Rejection on the Alpha #1

CHAPTER 26: Elder Elemental Persistence

Training with Elder Elias was more brutal than my training in the academy, to work for the council that no longer exists. Elias stood there, shocking me with the fact he stood there shirtless with twin daggers at his back, hooked in his belt and the size of him rather intimidating. I twist the daggers in my fingers, tense and riddled with sweat while the other elders stand by and watch, it’s all they do, “Still naive?” Elias questions me, still pissed.

I inwardly scoff and feign a left, diving right, I slam the hilt of the dagger into his knee, using my being just to spin up and slice the dagger at his cheek, he dodges it and knees me in the stomach. I grit my teeth and spin faster, harder, sending a roundhouse kick his way and he uses it to shove my face to the floor.

I gasp, my muscles vibrating in ache and the pain of it, “Elias, I did not believe you training my mate would mean continuously hurting her?” Martin’s nonchalant voice had no qualms about the pain I was in. In fact, he was watching like it was live entertainment for him.

“You can talk.” I spit at him, spitting out blood in the process, the knock to my stomach did something, and now I was healing from it.

“You have not shifted in far too long.” Elias ignores Martin, speaking directly to me.

I don’t answer him, my back turned, I close my eyes, tired and weak. The court I once considered home was nothing more than a dictatorship, run by a new leader, with new rules and expectations that I still felt so bitter towards. Yes, Martin was nicer to staff and the games had been eradicated, he gained allies after such events were run in the ground, “Celestine.” Elias warns.

“Let me have a try with her, Elias.” Martin initiates.

“I’m done for today.” I interrupt.

“That wasn’t a request.” Martin says to me, moving forward on the grass. He stands behind me, before shoving a punch straight into my spine. I scream at the pain, dropping down to my knees, I curse and kick out a leg, right into his knee, he didn’t see it coming. I grab a fistful of dirt, throwing it in Martin’s silver eyes, he grunts and spins away from me. I don’t let him go far.

Wrapping my legs around his head, I flip us through the air and land on my feet while he spins and lands on his, eyes red-rimmed before he growls lowly, it’s taut and tense as he struts up to me, his voice and tone deepening, “Obey.” He spits, gripping my neck in one hand.

I knock his arm down, elbow lowering and I backhand him. He lifts me off the floor and slams me on my back, puffing the air out of my lungs and I gasp for breath. His fingers tighten around my neck, “That’s enough.” Serena calls out, clearly we had an audience, she’s stopped by Alpha Torrence.

“Don’t, she hurt his wolf. Not even the elders can intervene.” He says to her, sounding cautious while I struggle, choking on Martin’s grip while he drags me against the grass, up closer to his face, fangs appeared where a smooth should have been, he snarls in my face. I punch his ruin cage hard. It does nothing.

“You won’t give me what others will.” He sneers.

“Sex?” I choke out.

He narrows his eyes, “That is allowed only during the initiation, hence why I have not taken your innocence.” He snaps at me, shoving me away from him, he stands, anger deep in his eyes.

I crawl back from him, Elias stands there, being held by one of the other elder’s, “You can get another girl to fuck you to heaven, arsehole.” I spit at Martin, smirking with blood trailing down my lips. Serena and Alice, even their Alphas and Betas, Gammas and Deltas all around us, they probably saw me and first thought of a patient who escaped an asylum. Perhaps I looked like a corpse pulled out of a grave, fresh and yet still so sickly pale. The putrid smell of blood in the air.

Martin smirks, arms spread wide, “Not while you’re still breathing, darling.”

“I thought they were bonding.” One girl says.

I spit my blood that was ready to gurgle against my own wishes, against the green grass and spin around, “I’d rather die than bond with your misogynistic, materialistic self any goddamn day. You lead what? People? A throne? You’re no different than the council, except for one detail, you are one person when they were many. You are one mind, they were combined, grouped, and that made certain things a reliable source to running the safety and security of millions. You can’t even protect me from yourself, asshole, how are you going to protect the rest of them from your siblings, or from every other supernatural that will have no problem lighting a fucking fire under your arse!” I growl at Martin, giving him the finger before strutting towards the building beside the court, wiping my lips while I was healing before screaming out the second my clothes rip to shreds and the pain...it grows more blinding than the last time I shifted.

I spun around and without thinking, without seeing through my own eyes, I ploughed straight into Martin and watched him fly up through the air with wide eyes, he’s shoved straight into a tree, snapping it in half and my wolf plops her arse on the grass and absentmindedly licks her paw while I’m stared at with wide-eyes. My wolf was making quite the bloody statement here.

