ANETA Sparrows was hurting as she stared into his eyes. She didn't even know his name - her own mate a stranger to her. He was all she ever wanted - all she'd ever need. But the look in his eyes, the fact that tears leaked from his doe brown eyes, showed he didn't feel the same. He looked so strong - so brooding - seemingly something she wanted to claim, to tame. But that wouldn't happen in this moment.

"I, Arthur Mason, reject you as my mate." He sobbed, what could have been a strong and dominant voice was nothing but the showings of a vulnerable boy. What should have been a man, was now crying - as if disgusted that it was her. "I'm sorry." As if his words would make her stop hurting - he said them, breathed them as if what he was doing was right.

But she felt it - her bond with him dwindling away as they stood there. In the darkness of the forest - no one here to bare witness to her life completely falling apart. She had never felt so much pain in her life, it felt as if nails clawed at her chest, that bees stung her behind her eyes. Something inside of her - so ancient and old - being tainted and ruined. Her wolf wept and cried inside of her - she slowly becoming a shell of sorrow.

"Why?" Her own voice cracked. This man didn't even know her name, now she only knew his from his clear rejection. A mistake - she hoped.

"I - I love someone else." He cried, wiping away a tear with his unusually large fists. "I - I was planning on proposing to her tonight." Instead he had come to the woods - obviously to clear his head before making his life changing decision. Instead he made another - a rejection he would be sure to regret.

"Y-You're leaving our bond just for somebody else?" She asked in utter disbelief, shocked and disgusted. Sure - the werewolf before her was older than her by at least five years, but they're still mates.

"I'm so sorry." He cried again, clenching his fists as the mate bond dwindled to a small flicker inside of him. He was excepting it - unlike Aneta.

"How can you be sorry - we're mates Arthur." She spat his name, hating how it sent shivers through her spine. She desperately tried to keep her mate bond with this gorgeous man - didn't want to except her fate of being mateless because the man who was made for her - loved another.

"I fucking love her, okay? I'm trying to be as nice as possible - we can't make this work." He told her, still emotional and in pain, he couldn't drop everything he has for this stranger - even if the moon goddess herself picked them to be together.

"Be as nice as possible? What could possibly be worse than being rejected?" She shot back angrily - she couldn't give up on her dream. Her mate would be the one to make her life more exciting - less, ordinary.

"Oh I don't know - living your life with someone who is in love with someone else." He shot back, agitated by her mood now. He was never told to persue his mate - and for that he was great full. Because he had found someone he loved, not someone who decided they would be good together - have to learn to love each other.

"Go away." She breathed - she knew this wouldn't be the last she saw of her so called mate - but for now she wanted her world to end in peace.

"Goodbye." He said solemnly - he sounded so sincere that it brought burning bile into her throat. "I'm so sorry I'm not what you need." He said softly over his shoulder, already having turned his back on her and leaving.

As soon as she couldn't sense him anymore, she cried - more horribly than what he did. She had been rejected for somebody else. Her mate - the person who was supposed to be what she needed - left her for another woman. Left her crying in the middle of the forest on her eighteenth birthday. And she wondered if her now ex-mate knew how worthless he had just made her feel.

With that thought, she knew she woulf enact revenge on the lowlife who rejected her on what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.