Beyond Beta's Rejection

Harper

Saying goodbye to Elias was harder than I thought. By the time he had made plans with Tommy and packed a few things it was time for him to go and I felt like I was losing something. It didn’t feel like my mate was going away for a few days; it felt like he was never coming back. I couldn’t shake the feeling that things wouldn’t be the same. I stood on the steps of the pack house with Marcus and Lily and watched the taillights of his car until they disappeared down the drive. Marcus leaned over and gave me a one-armed hug.

“Don’t look so worried,” he said, “He can handle himself, and will be back in no time.” I smiled up at him to say thanks but caught Lily glaring at me so shrugged Marcus’ arm away.

“I’m okay,” I said and then smiled at Lily. “I am sure it will give us more time to get to know each other.” Lily raised an eyebrow and turned around and walked back into the pack house without a word.

“I think she’s tired,” Marcus said with a nervous laugh and I forced a smile on my face and nodded in agreement. I was starting to think that Lily didn’t like me. I wasn’t sure if it was just the mate bond or if she didn’t approve of her little brother’s mate.

Marcus followed Lily back into the house and I sat down on the steps. It was just coming dark, and the woods seemed quiet, but peaceful. I must have been sitting there for over an hour when I saw another set of lights coming up the driveway. I watched as the luxury car pulled up to the pack house and a man got out of the driver’s seat. He walked around the back and opened the door. Then I realised who had arrived and stood up and dusted myself off as Brighid gracefully climbed from the car.

“Hey,” I said as I walked over to greet her.

“Oh Harper dear, how are you?” she said with a bright smile.

“Oh you know,” I said, “I hope your journey was a good one.”

“Indeed, it was, although I am still a little fatigued,” Brighid replied. “I would however love to meet our new Divine sister after I have freshened up at least.” I smiled and nodded.

“Of course,” I said. “I believe Tommy has already arranged a room for you here in the pack house and I can go and find Drake and Brianna.”

“Oh, splendid.” Brighid looked around and then smiled. “You can feel it can’t you? The intensity is very strong here.”

“Brianna said the same thing,” I said. “I didn’t notice until she mentioned it, but yes it does feel different from before.” I didn’t really want to admit that the feeling from the broken seal was starting to feel stronger every day. Like the power was growing. It felt like a weight in my stomach, an anticipation of something big. I directed Brighid into the house and found one of the housemaids to take her to her room and then went in search of Brianna and Drake.

I found Drake sitting in the library with Aaron and Katie. Aaron and Drake were deep in books while Katie looked positively bored. Her eyes lit up when I walked in.

“Hey,” she said a little too loud and Aaron jumped slightly. I laughed and hugged the peppy blond.

“Aaron, you need to take better care of my friend,” I said. “She isn’t a book person.” Aaron looked over guiltily and Katie giggled.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, he takes good care of me when we are alone at night,” she said with another giggle.

“Ew,” I said, and she laughed again. I loved that she sounded so happy and despite the extra intensity of his studying it only took one look to see how much Aaron doted on Katie.

“I promise I will be finished soon, sweetheart,” Aaron said to Katie, and she smiled and settled back down into her seat.

“Well, I will need to take Drake away from you,” I said, and he looked up.

“Missing your mate already?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky grin. “Need someone to fill the void?” I rolled my eyes in response.

“You would be so lucky,” I said and sighed.

“I was so lucky once,” he said with a fake sadness.

“Well sorry, but not this time,” I said, “Brighid has just arrived.” A disappointed look crossed his face, and he closed the book he was reading.

“Well, I wasn’t so lucky with Brighid,” he said “Apparently she wasn’t interested in seeing how relations between the divine would be.” I shook my head at him and laughed.

“What’s up Drake, missing home?” I asked, and he sighed dramatically. I was all too aware of what Drake’s life was outside of our current drama. His mansion outside of the Council grounds was named the castle and was pretty much a twenty-four seven s*x party. I knew several of the warriors would spend entire weekends there and Drake had his own personal entourage of men and women at any one time. A long time ago I was included in that personal group. At the time, it took Aaron and Nathanial to pull me out and Drake had never let it go. He was always trying to tempt me back in, stating that I was the most delicious treat he had experienced. At the time we saw him as dangerous, but he was genuinely trying to help. He had feelings about Nathaniel and was originally trying to figure out if I was a Divine Warrior. He was right about both, but I had no desire to revisit those days anymore.

“Well, I suppose we better catch the faerie lady up on everything,” Drake said interrupting my thoughts. There was a smile on his face that said he knew where my thoughts had gone. I shook my head again, and we headed out of the library.

“Did you find anything interesting?” I asked and Drake grimaced.

