Worthless

Chapter 2: Rehashing the Nutcracker

~Ashton's POV~

I stared down at the comatose hooded figure still on the ground in front of me, and slowly dropped my hand back to my side, almost immediately afterwards lifting it again to run it through my hair as the awkwardness engulfed me. Where the hell did Lee go?

Then I froze as I caught a whiff of something in the air. My eyes going wide, I quickly took a deep breath, and then froze up again at the foreign sensations coursing through me at the intoxicating smell of cinnamon, mint, and something else that I couldn't identify.

I glanced back down in shock as the sudden flood of thoughts joined the feelings inside me, and the realization struck me that I'd just half-killed my one and only mate, even though I immediately started rejecting it unconsciously. Extremely overwhelmed, my fight or flight instincts kicked in, and so I did the only viable option--I booked it out of there as if the Hounds of Hell themselves were nipping at my heels.

~5 minutes later~

I sat in the janitors closet on the first floor, my head in my hands as I slowly thought over, and tried to make sense of, what had happened in the hallway.

What the hell had just happened? How the hell did it happen? It'd just been another morning, joking around with Lee, flirting flippantly with Emma on the way to second period, and then--what? I'd just pushed Lee's shoulder after he made an obscene joke about me being "The Mate-less Alpha" and then careened around the corner and right into--WHO?

I shook my head mockingly at myself. Just great, Ashton. Not only do you introduce yourself to your effing LIFE MATE by ramming her into the floor, you then proceed to have a freak out and don't even catch her NAME?

I froze again as even more questions start frolicking around in my head, joining the other ones that were rehashing the Nutcracker. What if she doesn't WANT to be my mate anymore? What if she rejects me? What if she's not proper Luna material? What if Father doesn't accept her? What if she's not even a SHE? I'd heard of it happening before, but hadn't thought much about it. But I suppose that could explain it. No girl I'd ever seen would go to school wearing THAT.

Thinking back to when I'd first realized I had crashed into someone, I ran through it all in my head. At first I'd been surprised as I was filled with deja vu as a memory of, strangely enough, my 7th birthday, flashed through my mind, when I'd ran into my dad while playing tag with a few of the other kids in the pack. He'd blistered my ears with his lecture of "You're the alpha's son, not some reckless holigan!" You'd have thought he was an age-old vampire stuck in the 19th century instead of a 32 year old werewolf.

But then I'd realized I was still slowly killing someone underneath me, a skinny someone at that, and had bolted up to apologize for my "un Future Alpha-like behavior" but had been rendered speechless by the sight before me. I quite clearly remembered what I had seen. A stick-like figure shrouded in baggy, dull grey clothes, the hood of the unflattering sweatshirt still pulled low over a shallow looking face.

Well, they certainly hadn't looked or acted anything like a girl, judging from the fact that I was quite certain if I'd run into any of the girls at this school, or really anywhere for that matter, there would have been at least a shriek of some kind. But my Mystery Mate hadn't uttered a sound.

Shaking my head, I sat up as I realized that here I was, a nineteen year old soon-to-be alpha, sitting in a janitors closet mulling over whether my mate was a dude or not. I was being pathetic.

I shook my head as if to try and physically rid myself of the unrelenting thoughts, mentally berated myself. I just needed to get out there and take charge of the situation, like my father had taught me. I needed to find this Mystery Mate and we would go from there. Really, how hard could they be to find?