Chapter 25
Derek’s POV
Today started off great. Mom seems like she is in a great mood. Piper has gotten back into her great mood since her budget got increased to $75,000 for the Luna ceremony. I will have to set her down after she becomes Luna, as she will have to start learning how to budget and be more frugal with our money. We need warriors to be trained and even though we haven’t been attacked for a while, a letter was sent into the River Bed pack yesterday. It warned that if she and I go through with the Luna ceremony and become a mated pair, we will be attacked and the loss of life for both the Red River pack and the River Bed will lie solely on Alpha Lowell, dad, and me when it happens.
Dad and Alpha Lowell both blew it off, we hadn’t been attacked for a while, and they didn’t believe that they would attack again. They were both under the impression that, since nothing had happened for the last month and a half, we were past the worst of it. But I had a really bad feeling in my gut about this. I believe that they are training and getting stronger right now. I have no proof, but I know they aren’t bluffing with us. Piper was following me down to the kitchen as we both needed some food this morning. We had slept in this morning, and Piper wanted to have sex in the shower. I used to look forward to being with Piper, well with all of the girls that I had at Alpha training, but now it is just like a job. I don’t want to do it with Piper, or any other girl like I used to. I obliged her, but I have to think of Gabi to get going now, as I don’t want to be with Piper anymore. I have to, I have no choice about it, but right now, if I could find Gabi and she would agree to it, I would run away with her and leave this pack. We could live together with humans, or I could see if my aunt Yvonne would let us come to her pack.
We are still looking for someone who can do even half the job that Gabi’s mom could, and it looks like it will take three people to replace her. Which is ridiculous, but it is where we are at right now. The garden had gotten overgrown because no one knew how to tend to it, and I never realized how much was put on the Emerson family around here, and they took it without a complaint. They worked hard and they did the best they could for their daughter. Gabi may not have had material things, but she had two parents who thought that she was the best child ever born. I feel bad that Gabi is off somewhere with no one to take care of her. She is an orphan and defenseless, she needs to be taken care of and I have continued to put feelers out, but so far none of the packs I reached out to have seen her.
Breakfast is cereal, again, it has been since Mrs. Claire was killed. Lunch always consists of sandwiches and chips, soups, or casseroles. Dinner is the only meal that is cooked and hot for us to eat, and it is hit or miss if it is going to taste good. I am really getting frustrated. The Emerson’s were killed 3 months and a week ago, as we will be in July next weekend. I don’t know how we haven’t gotten them replaced yet.
I asked mom if she would do it, and she said, “Your “Luna” needs to start learning how to take care of her pack, and that this would be an excellent starting point”. Mom even did the little finger motions when she said Luna, but Piper was looking at her tablet and ordering more stuff for her Luna ceremony, so she didn’t see my mom being sarcastic. I have already learned that Piper wants to be the Luna, she just doesn’t want to have the Luna duties. She wants someone else to handle the day-to-day stuff and she wants to handle the parties, events, and balls that we will have, or go to. She is continually ordering evening dresses, but we have only been invited to one party. It is like she wants to play house, and she has no idea how to live in real life. I have already tried to tell her that we have to deal with the rouge problem first, but she doesn’t seem to get it. She finally got it when I asked her, “Should we have a ball when the rogues can show up and kill half our guests?”. Piper then said, “I guess we should wait then”. She went right back to ordering items for her Luna ceremony like she didn’t have a care in the world. I rolled my eyes. I have enough stuff to do without having to do her job too. Maybe dad will talk to her about her duties. Maybe I can talk mom into training her, but I highly doubt it. She loved Gabi, but she didn’t love Piper. Mom's love mates and I broke Gabi’s heart when I rejected her. Mom is not going to accept Piper as the Luna for this pack at this point. Everyone here knows that she is on the outs with dad, but they don’t know why, and they cannot figure out why they are still together at this point.
Dad is just trying to find out where Gabi is now, and he has Jack helping him. I know they have made a deal, and I hope to the Goddess that they never find her, as I am sure what Jack's payment for his help will be.
I was talking to mom, and she was saying that she had to show me something outside and I was following her, and Piper was following me, and as soon as I stepped outside, I smelled Gabi. I looked over towards her and she was dropping Jack to the ground like it was nothing and then walking towards me. I was so happy to see her, and I walked towards her like I was drawn to her like a magnet. I was just about to tell her the good news that I had changed my mind, and I was giving up my pack and position to be with her, when she just rejected me, out of the blue, just like that.
