2. Remy

Chapter two

Remy

Remy’s heart was a wild drum, its beats echoing through the cavern of her chest. Her palms, slick with the sheen of anxiety, refused to stay still, fluttering like caged birds against the fabric of her skirt. The sounds of the music and various voices floated up to her room, making Remy feel the need to jump out the window and take off into the land surrounding the house. While on the island, the parties called to her like the moon did. They were fun and energetic, making her forget that she had been dropped off without remembering why. This party was different. There wouldn’t be various species of supernaturals dancing the night away and living their best lives. The people here were for her–to welcome her back–and something else she didn’t want to consider.

The possibility of running into the mate that rejected her.

Returning home reminded Remy of why she didn’t mind living on the island with minimal chance of returning. The weight of the expectations to become an Alpha, or even the Luna to an Alpha, felt like the entire kingdom was pressing down on her shoulders. That wasn’t the life Remy wanted. The Luna of a pack usually meant having to keep the rest of the pack in line while the Alpha got to dispute the territory lines, make deals with other Alphas, talk business, and basically run their kingdom. An Alpha had more power than a Luna, and Remy was unfit for it, but if she were only a Luna, the pack bonds would force her to listen to the Alpha.

Which is some bullshit. I don’t listen to my own Alpha, who is my father. My Lycan refuses to. How will I ever be happy when I am expected to follow someone else? It would have been different if Kodi had still been alive.

Before the island and even coming of age to find her mate, Remy could live the life she wanted because her big brother, Kodi, was there to make it better. Kodi was the heir to the Great Plains Pack, the grocery business, and her father’s golden boy. Remy didn’t need to worry about finding a mate or anything else because she was not going to inherit a damn thing as long as her brother was alive. She was trained like the rest of the pack, so she knew how to handle herself, but that was it. The expectation for her was to keep her body agile because she was a dominant female, and other Lycans would challenge her position once her brother took over. Kodi told everyone who would listen that Remy would be his second, but few males would like to listen to her.

But a stupid pack dispute took that away from me.

The sound of fabric splitting dragged Remy’s thoughts from those terrible memories. Five streaks from her claws were ripped into her comforter. Remy frowned at the markings and made a mental note to ask her mom where more were stored. Things weren’t the same in the pack house anymore. Some things were moved around, including her room. Instead of being inside the main house, Remy was moved to the secondary house behind her childhood log cabin home. This was used to house the remaining pack members who were not the top wolves. They needed Remy’s room to move in a Lycan with difficulty controlling his Lycan form. Tala explained that the last they heard before she was sent to the island was that her mate planned to have the ceremony and everything with her. She went to his pack, where she was rejected, and their Alpha took her to the island. Lykos pulled the letter from some files to show her that she had sent it to them. It didn’t mention who she was mated to or what pack she was in. She would just send them a notice of when the ceremony would be. Then followed the letter that she was rejected and taken to the island.

That’s not how she would have handled things, so Remy felt a pit in her stomach with the story’s details. No one knew who her mate was, and no pack offered the information they needed to find out. They agreed to keep things casual around the party, not to let anyone know they were unaware of who her mate was and why he may have rejected her. If there was a traitor amongst them, even within the neighboring packs where Remy had been traveling, they needed to keep that close to their chest until the moment was right.

A knock at her door caused Remy to growl. It wasn’t like her to not be aware of her surroundings, and she despised not being at the top of her game. Tala called her name from the other side of the door, so Remy got off her bed, walked over to it, and unlocked it.

Tala stood on the other side with her hands on her hips. Ever since Remy grew taller than her mother, it was hard to take her seriously when she was angry. Remy pressed her lips together to hide her smile and scrunched her face to look annoyed.

"Don’t give me that look. That party downstairs is for you. Why are you hiding up here?"

An annoyed rumble in her chest gave away how she felt before Remy could create a different reaction. If it weren’t for her not paying attention, she wouldn’t have agreed to this party to begin with. "I changed my mind. I don’t want a party."

Tala growled at her. "Too bad. Let’s go. Since you’ve been gone for so long, you must be reacquainted with the pack. There have been some transfers to our pack, and some have been transferred out for mating purposes. Everyone needs to know who you are now that you are back. This is the best way for us all to do that. The whole pack is here! Some were visiting elsewhere and traveled all the way here just to see you."

Remy lifted her lip in response. Tala growled again and began to tap her foot. Remy knew what that foot tap meant. It was time to go down there whether she liked it or not. While throwing her hands up, Remy let out a frustrated sigh, "FINE! Just know that I don’t want to do this, so if I bite someone’s head off, it’s your fault instead of mine."

