I stomped my way through the thick forest bushes. This was probably the only place which seemed to be gleaming with life. My anger was simmering and I could do nothing but feel the rage continue to boil. I shook my head in disappointment at the woman who birthed me. How can she ask me to have any sympathy for the woman who ruined my life. My mother is acting like I somehow ruined Leanne's life. Honestly, I always knew she favoured my sister but never to a point where she would be okay with her attempting to murder me.
As much as I wanted to be there for Benji's introduction, I needed to get away. I felt suffocated in this place, nothing but bad memories surfaced to my mind. I struggled to remember the good times, they were blanketed with mistreatment and neglect from both my parents and my mate. I felt my wedge get stuck in the mud and its then that I let out a huge exhale. I bent down and unstrapped my wedges and continued my walk through the forest bare foot.
It wasn't long until I came to a small clearing by the river. The river that was once filled with life and fish was now drained and dull. The water was running low and all that you could see was small trickles of water flow along its path. What happened to this place? This place used to be so beautiful, filled with wildflowers and green grass. Now the land was desolate and dried up. I plumped myself down on the hard ground and tried to enjoy the remaining moments of the sunset.
The sky was orange with pinkish hues, the sun was slowly disappearing into the skyline. I always enjoyed the sunset and sunrise, whether I was here or in New York. It always reminded me that no matter what happened the world keeps spinning round. Nothing stops for your pain. I closed my eyes, enjoying the subtle breeze that was caressing my skin.
"It's like I've gone back in time." A deep baritone voice drifts to my ears. I snap my eyes open.
There stood a tall man, his skin was tanned as if it was kissed by the sun. His black hair was styled as if he just got out of bed, his jaw was sharp but chiselled which was adorned with light facial hair. He had the whole scruffy handsome look down to a point. His eyes were a deep hazel colour and no matter how much I wanted to pull my gaze away from him I couldn't. I was enchanted by him. His muscles were bulging, his thighs were wide and strong. His aura dripped confidence and oozed power.
"Do I know you?" I hummed in amusement. I sniffed the air and it was then that I recognised that his scent didn't belong to a pack, he was a rouge. As much as packs feared rouges, I knew better considering I was one myself.
"You should know your mate." He growled out. I could see the anger in his eyes burn from my words.
So this was my sister's mate. Honestly, I didn't see what she had to complain, he was simply delicious. He didn't seem dangerous, but then again I was a terrible judge of character.
"Ah you must be talking about my sister." I said with my eyes closed as I tilted my face upwards, enjoying the last few moments of the sun.
"Sister? Leanne don't play me for a fool like you have done all these years." He replied angrily.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but you are talking about my twin sister. I'm Louise, well I go by Loretta now." I respond with a shrug of my shoulders.
"Stop lying to me! That's all you have ever done to me! Is lie and cheat! What did I do to deserve this Leanne! You got our son killed!" He shouted.
I peeked my eye open, his son? I thought it was Jacob's son. I shook my head in disgust at the games my sister has played. What is it with her and trying to ruin people's lives? "Listen, I am her twin sister Loretta, sniff me, touch me and you will soon see that I am not Leanne. Just because I look like that bitch does not mean I am her." I snarl at him.
He rushes up to me and I see his nostrils flare as he takes in my scent. I can see his face contort in confusion as he looks at me. "Touch me, go on, you won't feel any sparks. I am not my sister." I scoff. He grabs my wrist and I can feel his touch is cold and callous. His brow furrows in confusion as he takes in my appearance. I can see the clogs ticking away as he talks to his wolf. It won't be long before he comes to the conclusion that I am not his mate.
"Your really not Leanne." He murmured.
"Nope and thank fuck for that. It's bad enough that I share her DNA and look like her." I shudder.
I'm still on the ground as he stands above me. I can feel his piercing gaze fall on me as he stands above me. I can't help but be intrigued by what he wants and what my sister has done to this poor man. He may be a rouge, but if I know what my sister is like, she left a trail of destruction behind her. He sinks down to the ground and sits next to me. There is a wide gap between the two of us but I can feel the heat radiate off his body.