Before a stringently angry male lycanthrope steps out of the shadows on two paws, muscles raging and his disgusting male part hanging. Fantastic, cause that shit is just so attractive, Martin. Dumb bloody lycanthrope. He roars at me, I make a slow lick of my paw, wiping it behind my ear and letting out a wolffish snort, “EVERYONE STEP BACK!” Torrence calls out.

Martin walks with a burly manner, like a Titan while I sharpen my claws. I felt the inevitable power seep into flesh and bone. Like the molecules of blood flowing through my veins and arteries changes, altered by an atmosphere I couldn’t understand the full scope of it. That intangible alliance between woman and power is unprecedented in the male world.

To them, women and power aren’t a problem.

To them, we are nothing if not completely inferior.

I ripple like a dart in a bar, the board being Nicolai Martin Darkling.

I use to play at the bar all the time, when Kade first took me to a bar, he held me up as a child, “Now, stare at the centre like it’s a bully, dear. What we’re going to do is aim the needle at the bully. Aim the needle at the woman who made you cuff yourself to a bed because she feared who you are. Take away that fear. Remove the cuff. Walk down those stairs. Take my hand. Aim. Fire.” His order has my thirteen-year-old self, built so small but never failed to show how strong...I fire.

I aimed and I let it fly. Hitting only just below the entire board, on the wooden wall.

I deflated, sniffling as I look at it. He lowers me to the floor and kneels down in front of me, “Don’t cry. Look at me.”

“I failed.” I whisper, feeling more useless than I should have been.

“We’re going to try again, and again, until you know. Until you do it without seeing. Until you perfect it. Not by believing you can do it. Not just by instinct, kiddo, but by routine and practice. If you have multiple routines, you confuse the enemy, no matter if they know you or if you are a complete surprise. Try again.” He urges, lifting me back up.

I close my eyes.

I close my eyes.

And throw it...

Claws out and aligned, I sliced into skin, crunching my jaw against his rib cage and spinning the lycanthrope through the air as he roars, it’s thunderous the way his racing heart beats and the blood I clot with my canines. I break bone. I crush everything he’s built and I rip a chunk out of him. He couldn’t sink his claws into me fast enough as screams echo and they dance, they dart through my mind as I throw Martin across the field and he shifts to his human form, in pain.

His side...it’s shredded.

Medics come running while Martin can’t stand, he’s frozen on the grass floor, could a true mate real do that to their so-called other half.

I land it dead centre without fail.

******

I stand there, staring him down while the wound healing process is slow, rebuilding bone is painful, more painful than anyone could believe, I would know. Martin sweats, his agonised expression doesn’t make me falter in my dark red gown. It swishes as I turn away from his screams and move down the hall, past the other clinical rooms while every single doctor, nurse, patient and family member move aside, like I’m the Red Death they fear and admittedly, it felt good.

At first it felt good to rip a part of him out the way he’s done to me.

The steps called upon the silence in the defeating room while every individual who stood with Martin sits tense, waiting. I made it that way, because even in agony, even in his vulnerable state, Martin was powerless and all that stood to stand was me.

I move, not needing sound, but only the eyes of every single person in the room. And there were thousands seated, thousands watching as I move to the throne chair. Not even Elias and his Elder followers could stand up here now. They were seated in the crowd, at the same level. The same rank as all other clans that were once powerful, that were once known to their name, they sat at the same level as those once known as Omegas.

The low of the low.

They sat as one rank.

And I made it so.

I stare out, the chandeliers twinkling as silence was all that could echo.

“You hear his screams.” My voice dances along the walls, the cold dead air. I feel it disperse and burn in my presence with two bonfires in the corners, burning up the room, making everyone but me sweat.

“You made him your king, you made him a leader of the lot of you and that will not stand. Each of you, man and woman, no matter your rank, no matter your status, you allowed tradition to overthrow what is right. You allowed rank to dictate whether it is right for a man to hit a woman. You allowed status to dictate whether who can stand with their eyes challenging another, and you allowed power to rule your decisions to kill a council that did wrong a great deal of society, but you had no right to remove their souls from their bodies. You had no right to crown a man who will cage the woman he proclaims to love. You had no right to form a unity where men can rule the lines and corners of the earth, but the women are only here and we’re only born to serve the LIKES OF YOU!” I snap.

The atmosphere heats up.

But it’s still dead silence, “Nicolai was made an example of. His kin will be made an example of. And you all will be made an example of.” I threaten.