I felt the pain from the rejection in my heart and I fell to the ground holding my chest and looking towards her when I saw my mom heading quickly to her SUV, and Gabi surrounded by some huge guys and they all got into an SUV together. They all go to leave and as they take off my dad comes running out.
Dad is yelling out orders, but Jack is on the ground, and he is not getting up. His nose looks like it is broken, and since I saw him right on her, I am sure he tried to touch her again, and I am glad he got punched. Heather is yelling and screaming about Gabi. Piper was yelling at me about Gabi, but my only thought was that Gabi was getting away and I had to try to stop her. I headed for my SUV and started to drive at a crazy speed to the gate. I had seen it closing, and I was so happy that she would be stopped, and I would get a chance to speak to her. To give her the good news, for me to take back my rejection, but for some reason, the gates started to open again, and they don’t even have to slow down, they just pull right through them. I had to brake hard because I was flying, and mom was now parked sideways and blocking anyone from being able to drive through the gate.
I jumped out and ran past mom. I am glad she stopped dad, but I wanted to catch Gabi to tell her that I wanted her, that I had changed my mind. But that guy driving the SUV that she is in is hauling ass, and even though I phase and start running after them as fast as I can. I cannot catch them. I stop and howl my pain and frustration out. Gabi has broken my heart, and now I know what she felt when I rejected her.
I head back to the gate mom and dad have moved their SUVs back to the packhouse and mine is still sitting where I left it. I get the keys from my clothes lying shredded on the ground and head to my SUV to get a pair of shorts out of the back of it. I slipped them on and slowly drove back up to the packhouse. Everything is still in an uproar in the packhouse.
My dad is fuming, and Piper is pouting and crying about me leaving her. Little did she know I was going to leave her permanently. I moved past her and up to my room with her running behind me, asking a million questions.
“Who was she, Derek? Are you cheating on me? Is she your piece on the side? Do you think that she is prettier than me? Why did she come here?” Piper kept firing off question after question, and not letting me answer, and I finally blew up.
“She was my mate, I had to reject her because of you. Just like you rejected your mate. She was never my sidepiece and I have never slept with her. She came here and rejected me, Piper, you were fucking standing right there and saw it, so how did you not understand what happened?” I said angrily and headed to the shower. Piper started stripping too and I told her, “Don’t bother, I am not in the mood” before getting in the shower and letting the water beat down on me.
How did my life go from wonderful three months ago, to hell on earth in that span of time? I am so angry with my dad. Now I am angry with mom too. She has obviously been in contact with Gabi for her to be allowed onto our pack grounds to come and reject me like that. I am boiling mad. Why would mom allow her to reject me? I am her son, her only child. Why would she do me this dirty? I turned off the shower and got dressed while I mind-linked my mom because I needed to speak with her. She is in her office, and I head over to it. I had not been there in years, and I wondered again why she and dad didn’t share an office, and then I remember catching him with that Omega the last time I went to his office while he was still running the pack. Now I know why. I don’t blame her a bit. I opened the door to her office, and it hadn’t changed in ten years. I see the familiar pictures of me as a baby, toddler, and various stages of my life on her desk, on the walls. New pictures of me too that she took with the phone on her camera and printed for her office. She truly dotes on me. But if she dotes on me, why did she do it? I see her leaning back in her chair and looking at me with speculation and then lean forward in her chair and tell me, “Go ahead son, ask me why I did it”.
“Mom, how could you let Gabi get away from me? I was going to give up the pack and accept her as my mate. Hell, I would have marked her right then if I could have” I said, and all my pain was showing in my voice as I spoke the words. Mom gets up and comes over to me and gives me a hug.
“It was too late, you had rejected her and put her through too much, son. You have no idea what you have done to her and will never understand it either”, mom tells me.
“All I did was reject her mom because I had to, I had already made the deal and signed the paperwork. It was what dad wanted”, I told her.
“Stop using your dad to blame this on, son. Part of being an adult is accepting responsibility for your own actions. You slept around with girls in this pack, and Alpha training, because that is what you wanted to do. You are 19 years old and still trying to act like you had no choice. You did have a choice. You will be 20 in a few months. You KNEW Gabi was your mate before you went to Alpha training. Yet you slept with whoever would let you. The problem comes now with you making your poor choices, and Gabi being punished by them. She went into heat because she had found her mate. She also felt it every single time you had sex with Piper since you rejected her. She passed out from the pain of it the first time and had to be rushed to the pack doctor because no one knew what happened to her. Gabi had suffered enough, by your hand, and it was time to let her go, Derek. I am sure she has a second chance mate out there and I pray to the Goddess that she finds him" my mother tells me, and I cannot stop the growl from tearing from me.