"Oh."

The room fell silent; I could hear the crickets outside. My heart was beating out of my chest, and I felt like I couldn't breathe while staring down at my hands resting on my lap. I wanted to get up and run into the forest, and not dare to come back.

My mate.

My mate is standing five feet away from me, and I can't move, I want to run into his arms, I want to be his. But I can't move. Katy is sitting on the couch opposite of mine completely shocked, like everyone else. I feel like I'm going to puke, the tension in the room was slowly suffocating me. I stood up and looked him right in his piercing deep blue eyes; I did not run into his arms. Instead, I left the room. I speed walked into the kitchen and took a deep breath; the air was fresh and untouched by emotion.

This isn't how it's supposed to be! He was supposed to run up to me, hug me, kiss me, but all he did was stand there, emotionless, come on I'm not that bad!

Katy ran into the kitchen and when she saw me her face softened. "Anna?"

I didn't answer I just kept looking at the white tiled floor beneath my feet. A tear splattered on the tile—I didn't even know that I was crying.

"Anna, what happened?" She asked soothingly while walking towards me, as if she has known me long enough to calm me down.

I kept my stare on the floor. I wish I would just disappear! I could hear Jackson's voice from the other room, but I couldn't comprehend what he was saying.

"I-I should g-go," I mumble.

Katy ran to me and held me in her arms.

"No, no don't talk like that!" She then held me at arm's length, looking at the tear stains on my cheeks.

"I don't understand." I sigh.

Her face falls, and she drops her arms from my shoulders. "None of us do." I can hear the sorrow in her voice.

Nicole enters the kitchen and walks towards us with a sorry frown. "Oh, honey." She wipes a tear from my cheek.

"Is he going to reject me?" I softly ask, though, on the inside, I'm screaming it. Would he reject me? Well, I already feel rejected.

"He won't even try because if he does, I'll beat him up," Katy warns severely.

I chuckle and rub off the rest of the tears from under my eyes; I have to be strong, even if he does reject me I already lost my mom, dad, sister, and brother. What's one more person, but I feel if I lose my mate, I might just crack. If I lose, my other half life isn't worth living.

"Come on let's go back into the living room," Katy suggests. I guess it's time to face the music. What am I going to say? What will he say? Well, hopefully not the word reject. I walk back into the living room with Katy and Nicole at my side, but Tyler is not longer here.

"Where did he go?" Nicole asks Jackson and Michael.

"He said that he was going for a run." Jackson answers.

"He just found his mate, and he's going for a damn run!" Katy yells at the boys.

"That's what he said before he left out the door!" Michael yells back.

Did he leave? I could feel it, the emptiness inside me started to grow. I have to go after him—even if he does reject me—I can feel my wolf howling at the thought of being abandoned.

"I'm going to go find that son of a-"

"No, I'll go find him, so we could at least talk about what happened." I cut Katy off.

She glances at the boys then back at me. "Are you sure, it can be dangerous out there with the rouge sightings recently."

"Ya I'll be fine, I got Alpha blood." I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

"Okay just be careful."

I nodded then went out the front door, shutting it behind me. The crisp Autumn air blew past me causing me to shiver. I walked across the driveway and followed a dirt path leading to the tree line.
I walked through the woods freezing, and over emotional. I past tree by tree hoping he'd appear when I passed the next, but he never did. I walk over and sit on a rock on the now faded pathway. I try to relax and calm myself down, stupid werewolf emotions making me go crazy.

A gust of wind blows agents my face, but I can smell him, the musky, woodsy, sweet scent that drove me crazy. I stand up and run following his addictive scent. I start to hear voices the further I run, I can tell one of them is my mate. I start to see him through the trees with another man, I try and quietly sneak up on them but of course, I step on a twig, and it makes a snap noise causing them to stop their aggressive sounding conversation.

"Who's there!" The other man calls into the trees.

Tyler's eyes go wide, he knows I'm here, he can smell me.

"If you won't come out then I'll drag you out!" He calls again.

I peek out from behind a tree and suddenly come face to face with the unknown man. He grabs my arm roughly and drags me out towards Tyler.

"Let go of her!" Tyler yells using his Alpha voice. "Or I swear I'll rip you to shreds!"

His grip tightens around my arm, and his nails dig into my skin causing me to whimper.

"You're a pretty little thing aren't you." The unknown man trails his hand over my cheek, I try to face away, but he grabs my hair pulling it to face him. "I might just keep you."

Tyler lets out a deep growl. "Jaxton I warned you."

"Oh no, please don't tell me his your mate?" He asked me while chuckling darkly. I wince as his canines emerge from his mouth. "Well, we can change that." He laughs.

I shut my eyes as his mouth comes closer and closer to my neck, but all of the sudden I feel him being torn off me. I open my eyes and Tyler has him pinned against a tree.

"I warned you." Then Tyler snaps his neck, and Jaxton's body fall limp on the forest floor. I take a deep breath and look at Tyler.

"Let's go." He commands. I don't think twice before I follow him back to the pack house. That man was going to mark me; he was going to use me. I shutter at the thought of being marked by a complete stranger. We walk back in silence, not even a sigh or a cough. He opens the door for me, and I walk into immediately be hugged by Katy.

"Anna your arm, it's bleeding! What happened?" Katy questions. I guess we're instant best friends now.

"I ran into Jaxton, and he saw Anna, he was going to... Mark her," Tyler informs Katy tensely.

"What! That psychopath!" Katy screams. She turns back to me and has a closer look at the scratches on my upper arm. "Did he grab you or something?"

"Uh ya," I answer blankly, trying not to seem over emotional.