“Mostly a lot of the same, I’m afraid,” he said. “I am still unsure how the final breaking of the seal happens, and I don’t like that we are unprepared.”

“Well, let’s hope we don’t find out,” I said and Drake sighed again.

“That is a wise idea dear sweet girl, although I suspect things are going to get worse before they get better.”

“You feel it too?” I asked and Drake nodded solemnly.

We headed around the back of the pack house out by the pool house. The pool was lit up and shimmered in the starlight. It wasn’t particularly warm, but that didn’t seem to bother the two shadows that were entangled on the grass nearby.

“Wow,” I said loudly, making them both jump. “I must be doing training wrong, because I never did it like that before.” Brianna squealed, and I could see her face flush bright red as she pushed a half naked Alex off of her.

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “I am sure we have trained in a similar fashion at some point.” I laughed as I elbowed him in the side. We waited while Brianna fumbled with her top and Alex just sat on the grass with a cheshire cat grin on his face.

“We were training,” Brianna protested, and I laughed.

“Sure sure,” I said. “How is her training coming along Alex?” He grinned as he stood up and helped Brianna to her feet. He pulled her into him and whispered something in her ear. Brianna’s face flushed red again, and she pulled away and hit his chest.

“She’s doing great,” Alex said with a laugh. “She is getting the hang of her blade really quick.” Brianna beamed at his compliment and smiled at me. I returned her smile.

“Amazing,” I said. “Well Brighid has just arrived and would love to meet you.” Brianna’s eyes widened a little in fear and Drake laughed.

“Don’t worry little witch, she’s not nearly as scary as she sounds,” he said. He took her hand and pulled her back towards the pack house. I followed behind with Alex.

“So you and Brianna?” I asked, and he grinned.

“I really like her,” he said. “I know its early days, but I do like her. And I have been talking to Brin, and he said that I could be trained to be her personal warrior.”

“That sounds amazing,” I said. “And depending on what Brianna wanted to do, you could spend more time with your mum too.”

“Yeah that would be a bonus,” he said and then a sad look crossed his face.

“What’s up?” I asked, and he sighed.

“Louise is still refusing to see mum,” he said. “In fact, she’s refusing to see almost anyone. I am worried about her.” I squeezed his arm.

“She’s been through a lot and she will be super protective of the pup right now,” I said. I was worried about Louise myself. I had tried to go see her earlier, but she was screaming at Tommy when I had got there and I didn’t want to cause any more distress.

“It’s late now but I promise I will go see her tomorrow,” I said and Alex hugged me.

“Thanks Harper,” he said, “I really appreciate it, and I know she will at least talk to you.”

We reached the third floor living room of the pack house, which had unintentionally become the centre of the communal activity over the last couple of days. I walked in to see Brighid and Lily sitting in one corner. They looked deep in conversation about something but stopped talking as we walked in. Brighid smiled and stood up.

“Ah Harper dear,” she said, and I smiled at the two ladies. Lily smiled but I could tell it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Well, I think I will say good night,” She said and turned to Brighid, “It was nice to meet you.”

“And you dear,” Brighid replied with a bright smile.

“Goodnight,” I said as Lily walked past me. I shook my head and sighed at her lack of response. I forced a smile on my face as I turned to Brighid.

“Brighid I would like you to meet Brianna,” I said and pulled Brianna slightly forward.

“Oh my beautiful girl,” Brighid said as she stepped forward. “It is such a pleasure to meet you, finally.” She pulled Brianna into a hug as she spoke. I could see that Brianna looked uncomfortable, but she accepted the hug before moving towards Alex.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” she said. “Although, I think we have met already.” I glanced at Drake and saw he was as surprised as I was.

“Have we, dear?” Brighid asked. “I am sorry that I am unaware of it.” Brianna nodded.

“Yes, I believe you visited my coven,” Brianna said. “I was young at the time, I think around twelve or thirteen.”

“Oh well, isn’t that interesting,” Brighid said. “I did visit many covens in hopes to come across you. Well, I am glad that we found each other now.” Brighid seemed really dismissive of the former meeting and Brianna seemed to not be happy about it. I knew, from what she had told me, that her coven hadn’t been so good growing up. And from what I saw, their practices of finding their Divine Warrior really wasn’t good. I wondered why Brighid didn’t notice back then.

“But how nice is it that for the first time in such a long time that we have all four of the Divine Warriors in one room,” Brighid said and I smiled. I looked around at Drake who was watching Brighid with a raised eyebrow. I could tell that there was something that he wanted to say as well.

“Well, let’s get to know each other a little,” Brighid said as none of us spoke. We all sat down, but I could tell that there was an unspeakable undercurrent of something as we began to talk.