With her mother behind her, Remy could feel Tala’s tender hands pressed against Remy’s back to show Tala meant business. Remy did her best not to stomp her feet as she descended several flights of stairs until she reached the main floor. After several zig-zags through multiple hallways, she reached the rec room. The only ones who seemed to be missing were several of the Omegas, who were most likely watching the children not of age. Remy forgot just how big the inside of the house was and shook her head at seeing at least forty wolves from the Great Plains Pack inside. The party was in full swing, with a speaker blasting music through the room just below the level of being intolerable for Lycan hearing. Quickly, Remy took in that the room was too full just to be her pack and glanced at her mother. Tala tried to hide her face, knowing that her daughter was glaring at her, and pointed toward someone approaching them. Thankfully, it was just her father.

"Good of you to finally join us. Now go on. Have some fun!" His voice joyfully boomed with both happiness and authority.

The fun will be mandatory.

Remy tried to smile; she really did. Instead, it came out looking like a grimace. Lykos chuckled and patted her shoulder before shoving her into the fold. Remy was thankful that she was still wearing her trusty boots. Otherwise, she would have fallen right on her ass with her wearing a black jean skirt, which would have been a problem. She shot her father a look, who was no longer even looking in her direction. Instead, she watched her parents instinctively fall into dancing with each other, perfectly in tandem, like they were teenagers again. Remy snarled in their direction before the song changed to a real upbeat one that she recalled playing on the island in one of the nightclubs. Allowing the music to wash over her, Remy relaxed and moved her body to the beat.

It didn’t take long for some of the pack members to grab onto her hands and pull her further into the sea of bodies on the dance floor. Most of the faces she recognized, one being Bryan, and he twirled her around for a moment before returning to his mate, Bella. Their son was her age, and one of the transfers out of the pack was into another one that needed a new second in command. Bella hugged her for a moment, reminding Remy of the warm way Bella always hugged her while growing up. Bella was one of the taller females in the pack, which Bryan lucked out with. Bryan was over six feet, and Bella fell perfectly under his chin. Because Bella always wore her brunette hair back in a ponytail, her warm brown eyes always watched out for everyone, mainly for Remy, because she had a tendency to get into trouble. If Kodi didn’t distract her parents so she didn’t get caught, Bella did. Sometimes, it was a full-time job for both of them, but Remy never heard a complaint.

Grief flooded through Remy’s heart at the thought of Kodi again. Her movements slowed down as she took some deep breaths to keep herself from crying. The dryness of her throat had her pushing through the crowd toward the table of refreshments. A bowl of punch was toward the right end with a ladle inside and cups all around. Cherries, oranges, lemon, and lime wedges were floating on top of the punch along with some ice cubes, and she could smell the fruits meshing together in harmony before she grabbed one of the cups and the ladle from the bowl. Remy ladled the red punch into a cup and downed the sugary liquid with a fierce gulp. There was a faint hint of alcohol on her taste buds, and Remy contemplated downing the whole bowl so she could get buzzed. It was difficult for them to get drunk, but as long as she drank enough over a short period, Remy knew she would get the desired result.

Yeah, let’s not relive my sixteenth birthday. The last time I tested this theory, I nearly died in the middle of a field.

Let’s not forget you nearly took out the Beta.

The edges of Remy’s mouth turned up at the memory her wolf mentioned. No one expected Remy to wolf out and start wailing on the Beta when he tried to tell her she’d had enough and needed to go home. Her parents were away dealing with pack business with a neighboring territory, so Bryan was in charge. He thought Remy was sound asleep in her room but did a bed check. It had only been a few weeks after Kodi was killed, and Remy wasn’t handling it very well. Bryan tracked her down and later regretted it. Bryan had to spend a few hours in the infirmary to heal from the wounds she inflicted on him. When her parents returned the next day, Remy thought Bryan would have told them. Instead, he said that Remy had spent the night in her room.

We never thanked him enough for that.

Well, we are back home now. We can thank him while we are here.

