The Unlikely Mate

Chapter 4

Jennifer's next few memories were of the various packs she had visited, trying to find a place where she could grow and develop. A place that would welcome her as an unmated she-wolf, where they hadn't heard that she had been rejected. A place she could start fresh and remake herself into someone worthy of an Alpha. She remembered when she finally reached the Black Shadows Pack, being led my Alpha Dante, an extraordinarily handsome un-mated Alpha. His reputation was as a violent killer for the Werewolf Council, but it wasn't long before Jennifer had realized that the rumors had more to do with his execution of justice, and little to do with how he led his pack, and he had allowed her to join his pack.

Jennifer had poured herself into fulfilling the goals she had set for herself. She exercised and trained with the warrior wolves as soon as she joined the pack. She took great care in developing her appearance, accentuating her lovely features with just the right amount of make-up to enhance her natural beauty. Letting her light blond hair grow into beautiful waves, and carefully choosing clothing that would complement her feminine figure that she was learning to hone, and picking colors that would bring out the sparkle in her blue eyes. She even took online college courses to develop her mind. She had set her eyes on Dante, and wanted to prove herself worthy of him, hoping that if she became who she thought any strong Alpha would want, that he would chose her to be his Luna.

From her hospital bed, Jennifer remembered those days in horror, unable to believe how foolish she had been. How completely self-absorbed she had become, and how focused she had been on pursuing something that she had never before even wanted. She remembered how the heartbreak from Luther's rejection consistently fueled her to throw herself at Dante, even after he found his true mate and brought her back to the pack.

The next time Jennifer woke up, it was the middle of the night, and everything around her was quiet. Her pain was beginning to subside, and she was alone with her thoughts. Jennifer had begun to realize then that she still had never grown up. She was still playing at her young romantic ideals and trying to be someone she wasn't just to get someone like Luther to choose her, and he hadn't even known she was there.

Jennifer was glad that she had been part of the rescue team that went to Luther's pack to get Jade after Luther had attacked and taken Jade back to his pack. The Luna had chosen to save her life, even after how poorly Jennifer had treated her. Jennifer had joined the rescue team willingly, a new loyalty to the Luna she knew she could never be. Although a big part of her reason for going at the time had been because she wanted to see Luther again.

It had been a swift battle, the Alpha quickly fighting his way through Luther's men, reaching Jade before Luther had been able to mark her as his own. Jennifer had been close behind Dante, offering assistance wherever she could, but when Dante killed Luther in order to save Jade, Jennifer felt the pain from her rejection and the pain of her mate dying, and it hit her with an indescribable force. Even though Luther had rejected her, neither of them had found or marked another mate so there was still a bond, and when Luther died, Jennifer and her wolf were incapacitated by the loss. She was so overcome with grief that she never even felt the attack from one of Luther's men, who had cut her in the face with a silver blade. Her wolf had retreated deep inside. The pain of losing her mate again, being too much for her and thereby causing this recent disruption in Jennifer's body being able to recover and heal as a normal werewolf should.

As she lay awake, thinking through everything that had happened recently, she could feel her wolf coming back. As it had now been days since Luther's demise, she was able to feel that the bond was now completely gone, and her wolf was fighting to return after the loss.

Jennifer then decided that she needed to leave the pack for a while. When she was younger, when she left her family's pack, she was running away and trying to turn herself into someone she thought others would want. But now, she needed to run toward something else. She was unhappy with who she had become and decided that she needed to leave in order to figure out who she was and develop herself into the woman she knew she was capable of becoming.

"I can't believe the progress you've made over night," Doctor Anderson said to Jennifer the following morning, when he came to check on her. "Are you able to tell me what happened? Do you have any idea why your wolf wasn't helping you heal?"

"She had her own healing to do, Doc" replied Jennifer, not really wanting to share the details of her inner conflict with anyone at this point.

"Well," the doctor responded, "I'm glad she's back, because it seems that you're pretty much good as new at this point, other than the scar left by silver here across your eye. It will fade in time, but because your wolf wasn't able to heal it right away, the scar tissue built but and will be around for a while."

As the doctor spoke, Jennifer was getting out of the bed and preparing to leave, but stopped to look in a mirror at the scar the doctor was telling her about. She still didn't even remember being cut and hadn't realized she had a scar. The mark started above her left eyebrow and went down her face, across her eye and half the length of her cheek.

The Jennifer from a few weeks ago would have been mortified. She would have felt the scar was marring the beautiful face she had worked so hard to promote. As it was now, she almost felt it as a symbol of her new self. A reminder to herself that she was going to become someone who was more than just skin deep beauty. She looked at herself in the mirror and decided that she would become someone better than she had been. She would throw off this pretentious mindset she had been living under and become the best version of herself that she could.