"She's my mate!" Zane yelled causing both the man and I to widen our eyes. Mate? Is Zane Australian?
"No. That's not possible. She's-" Zane cut him off with a blow to the jaw.
"Get out before I throw you out of the pack." I took a step back from th...
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"Hello, Miss Stavros." Mr. Hatch greeted as I took my seat. It's been a week since the whole "heat" thing and things are starting to look up. Zane finally asked me out on a real date and I accepted. It was tonight and I was terrified.
"Hey, human." Ben snorted and all of his friends around him laughed. "How's your boring life?" I rolled my eyes and pulled out my book. "What's wrong? Trouble in paradise?" My head snapped up and I realized that he knew about me and Zane. I pleaded Ben not to tell anyone with my eyes. He smirked and stood up from his desk and hopped on top of it. "I would like to make an announcement!" He boomed and everyone-and I mean everyone- stopped what they were doing and looked up at Ben as if he was a superior god. "Among us, we have our Alpha's second chance mate!" People started whispering and looked around the room as if I would have the words "Alpha's mate" written in ink on my forehead. "Everyone please welcome Devina Ross Stavros!" Most people who knew me-or of me- looked over and started whispering to one another again. "How does it feel to be second?" He asked me.
"It's better than having no rank, like you." Everyone snickered and Ben fumed.
"You little bitch. I bet Zane's just using you. Like he does with every other girl. Babe, if I knew you were so easy I'd try doing you sooner." My face flushed.
"Yeah, you'd try. And fail. It's okay though, eventually, you'll win at something. And maybe you'll get a little trophy to show your mom that you're better than your brother." His face turned red with anger. I don't know how I knew that, but I was glad I did. Gillie must have mentioned it sometime. He didn't say anything, he just jumped down from the desk and sat down in his seat.
When the bell finally rang, I scurried out of the classroom and into the hallway. All the students were clearing a path for me as if I had a contagious disease like Ebola. I tried to walk faster to the doors but was pulled back by a rough hand.
"You fucked up," Ben whispered into my ear and yanked me outside to the side of the school. "Who told you that?" He shoved me against the wall and grabbed my neck. When I didn't respond, he threw a punch to my cheek, making my head jerk back and smash against the brick wall. "You're just a little bitch!" He yelled in my face and sent another painful punch to my stomach. "He's just going to use you and throw you away. That's what you deserve." He was going to throw another punch but his hand was stopped by a fuming Ashton. "Get out of here Gilbert," Ben growled but Ashton shoved him away and grabbed me.
"Touch her again and I'll end you," Ashton growled as he put me in his car. Everywhere Ben punched me, was throbbing. I felt a little faint, probably form one of his blows to my head. "Are you okay?" Ashton finally asked once he got into the car and put it in drive. I was glad of one thing, that it was Thursday and the week was almost over.
"Yeah." He nodded, his gaze lingering on me for a few minutes. "Yes, it's true." He looked away and focused on his driving.
"Why him?" Ashton asked as he pulled up to Dylan's house. "He's not a good person Dev." I rolled my eyes and opened the door.
"You know how the whole thing works. I didn't choose." I carefully got out of the car, trying my best to ignore the pain in my ribs.
"What the hell happened!?" I heard Zane's furious voice then his pounding footsteps. "What did you do?" He grabbed Ashton by the collar and shoved him into the side of his car. I hadn't noticed he was out of the car until now.
"Zane stop! It wasn't him." Zane hesitantly let go of Ashton's shirt and hurried over to me.
"Then who the hell was it? Who did this?" His eyes roamed my body looking for any more bruises.
"Just some guy. It's fine." Zane growled and gently grabbed my arm.
"It's not fine Devina. Someone beat you up." Ashton tried to get me to stay with him but with one death glare from Zane, he was driving back home. "What happened?" I bit my bottom lip and looked away as we entered the house.
"Some people just found out about you and me." I quietly spoke and Zane noticeably tensed.
"This is my fault? You got hurt because of me." I shook my head.
"No, it's not our choice. We didn't choose to be together like this. We didn't choose to be bonded." Zane frowned and looked at me.
"But didn't we? I could have rejected you, and you could have done the same for me. I chose to save you all those times. I chose to stay with you. We had choices. We still do." I chewed on this a little. He's right. We may be "destined" but we still made the choices that brought us here. The choices we take are like steps, some take us forewords and some take us back. Either way, they move us.