“You live and breathe to understand this world, not to control it. If you do not open your eyes, you will not survive long enough to understand the danger you spread. Names. Voices. Statuses. Abilities. Ranks. Clans. Born with the name your mother gave. Spoken with a voice of authority your father dictated, but it was a mother who held each of you in a womb. Your status exists because of a woman. Your abilities exist because of a mother who birthed you. No matter man or woman. If being beaten into submission is allowed, then why is a woman’s voice silenced? If being beaten to obey is allowed, then why are you allowed to breathe a second longer? If once impregnated by the male, does a woman have the ability to be safe because she holds an heir?” I question, tilting my head higher.

I feel the air dampen, changing from boiling to a colder touch to it.

I stare at the numerous eyes of the room, “You were taught by society that women cannot rule. That women cannot stand and make the decisions that require sacrifice, that the soft-hearted cannot make tough choices. That a woman cannot hurt a mate, because she was born to give him peace where he is born without any. That peace is through unleashing anger through violence, through abuse. THAT. WILL. NOT. STAND!”

“I will not be a pawn in a chase of the wolves. You sit with every rank, you sit with those of no rank. A crown means nothing to no one if it’s gems are fake, if it’s gold kills the poor, if it’s power enforces the rich to stay the same. You are weak if you hurt others to make yourself a greater podium. You are weak if you harm a women to bestow power where there is none. There is no loyalty in beating a woman. There is no name in looking to other women when you have one. You vowed to cherish under the eyes and ears of the moon herself and yet those claims, those vows are run through the ground, buried under your lies. You have failed. You have all failed.” I say to them, staring even at Elias and his Elders.

His eyes held such emotion, “You. Failed.” I say to him directly, moving to step on the throne chair. I sit down.

“New laws will be made once Nicolai Darkling heals his own mistakes. Go find your own food. The maids and waiters, chefs and cooks don’t have to serve the spoiled when they can learn to do so themselves.” I spit to the crowd. Anyone with children, with families and those I knew weren’t part of the pain observed in their clans were given food. But the rest of them...must fend for themselves. They treated all those inferior like they were pawns, it’s time to show the knights of this realm that pawns are more valuable than even the knights, bishops, rooks, the Queen and the King.

I stood before an empty room. Elias stands slowly, moving to the last step as he looks up at me, “Celestine, can I say something?” He asks me gently.

I stare out before me, “No, you may not, because speaking would imply you must say something for me to see reason in the violence you allowed to open. You want to train me, for what, Elias? For another lesson? For another statement to allow the course of events to continue because you deem it so in all your wisdom. The past was a problem, and you are old enough to struggle with change. To struggle in understanding that society today doesn’t need this. And you stood there...you watched, you let it happen and then you ridicule me of nativity? Of being too soft-hearted, too compassionate that I needed more training.” I say to him, stepping down the steps but still remaining above him.

His eyes hold mine, “I was wrong.” He whispers. But wrong about what? He didn’t care to admit even that.

I stare at him, “You disgust me as much he does.” As much as Martin does.

Elias’s entire face twists, “That’s not what that was—”

I cut him off with but one hand raised. It hurt him, I don’t know why or how, but it hurt him to hear that from my lips.

“My nativity is what fueled your anger, your persistence against the likes of me and you used it to bend me, to break me, then to put me back together. The manipulation is almost laughable, coming from a man with the title of an Elder, but what is much worse...you cannot stop what we all know is wrong. You allow it to happen, your security in society allowed you to be so comfortable with what he has done to me. Your words mean nothing if all you say is that there is no running from a man who hurts a woman as much as he does. Your mere existence holds for him, not for what is right and that is a disgusting trait even someone at your age shows. I will not stand for it and I won’t fucking stand for you.” I spit at him, about to move past, but he grabs my arm and the tingles erupt in my wrist.

His eyes penetrate mine.

His breathing labours.

His pulse jumps.

His heart thumps.

His entire being revolves around something outside of him.

And he’s only now seeing it for what it is.

“It was not because you are soft-hearted, it’s because I will not allow what is mine, to fall for the trickery of any enemy she comes across.”

He is so very wrong.

And he is one of the many enemies I know I will have to face.

He was persistent, he was certain I could never enter a realm to find the truth in who my soul connects with.

That only an elemental can enter that realm.

That only an elemental’s blood can be spilt in the rune pool that will tell this truth.

How very wrong he is.

How very wrong he is.

Kade stares at the dart, quickly spilling water over it.

Because he saw it, I saw it...it was alit with the flame.

The flame from my bare hands.

Kade knew, and that is one thing I should have always known too.