"Let's spray some disinfectant on it to get his pervert germs off you; I'll be right back." Katy left to grab some disinfectant or whatever and I was left alone with Tyler. I faced away from him as my nerves surfaced.

"You should stay away from me." He says, his voice husky. "I'm not good for you."

My heart cracks a bit at his words; he's going to reject me I know it. I turn to face him, but he was the one looking away now.

"But you're my mate," I whisper.

He turns to face me, yet again his face shows no emotion.

"You're supposed to be good for me." I continue.

We stand silently looking into each other's eyes; I felt complete just being around him.

"I'm supposed to, but I'm not." He turned around and left the living room, leaving me with an aching heart.

"I found the—where did Tyler go?" Katy asked holding a bottle of disinfectant spray for my wound.

"I don't know."

Katy cleaned up my scratches and showed me to the guest room upstairs beside Tyler's room. It was a large room with a king-sized bed in the middle and a bedside table on each side with a window above them. There was a big bathroom connected to the bedroom and a walk-in closet. The room had other stuff in it like a desk, dresser, and a giant mirror. It was well decorated with a gold and white color scheme; it gave it a more elegant feel.

When it got later, I told Katy that I was going to head off to bed. I came into the guest room and the en-suite. I took an inebriating shower and brushed my teeth with the new tooth brush and tooth paste that Katy kindly gave me. I finished up in the bathroom and turned off the lights, I walked over to the bed and climbed in cuddling one of the pillows, wishing it was my mate, his guy I don't even know.

I couldn't sleep he was sleeping in the next room, my wolf was hurting, and I was starting to feel it too. I tossed and turned in between the covers getting frustrated with myself.

I threw the covers off my body and stomped out of the guest room to the room down the hall, which Katy said was hers. I opened the door, and she was peacefully sleeping in her bed.

"Katy." I loudly whisper from the doorway. She didn't move.

"Katy," I call I bit louder. She just rolled over on her other side. Ugh.

I walked up to her bed and shook her.

"Katy wake up."

"Frgmachh." She mumbled, and her eyes popped open. "A-Anna what, what's wrong?" She asked, sounding tired while rubbing her eyes.

"I can't sleep, my wolf is restless."

She sat up on her bed and rolled off, she walked over to her closet and pulled out a large t-shirt and threw it at me.

"How is your shirt going to help?" I questioned her dumbly.

"It's Tyler's; it smells like him now go to sleep." She crawled back into her bed and waved me off. I left her room closing the door on the way out. I walked back down the hall and back into the guest room, I shut the door and brought the shirt up to my nose and sniffed it. My wolf relaxed at the intoxicating scent of our mate. I got back into the bed and put the pillow on the shirt using the shirt as a pillow case. I rested my head on the soft fabric and fell fast asleep.

I woke up and laid in the warm bed for a couple of minutes before I got up to brush my teeth and my hair. I slept like a baby; I haven't had slept like that for a long time. I slugged downstairs and into the white, bright kitchen. Katy was standing at the stove cooking eggs and bacon; she turned around when she heard me enter.

"Good morning, did you fall asleep?" She asked while sliding the food on two plates.

"Ya, right away." I trudged to the table and chairs in the kitchen and sat down.

"Good, I was thinking that we could go shopping to take your mind off things." Katy set the food at the table and sat down herself.

"Oh... I should probably get going." I mumbled shoving food in my mouth so I couldn't talk.

She started to laugh, what's so funny?

"What?" I ask confused while swallowing my eggs.

"You think you're going to l-leave." She giggled.

"Um, I thought." I dropped my fork on the table.

"Anna, you just found your mate, the Alpha, so that makes you the Luna."

"Come on he practically told me to stay away from him. I don't think I'll be the Luna anytime soon." I pointed out.

She sighed. "I know it feels like he doesn't want you, but believe me on the inside, he can't control himself around you."

Could she be right? If she was, then why would he tell me that he's not good for me?

"Now go get dressed we're going shopping!" She cheered.

"Ya, okay." I nodded smiling. I need some girl time.

"I got the plates just go get ready." She grabbed my plate and brought it to the sink with hers. I've been here for twenty-four hours, and I already made a friend.

I headed upstairs and grabbed the cutest clothes that I brought with me and got dressed. I was wearing a black skater skirt and my flowing white, thin strapped, crop top. I also put my black leather jacket on, it reached just above my hips. I went back downstairs with my small cross body purse with my wallet in it.

"You ready to go?" Katy asked while zipping up her boots.

"Yup, let's go."

Katy drove us to the mall in her cute yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Katy told me that she could have got any car that she desired, and she chose a yellow Beetle. Why? I have no idea.

When we arrived at what I'm guessing is the mall we got out of the car and headed inside. Katy lead the way past stores till she stopped in front of a lingerie shop, I gave her a confused look.

"You want to get Tyler don't you?" She asked in a 'duh' tone.

"Not like that!" I yelled. I grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the store. I saw a shop up ahead and dragged her into it instead. I let go of her arm and started looking through the clothes on a rack.

I ended up picking out some things to try on. I went to the changing rooms and hung the clothes on the hook in the stall. First I tried on a sweater, it was gray with white polka dots. Next, I tried on a red velvet pencil skirt. I tried on all the clothes and ended up getting the sweater, skirt, some tops, and dress. I made my way through the clothing racks and displays to the check out counter. I placed the clothes on the counter and grabbed my wallet from my purse.

"Cash or credit?" The tall blonde woman asked.

"Credit." Katy barged in and handed the woman the card in her hands.

"Hey!" I yelled at her putting my hands on my hips.

"What? When I asked Tyler if we could go shopping, he gave me his credit card and told me to use it for you." She shrugged.

My eyes widened.

"See, he cares about you even if it's money."