Chapter Three: The Rejected Mate
“We are here.” The driver pulled over at my parents’ house. He helped me get my luggage from the back of the trunk and zoomed off, leaving the road dust to rush down my lungs.
“Clara?”
“Mum?” I whispered, watching as she approached me. In that instant, I could not hold down the tears as it came rushing down, and so I hurried towards her and fell into her arms.
“Mum, I’m home,” I whispered trarily.
“What happened? Why are you back with your luggage? What about Raymond?” She inquired as she held me tight.
I wanted to respond, but the words had somehow refused to fall out as they clogged up my throat. I wanted to tell her everything, how the people I trusted most had dethroned me and stripped me of what was rightfully mine. How I had been stabbed a thousand times in my back without even knowing until it went through my heart.
“Mum,” I clutched her tighter through my tears.
???
“What happened Clara? Why are you here with your luggage looking like this?”
“Raymond has gone rogue.”
“What do you mean?” Dad asked as soon as he stepped in.
“I returned from a business trip and caught Raymond in bed with my best friend, Racheal.”
“Oh my goodness!” Mum gasped but she didn’t know that was just the tip of the iceberg to what I had been going through.
“But that’s not all,” I informed them.
“There is more?”
“At first they blamed it on some coke Racheal was buzzed on, which supposedly prompted her into seducing Raymond, but they were all bloody lies. Raymond and Racheal had been seeing each other for years, right under our noses.”
My parents couldn’t believe their ears. They knew how much Rachel and I loved each other. Having been best friends since childhood, she was always around my house a lot and my parents ended up seeing her as a daughter.
As for Raymond, my parents saw him like a son they never had. They had all been happy when we turned out to be mates and decided to get married to each other. It was a huge shock to both of them that those two people would end up stabbing me in the back.
“I’m sorry baby that you have to go through this.”
“Mum, I have been rejected. My supposed mate rejected me for my best friend. What’s more horrifying than that? I’ve been asking myself what I had done wrong.”
“Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t put yourself through all that. You are beautiful, smart, powerful and of a good heart. Don’t ever look down on yourself because your mate rejected you. He would come to regret this, everything would be okay darling.”
“Mum, Dad, I want Raymond to be taken off the pack Alpha’s seat. He is deceitful and certainly not to be trusted. He should be dethroned since he only got on the throne after getting married to me. I need my throne and my house back, I can’t just let him and Racheal live their lives in that house, or throne. You guys were once the rulers of the pack, there must be something you both can do, right?”
There was a stream of silence as they both stared at each other without saying a word.
“Mom? Dad?”
“I’m sorry Clara but there is nothing we can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You both have ruled the pack for so many years and you personally handed the position to Raymond because of me. Now, you have to take it back.”
“It doesn’t work that way Clara. We are no longer rulers of the pack and so we have no power to dethrone him nor get back the house. We are so sorry Clara. But all will be well. You don’t have to go through this alone, we will always support you. And you can stay here with us for as long as you want.”
???
After a few days of wallowing in the house being depressed, I decided that I needed some fresh air away from my mother’s smothers.
“I need to go to the mart to see if I can pick up some stuff for myself.” I informed her as I shrugged on my coat.
“That’s totally fine, thank goddess you’re finally out of your room. Tell you what, you can stay out as long as you want.”
Just like everyone else at the mart, I took up the shopping basket and began putting things that I found worthy. Just then I walked past a midst of ladies who seemed to stop talking as soon as they sighted my presence around them.
Barely a minute passed, and I began to eavesdrop on their conversation. In my defence I had heard my name this time and naturally, I got intrigued.
“Yeah, you’re right no one deserves to be treated that way. Clara, once so beautiful amongst all the ladies, has been rejected by her mate.”
“What? When did that happen?” One of the ladies sakes excitedly.
“The news is all over town now. Her mate chose her best friend over her, and they even took the house her parents had given to her and her mate as a present. It’s such a pity, really.” the chubby woman chirped to the other four women whom she chatted with.
“That’s so sad, what do you think might have caused her mate to reject her?” another asked.
“Maybe she was bad mouthed, or perhaps very poor in bed.”
The ladies chuckled.
“Serves her right though. Maybe next time she would learn to be a better mate and not be so proud because her parents were once the pack rulers.”
Ouch!
Her words had stung so hard as I controlled my tears and lost the ability to keep up with the shopping. Mother was wrong, coming out was a mistake. I thought to myself as I scampered to return back home.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!