The Pack Outcast (The Fae Omegas, #3) [SAMPLE]

Chapter 1

Amelia

"My chosen mate is . . . Evelyn Cooper."

Murmurs filled the hall packed with young adult werewolves belonging to the Mcnarty pack as the werewolves glanced at each other before searching for someone around the hall.

I knew who they were searching for. Me, the girl who was supposed to be the future Alpha's mate, but just got rejected a few minutes ago by her true mate. And the same girl who just recovered from a nearly fatal first shift only to be told that her true mate had given another girl his mating mark.

Before long, the searching eyes found me beside the curtains, which I was trying to blend into, since I couldn't find a hole to bury myself in.

Some pack members were surprised at the sudden replacement of the future Luna. Some stared at me with pity, and many smiled or laughed.

If I wasn't the one facing their mocking gazes, I might also think this whole charade was funny. After all, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened to me.

My cousin Evelyn had done this sort of thing repeatedly. Setting me up with guys only to get them to break up with me publicly. And I had fallen for the same stunt three times.

But this third one hurt the most because I had been so sure we were meant to be. And because of that, I had lowered the guard I had around my heart for him.

After all, what werewolf or supernatural didn't fantasize about finding their destiny-given true mate, said to be designed especially for you by the moon goddess?

With how rare finding true mates was, I never expected that any werewolf would betray their true mate. But after today, I could testify that it was possible to overestimate a bond as extraordinary as the true mate bond.

After all, I had overestimated my bond with Sawyer, and underestimated my cousin, Evelyn, and how far she could go to steal the things that belonged to me.

When I came out of my thoughts, I found that everyone had stopped staring at me.

Instead, pack members were already holding their partners, mate or not, and dancing with them.

I peered at the main couple of the night dancing in the middle of the hall. Our future Alpha, Sawyer, and future Luna, Evelyn.

If life as a pack member living with the ever manipulative Evelyn had been like living in a heated frying pan, then I was sure that life in a pack led by Evelyn and my true mate was going to be like getting thrown out of the frying pan straight into the fire.

I moved my gaze away and met the gazes of the young adult pack enforcers in training who were staring at me.

Without a doubt, I knew I would no longer be welcome to train with them as I had been during the year Sawyer and I were dating. After all, most of them didn't like me. They had just tolerated me because of Sawyer.

Thanks to Evelyn, I had a very stinky reputation in the pack. Most pack members, adult, young, or elderly, assumed I was the devil, based on the reputation Evelyn and her mother had worked so hard to build for me. With the both of them telling such diligent lies and setting me up so perfectly, how could anyone believe I was innocent?

How could they believe that Amelia Byrne, daughter to the dead Madelyn and Galvin Byrne, wasn't truly a psychopath that killed little animals for fun?

How could they believe that when I accused Evelyn of giving me a poisoned meal just after my parents' deaths, I hadn't been lying?

How could they believe that I hadn't maliciously changed the medicine given to the Hall twins because I didn't like them?

No one would believe me. Not my Alpha, not my Luna, and not even the people I had secretly healed from deadly injuries when I worked in the pack's infirmary.