"Baby girl, please speak to me."

I could hear Casey outside. Let's be honest, I heard her the second she came down my street. I heard her close her car door, take a deep breath and ask my mother if I had come downstairs yet. 

It had only been one week since my first and last meeting with Cameron. I winced. Even the name hurt to say, and I had only thought it. My throat was raw from crying to myself, and the loss of a mate hummed through me. The feeling of being incomplete was excruciating. 

A new bout of tears began and I didn't even bother to hold them back. We all knew I couldn't. 

"She hasn't spoken in a week Casey." I heard my mother say to the girl who had been front row when this all happened. Casey had tried to get in contact with me numerous times, infact, her messages sat on my locked home screen, along with many others on my phone. I just didn't have the energy to speak to anybody. 

I had gone to that meet and greet every year since I was 13, hoping to find the one person who would never let me feel like I was. I didn't even know it was possible to feel this type of pain and continue living. Yet here I was, unfortunately living proof. 

Ofcourse it was just my luck to find a mate, who didn't want a mate. 

"Kassandria, please. We're worried."

Rejecting a mate was unheard of, but not impossible. The only way you could reject a mate was if something was more important to you, and as you can imagine in our 'culture' if you will, nothing was more important than a mate. As long as the moon goddess deemed your reason as important, there was nothing anyone, not even your Alpha could do or so that would make you accept your mate. That was the one thing Alpha's were not allowed to force. 

My mind couldn't take it. What was more important than a family? What was more important than finding the one person who would support you through everything? He didn't seem much older than I was, not that I knew much about him. But why would he let his mate feel inferior to anything? I had heard the mate pull was harder for males to ignore, seeing as their instincts were to continue their bloodline, and having a mate made you stronger as you fought for your true love. 

Yet here I was, weeping, alone, as my mate went off and did god knows what with who knows who. The anger made me see red, but I knew if the mate pull was there, I wouldn't have been able to calm myself, and Shelina down. The pull hadn't disappeared, but as the rejected, I could feel more than he could. He was obviously dealing with whatever was more important. 

The door opened and I could smell Casey's wolf as she padded inside, gently laying her sandy blonde wolf on the foot of my bed, looking up at me. I knew she came in as her wolf to show me that she didn't need me to talk. She just didn't want me to be alone. 

"Why?" The word, a mumbled, quiet, sobbing word fell out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I saw her eyes get glassy. "Why wasn't I enough?" 

The only thing I remembered after it happened was crying, and my dad carrying me back to our house. My eyes flashed bright green as I realised how I must have embarrassed my family yesterday. But the anger was doused by the sudden entrance of my Alpha, Simon McFall.

Casey lowered her head immediately, her wolf not letting her delay in showing her submission to her Alpha, while I lowered my eyes as my head was already in the pillow.

The Alpha was young, perhaps in his early thirties, with blonde short hair, fashioned in a buzzcut, and always wearing shirts and suit pants. He looked, and acted, like an Alpha should. 

"Hello pup." 

Anyone else calling me a pup would have had me on the offensive, but Alpha Simon used it as a term of endearment for the younger members of the pack. 

"I understand what has happened." His deep gravely voice was only accentuated by the soft tone he used, and I sniffled, trying not to embarrass my family any more than I already had. 

"I know it will be hard to stay here, so I have arranged for you to go to our patrol academy, on the other side of the mountain."

My eyes shifted to that of my parents standing in the doorway, my father holding my mother as she nodded at me encouragingly. 

"They will teach you to use your emotions for good. It will help you get out and continue life as your new normal." 

It seemed as if he knew the question before I even asked it and he nodded. "Pack your bags pup, you will be going immediately." 

I nodded, lowering my head in submission. My mind may not understand what is happening, but the wolf inside me would always show respect to her Alpha. Shelina grunted, showing me she supported what our Alpha was saying. 

As soon as the Alpha and my dad left the room, my mum pulled a pre-packed bag out from behind her. I assume she had already known what Alpha Simon would ask. Atleast it saved me from having to deal with packing while I was already feeling so low. 

"Goodbye Mum." I didn't bother to hold back  the tears, but I also didn't bother to fight. When a werewolf loses their mate, whether by choice or not, it destroys a part of them that they will never get back. And that's what makes them good soldiers. They have nothing to fear and nothing to lose. 

I turned my back on the only house I knew, waving slightly at my brother who stood next to my dad as the latter crushed me in a hug. "I love you." All three of them said in our mind link before it was abruptly shut off. 

"The Patrol Academy is top secret." A man of few words, Alpha Simon had confirmed he had cut my only private way of speaking to my family. My mother let out a choked sob and not being able to feel my presence in her mind, but I knew I felt the emptiest. The only three people in my life I cared about, all gone in one abrupt move.

"I love you all." I said outloud. 

I got in the car and looked out the window, seeing Casey's wolf in the distance. It seemed she had jumped out my bedroom window. I knew she didn't want to shift back, as she didn't want to make this any harder for me than it already was. So I whispered there only thing I knew would make this just that little bit better, knowing that she could hear me no matter how quietly I spoke.

"I'll be okay."