"She told me her twin died." He whispers quietly.
"My sister is a pathological liar. So I wouldn't be surprised." I exhale deeply. "So what did she do to cause her own mate to hate her."
"You don't sound surprised that I hate your sister?" He questions.
"Why would I be surprised? She's an evil bitch. The first time I see her in eight years and she literally tried to murder me." I shake my head.
"Your sister got my son killed." His voice whispered through the pain. I could hear the anguish as the words left his mouth.
"Now that is not the story I've heard." I reply.
"What story have you heard?" He huffs out.
"That you killed her son, my nephew because she had a child with the Alpha of this pack. That you killed him out of anger and jealousy." I state.
He shakes his head, I see his fist clench. "Is that what she told you?" His voice sounds murderous.
"No, if you haven't guessed I don't speak to my sister. I hadn't seen her for eight years. But that is the story that is going around. I didn't realise that the child was yours." I explain.
"How do you know then?" He hastily responds.
"Well you see, my mate rejected me for your mate, who is my twin sister. My mate told me that he had found his dead son on the edge of the pack. Ripped apart." I was never one to mince my words. I wasn't ashamed of what my mate had done to me, to our bond. It wasn't my shame to carry. I was his gift from the goddess and he snubbed his nose at it.
"I see." He responds. His jaw is clenched. I can hear the grit of his teeth.
"Are you going to tell me what actually happened to the child? At this point, I don't care who the father is. I just want to know what happened to my nephew." I whisper.
"I met Leanne when we were teenagers. She was hanging around with some rouges, they weren't good people, they dealt narcotics, guns, human trafficking. You name it, they did it." He responded, he then took a deep breath and continued speaking. "Leanne, she enjoyed the danger and I watched her from afar. My brother was caught up in the same stuff. He was going around kidnapping woman, children, pups." He shook his head. "Honestly I was disappointed to have him as a brother. He was obsessed with Leanne. He thought she was exciting and beautiful. When he found out we were mates, well he wasn't happy." He shook his head with a light chuckle.
"I would follow her to check she was safe as she got more involved with my brother's antics. I tried to protect her, to get her to stop, to go home. She just didn't want to. One day my brother got himself killed by a she-wolf when he was attempting to kidnap a pup. A part of me was upset that I lost my brother but at the same time I knew he got what was coming to him." He said with a sad smile.
"Leanne was upset the night he was murdered. She thought I was my brotherr." I laughed at his words and shook my head.
"Sorry I didn't mean to laugh. It's just how she said she loved me and I was dead. If you had said she loved that I was dead. I would have thought you were being serious." I shook my head. "Sorry, please continue." I gestured with my hand.
"That night we mated and it was then that I thought things might get better, I mean I knew she was sleeping around but I hoped that night, she was finally accepting the mate bond." He said with tears in his eyes. "About two weeks later, she said she was pregnant with my pup. I was so happy. I ran up to her and held her tightly, swinging her around. I was going to have a family." He sadly said.
"It was then that she looked at me coldly and told me that although I was the sperm donor. I would never be the father. She told me how she was to be mated to the Alpha of her pack and he would be the father of her pup. She then rejected me then and there." Small tears gleamed in the corner of his eyes.
"The only thing I wanted was my pup. You have to understand that." He whispered. "My brother's true mate wanted vengeance. She wanted Leanne to suffer. She believed it was her fault that her mate had died, why her mate didn't want her. She wanted her to suffer. She thought that your sister's pack was behind her mates death. She thought your sister was pregnant with the Alpha's baby. So she planned an attacked kidnapped her child and killed him as retribution." He closed his eyes.
"It was the last time I saw Leanne, she blamed me for the death of our child. She was delusional. She knew that it was my brother's mate that had killed her child. Yet she couldn't admit what she had did. My brother's mate went crazy from the betrayal she felt. She felt that Leanne had snatched her chance of happiness away."
"I killed my brother's mate for what she did to my son. If she had told me what she was planning to do. I would have had my son. I didn't even care about Leanne at this point. But my brother's true mate had killed my son. I couldn't let that go unpunished." He shook his head.
