The Reluctant Mate (On Hold)

Chapter 6

Alex POV

I'm stuck in the middle of my worst nightmare, and to top it all, that nightmare has turned into my shitty reality. Listening to other people discussing my future, the entire rest of my life, deciding without even once asking me what I myself want, is exactly what I desperately seeked to avoid.

I don't want to see any of them, and I sure as hell don't want to let them see how furious I feel right now. And how dejected.

Nathan's suggestion of house arrest for hitting that annoyance on two legs, called Stan, doesn't really bother me. There are always ways to get out of this house unnoticed. But when Alpha Dylan suggests I should move in with his son, I almost loose it and go on a rampage. As soon as I set foot into the pack house, all my plans are almost certainly destined to be ruined for good...

„There's a guest room, Alex, you won't have to share a bed with me before the ceremony", I hear Nathan say, and sneer inwardly. As if I'd be willing to do that after the ceremony, or, to be precise, ever!

Not that I intend to go through with that humiliating mating ceremony for the Alpha-Luna-couple in the first place! But, thank goddess, they intend to hold this event after my graduation, so I won't be forced to change my initial schedule after all.

I'm planning to disappear amidst the hubbub of the graduation festivities. Over twenty-five Redwood pack members are going to graduate at once on that day, and an additional number of fifteen from surrounding packs - until anyone has a chance to notice my absence in all that turmoil destined to ensue, I will be long gone, with the help of my ex-girlfriend Theresa. She's going to secretly pick me up at a hidden from view spot next to the main road, right behind our school. Then, we're going to drive in her car until we reach the next bigger town, about an hour and a half from Redwood, where I'm going to board the bus north.

Yes, north, not south, because I won't stay on that bus for long, oh hell no. One of Theresa's cousins has bought an old, but reliable car for me, and I will meet up with him in Boise, at the airport, right where I 'm gonna leave the bus. When my pack sends people to fetch me back, I hope they'll assume I took an airplane, and it will definitely take quite some time for them to find out I didn't. By then, I'm long gone into hiding in LA, only to re-emerge as Aleksander Gardener two months later, when my classes at film school start.

Not bad for an allegedly dumb and cray-cray in the head, eighteen year old Omega, right?

Why I don't leave right now? Too dangerous without a rock-solid plan at hand. Don't underestimate the instincts and the good nose of werewolves. With me having a mate now, the future Alpha to boot, I can't predict what the pack will do to me if I try running away. After all, my disappearance might have a damaging effect on their beloved future leader, a person they believe they need, or the pack could suffer. They wouldn't kill me, but definitely force me into accepting the mate mark, no doubt about it, and if they have to put me under tight house arrest until my will crumbles to dust and all that is left is a submissive shell of my former self. It's the pack's well-being that is important, not the individual member's...

The biggest uncertainty now is Nathan. I can only hope and pray that he's not going to be able to sense where I am, as long as he hasn't marked me yet. To highten my chances of successfully disappearing from my pack's radar, I have to make sure our mate connection doesn't strengthen over the course of the next two weeks, which will be tricky, considering his plans for us bonding.

No matter what happens, Nathan will always be able to tell whenever I'm in the same city as him, but maybe I'm lucky and he'll never come to Los Angeles?