Chasing back his Rejected Mate

The smell was overpowering, metallic, and sickening. I stood transfixed in the midst of the meadow as it clung to me, filling my lungs with every breath. Red-handled, my hands trembled, and the terror of it all swept over me like a tsunami.

Looking down at the lifeless body splayed at my feet, my pulse raced. This was my closest confidante, my sister except in blood. She had passed away by now. I said in a tremulous, raspy voice, "I didn't do this." Even still, the words seemed meaningless to me.

The group was murmuring behind me, their shock rapidly morphing into suspicion and, eventually, rage. I sensed that they were staring at me accusingly. The weight of their stare made my skin prickle and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.

A cry rose from the crowd, "She killed her," breaking through the cacophonous turmoil. It was Nora, and I knew without turning around that her voice was as piercing as a knife. She was once again distorting the facts to fit her story, as she had a habit of doing. "Nixie murdered her.”

A wave of consensus swept through the assembled wolves. My throat filled with bile as my stomach fell. I spun around, looking for a glimmer of hope, a speck of trust, among the sea of faces. But all I saw were accusatory, icy eyes. Eyes that had changed to view me as a killer rather than as their Luna.

"I didn't," I said again, raising my voice to a breaking point in an attempt to convey my desperate state. "I did not murder her. I would never—"

Rising towering and intimidating from the throng, Zane's face was covered in a mask of rage. His cold blue eyes met mine, and for an instant, I thought I saw confusion flash through them. However, it vanished as soon as it emerged, to be replaced by a chilly indifference.

As brittle as our relationship had been since the rejection, it seemed to be eroding every moment.

"Nixie, what is this?"

I felt a shiver go down my spine when I heard his deep, threatening voice. He came to a stop a few steps away from me, commanding the situation with an authority that only an Alpha could have.

"Explain this. Right now.

My mouth opened to say something, but the words became stuck in my throat. How do I put it? How would I account for the unexplainable? Although I hadn't touched Lila, I had discovered her body here with her blood on my hands.

I had no idea how it had happened. I was patrolling close to the boundaries for one minute, and then this happened. As I peered down at Lila's corpse again, my breath caught. Her chest had a huge, vicious wound. Claw marks are definitely from a wolf. However, I hadn't changed. I had left her untouched.

Zane's tolerance was wearing thin as his eyes grew gloomy. "Nixie," he snarled, commanding in his piercing voice.

"Talk.”

“I didn't murder her. At last, I erupted, my voice frantic. This is how I discovered her. I promise. I didn't—

"Liar”

Nora growled, advancing with a glare in her eyes. "Nixie, I saw you. I witnessed your assault on her. Did you not feel jealous of her? Of her standing within the group. On her bond with Zane.

"That is untrue!" Though I was trembling, I was unable to control the wave of emotions that was surging inside of me. I was experiencing an internal conflict between anger, fear, and desperation that threatened to take over.

"Nora, why are you doing this?"

The twisted, nasty sneer on her face made my blood boil. "since the truth always surfaces." You have, in actuality, always posed a threat to this pack. It's high time we get rid of you.”

Zane looked from us to each other, his jaw clenched. The battle occurring behind his eyes was visible to me. I could see that he wanted to believe me based on the shattered pieces of our relationship, but the proof was unforgiving.

The corpse at my feet, the blood on my hands, and Nora's lethal remarks. I had nowhere to go and was besieged.

"Zane," I begged, my voice growing softer as I moved cautiously in his direction. "You are familiar with me. I wouldn't do this, you know that. Please…

However, he remained still. He remained silent. Words could never be more terrible than his silence. Our relationship, which had once been so close and full of promise, felt like a noose closing around my throat. He would not deliver me. He refused to support me.

"It's unbelievable that you're still supporting her," Nora snarled, folding her arms across her chest. Zane, beware of her threat. You must decide before she murders more people.

The assembly muttered in agreement, and I felt the pressure of their combined opinion descend upon me like a dense mist. Now that panic was gnawing at the margins of my consciousness, my breath came in short gasps. That was it. Alone, banished, and betrayed by the very people I had pledged to defend, this was how it was all going to end.

When Zane's eyes locked with mine for the final time, I momentarily believed I caught a glimpse of regret. But then he said something, and what he said decided my fate.

"Nixie, you're banished.”

My ears rang with the words, and I felt a wave of astonishment wash over me like ice water. Exiled. The only thing in our existence that is worse than death. To be banished, cut off from the group, and separated from my entire life.

"No."

The word was scarcely discernible, a strangled whisper. Please say no, Zane. Avoid doing this. I didn't—

"Enough." His voice was decisive, a razor slicing through the atmosphere. "You've violated the pack's rules. This place no longer welcomes you. As I gazed at him, my heart broke into a million pieces. Even though our relationship was already tattered and shattered, it broke entirely. And taking with it the last bit of optimism I could muster.

"Zane." He had turned his back on me already, yet my voice was a broken whisper. The pack trailed behind him, their murmurs as piercing as blades and their eyes full of disgust. The enormity of what had just transpired crashed over me, and I felt the world close in around me. Exiled. Expelled from the sole existence I had ever experienced.

With my legs weak and my mind racing, I lurched backwards. But just when I was about to lose it all, an idea suddenly broke through the mist of my hopelessness.

The laws of the pack would no longer apply to me if I was banished. Free of Zane and his harsh command. And perhaps, just perhaps, that offered me freedom—the one thing I had left to fight for.

After giving the clearing and the pack that had turned away from me one more glance, I started to run. With just one thought racing through my head, I fled into the darkness and the unknown. I would discover the reality. I would make my name obvious. And I would make them all pay for what they had done to me when I got back.

However, I couldn't get rid of the impression that someone else was observing me as I melted into the forest's shadows. Someone who made me shudder in their presence.

And for the first time since the start of the nightmare, I started to question whether I had just walked into something more riskier than I had thought.