.

Lauri was telling me about my family, and how much they missed me. How she and Ariel are now close and call each other every other night, I was happy that she was finally getting along with my little sister.

"Wait I think I remember something," Duke said interrupting our conversation.

"There was this kid, I don't know if he was her mate or not but he would always glare at me and say slick stuff like, I don't get what she see's in you, and I hate alpha's always taking somebody else's mate. He usually had her scent on him also, and I'm used to smelling other males with her scent but he was the first to actually look like he had a problem with her obsession with me."

Duke told us, and although that was interesting I don't think that made him her mate.

"I know it's probably nothing but a couple of days before I went missing, he tried to fight me claimed I was stealing his mate and not knowing what to do because he loved that whore. I knocked him out thinking he was just some craze wolf who got rejected but I remember now seeing a tattoo on him that said, Blair."

"Do you remember his name?" I asked

"Lionel, no it was Liam. Liam Knight, he went missing after that and his parents said they felt him die, they never found a body so they're hoping he might still be alive and that he ran away."

Was Liam Knight really Blair's mate?