"I took over his pack and stopped the shady shit, but unfortunately we kept getting attacked and killed by Leanne's pack. The Luna who wants to kill her true mate." He shook his head in disgust.
I felt my cheeks and I could see they were wet from the tears. How many lives did my sister destroy? What did she gain from causing everyone such pain? She could have been happy, we could have been real sisters who loved and cared for each other, but she was never satisfied.
"My sister isn't Luna anymore." I whispered.
"What do you mean she isn't Luna anymore? I thought she is mated to the Alpha?" He confusingly asked.
"She was mated and she was Luna, but now she is an Omega. She is now currently in the cells for my attempted murder." I explained.
"So why is the Redbridge pack trying to kill my pack members? We have been peaceful for years. We have only retaliated in defence." He exasperated.
"I believe that is to do with my sister, she told them that you murdered her son. The son that they believed to be the Alpha's heir." I sighed.
He let out a dark chuckle, tears streaming down his face as he looked up at the sky. The sun had finally set. The sky was turning deep blue as the moon started to rise and the stars began to shine. He kept shaking his head like he couldn't believe what I was saying.
"I know that child was mine, my wolf felt the connection, the bond." He sobbed.
"It's weird, my mate said the same thing." I sadly replied.
"Wait so your Alpha's true mate?" He asked.
"Bingo." I sarcastically replied. I placed my weight on the back of my hands in the night sky.
"Why don't you smell like the pack? Why do you not bare his mark?" He asked.
"Well would you choose to be with someone who impregnated and marked your twin sister?" I raised my eyebrow.
"No, but you can't help but feel the bond, the pull. It's inevitable." He replies.
"Maybe, but I can keep running from fate. I had disappeared for eight years, I wouldn't have come back if I didn't have a choice." He gave me a puzzled look. "Long story." I sighed. "I have no interest in being with my mate, even if that means losing my wolf, even if that means being human. This place has brought me nothing but pain." I gave him a sad smile.
"You know, you may look like your sister but you are nothing like her." He said with a genuine smile.
"Thank you." I gave him a nod.
"Your mate really was an idiot to choose Leanne over you." He shook his head. "Honestly I don't know how I ended up with that woman as my mate. I sometimes think fate played a cruel game with me. I ask the Goddess what had I done wrong to end up like this. My pack they are withering away because we can't take anymore attacks from Redbridge, we are in a constant war with them for resources these days." He sighed heavily.
"I used to do the same thing day in and day out. I would curse the Moon for giving me Jacob as a mate. I would curse her for giving me a family that abused and neglected me. I hated her for making me the twin of Leanne." I shook my head. "But then I think about what I had become away from them all. I changed and I can't say I regret leaving this place. I became strong and independent. I didn't just survive. I thrived." I said with a smile.
"Sometimes adversity is in our path to make us stronger, to build character. To show us who we truly are. I changed my life for the better, you changed your pack of rouges for the better. That wouldn't have happened with Leanne. She would have only dragged us both down with her." I replied.
He looked at me as if I was some sort of puzzle missing a piece. I think he was confused. There were similarities in looks between me and my sister when we were younger. But as the years went by, my sister's internal ugliness was reflected in her appearance. She was dependant on people, she thrived in the spotlight but as that was taken from her, her shine began to dimmer.
I don't feel hate towards my sister, I don't feel love towards her. In truth, all that lies between us is indifference. I could never forgive her for the pain she had caused me but all those around her. She had ruined not only her life but her families life. On another level, she had created a war between two packs for no reason other than to cause chaos. Two men believed that they were a father of my nephew. Both blamed the other for the death of that child.
I shook my head and closed my eyes, for the first time in years I prayed to Selene and begged her to end this madness. Both men were victims of my sister's games, games that they didn't want to play. Games that were killing innocent people. I took a deep breath and looked at the man beside me and held my hand out.
"My name's Loretta. What should I call you rouge?" I teased.
"The names Xavier, Beauty."