The beat turned up again, calling Remy to get back into the thicket of the dancing, and she didn’t hesitate to answer. Everyone cheered when she returned, and she was guided into the middle of the dance floor. As the song intensified, her body swayed along to the music, pushing out the memories that were flooding back to her now that she was home. A large shadow covered her body from the streams of light coming from the sides of the room, and Remy looked up to find one of the most gorgeous guys she had ever seen standing over her. He offered his hand to her and waited patiently for her to take it. There was no chance she would take his hand before sizing him up, so she took a moment to take him in. His shaggy brunette hair fell across his dark chocolate brown eyes. With his height well over six feet, his broad-shouldered, muscular body screamed Alpha before the wave of power hit her like a freight train. Just like her father, this guy’s presence filled the room and caused several of her family’s Lycans to turn their heads and stare. This guy didn’t waver once and continued to stare at her with his palm up for her to take it. His chocolate eyes were full of heat as they connected with her’s. Remy fought the two options of declining the guy to continue dancing with her pack or taking this guy’s offer to dance with him instead. Remy found turning this sexy ass guy down revolting since she had no idea who he was or if she would see him again. The odds of running into him again would be slim if he weren’t a neighboring Alpha. She continued to weigh her options and assessed whether or not this guy was trustworthy enough to dance with so she could forget her stupid ex who left her face down in the sand with no memory of him or why he rejected her.

Fuck it. What’s the worst that can happen?

Instead of taking his hand, Remy turned her back on him and started moving her body to the beat again. She heard a throaty chuckle behind her before feeling his presence behind her. Throwing her hands in the air, Remy managed to turn her head just enough to check if it was the hottie. Sure enough, it was, and he winked at her as he followed her lead. With some swaying of her hips, moving of her arms, and bopping of her head to the beat, Remy fell back into the rhythm and lost herself to the music. She twirled around to face him, and Hottie waited for her to make the next move. Remy gyrated her hips into him, and Hottie put one of his legs in between hers, matching her energy. They moved in sync and continued their dance through another song. Remy danced around him, with him, and finally…he grabbed her hand to twirl her.

Remy stopped abruptly as the world fell away, and they were the only ones on the dance floor. Hottie stared down at her with the same shocked expression but quickly became satisfied before he emitted a low growl. Breathing did not come easily, and the stitching inside of her soul began to form. This stranger’s amber and oak scent wrapped around Remy before she could process what was happening. She stepped back before a bright, white light overtook her vision, and a memory tried to surface. Pain radiated through her head as she remembered feeling this before, the beginnings of a mate bond forming, before hearing a deep-throated growl. She gasped at the air before the white light disappeared. The hot guy stood in front of her, his body language showing how he was ready to pounce on the entity that was causing her pain as he scanned the area with his eyes. Remy wanted to run, but that would only trigger this guy to chase after her. No one runs from Lycan. That only makes the animal counterpart kick into overdrive and consider the person running as prey. She gritted her teeth before straightening herself and glared at him.

A playful smirk was on his lips, but this guy didn’t move a muscle. The bond continued to stitch inside her, bringing his scent around her and a sense of safety, but Remy didn’t feel safe at all. She entered her mind to draw on the little snippet of the memory that finally came to her after all this time. She needed to know if this was the mate that rejected her and left her for dead. The memory wouldn’t come easily to her, only allowing her to feel the bond forming and the pain from the rejection. A little more of a push, and the blinding light returned. Remy focused on the scent of that mate while being wrapped up in the scent of the current guy. The scent of bergamot and cedar wood slowly filled her nose before the pain overwhelmed her once more. Remy nearly crashed to her knees, but a pair of strong hands caught her under her elbows. The hottie scanned her body with concern in his eyes. Remy looked around and noticed her pack was staring at her, too. She flashed her pack a smile and waved the hottie off.

"I got too hot! I think I need to step out for a minute or two. I’m fine!"

Remy pulled herself away from the hottie, feeling her Lycan inside of her whine as she screamed Mate! That is our mate! It took more power than she thought it would to ignore her Lycan and push through the crowd toward the punch bowl again. The hottie followed her out, and Remy rounded on him before he could get too close.

"What?" She spat.

The guy leaned his head to his side, clearly confused at her reaction as the mate bond reached out to him. This wasn’t the mate who rejected her—this guy was someone else. The Moon Goddess chose Remy for a second chance.

But I don’t want a second chance...

"I am Chase Monroe, Alpha of the Silver Ridge Pack."

Remy clenched her fists at her sides. The Moon Goddess had given her a new mate—an Alpha mate—and this was definitely not what she wanted. "Good for you," she said.

Chase smirked at her. "And you are?"

Remy smirked back. "I am Remy Howell, daughter of Alpha Lykos of the Great Plains Pack. I did not ask for another mate, nor do I want one. So, you can take your sweet ass back to the Silver Ridge Mountains and forget I exist."

Chase chuckled. "Oh no, Sweetcheeks. You’re not getting rid of me that easily."

"Oh yeah?" she challenged.

"Oh yeah. You’re mine."

We’ll see about that.