THE VIRGIN WOLFLESS
MINA’S POINT OF VIEW.
‘I could never stick my cock inside a virgin wolf-less skank.’
For a moment, I honestly thought I had heard him wrong. My fingers curled around my backpack's handle as I stared at him, Elliot Roux. The crowded courtyard of Roux College seemed to fall silent around me. Elliot was my mate, the boy I had loved since I was fifteen, when he saved me from a claustrophobic attack after Ivy and her minions threw me inside a dry well—the boy who had lived in my heart for the past four years.
He stood only a few feet away, surrounded by students wearing the red, black, and silver colors of Roux College. His Beta aura seeped into the air, powerful enough to make any omega or weak wolf look away.
But I didn’t look away.
I couldn’t, because to me, he wasn’t just Beta; he was Elliot.
“Elliot…” I whispered, but his expression didn’t soften. It hardened into something that made me take a small step back. I searched his face for a sign that this was some joke, a prank. Some tiny indication that he was pretending to be cruel because everyone was watching.
There wasn’t one.
His blue eyes looked colder than I’d ever seen them.
“B-but…” My voice trembled, vision blurry. “We’re mates.”
A murmur moved through the crowd of students. It wasn’t new information; Elliot and I had been mates since I turned eighteen. Even when I didn’t shift, somehow, we were able to identify each other. “I-I left for Canis pack because you told me to on my eighteenth birthday. Y-you said that when I returned, we could be mates; that you would mark me.”
I still remembered it like it happened yesterday. Everyone else had shifted; everyone besides me. Elliot was in his wolf form when he glanced at my human one. The moment his eyes had met mine, something inside me had pulled me violently toward him.
Even though I had never shifted and everyone called me wolfless. Even though I had spent my entire life being treated like something less than a real wolf.
For one beautiful, impossible second, I had thought fate had finally given me something for the years I convinced myself I would be with mateless, and wolfless.
Elliot took one step toward me; it made my heart leap. Suddenly, his lips twisted with disgust. “You really believed that meant I would want you, Mina?”
The students surrounding us burst with maniac laughter. It started quietly at first, then it became louder. My cheeks burned with embarrassment; I swallowed hard, a tear escaping before I could stop it. My lower lip wobbled; “I-i-I don’t understand."
I had transferred to Roux College because of him. he didn’t call me all the years I spent at Canis, so I told myself he was too busy. That it would be the perfect chance to surprise him this morning. I had spent weeks imagining this moment.
I imagined Elliot seeing me, taking my hand, telling me he had been waiting for me too. Every fantasy I imagined was everything except this... cold glance. “I thought you loved me.”
All of a sudden, the laughter stopped. Elliot stared at me, his lips once twisted with disgust now flattened into a smile; there was nothing warm about it. “You thought I, the son of Alpha Greyson Roux, would be in love with a wolfless virgin mutt?”
I gasped, eyes widening. I couldn’t stop my tears now. “M-mutt?”
“What? Think because the word is forbidden here in our pack, it means I can't call you that?” he laughed, taking a step closer. “That only applies to real wolves, not wolfless freaks.
I mean, who knows the sort of creature you are? You’re not a wolf, you’re not human… what are you, Mina?”
My lungs felt tight; I couldn’t breathe. “Elliot…s-stop, you are hurting me.”
“You’re pathetic.” He shook his head, seething. “Stop embarrassing yourself, Mutt.”
Someone behind him snickered. I looked around, hoping someone would defend me. I quickly shut that thought down; no one would. Like Ellliot said, I was wolfless. Nobody would risk social suicide to defend me.
All of a sudden, a familiar voice floated through the crowd. “Why is everyone making such a fuss?”
I turned to find Ivy Canis walking towards us.
Of course, Ivy never walked anywhere unnoticed. She was the most popular girl at Roux College, beautiful in the effortless way that made people stare twice; her long dark hair fell perfectly over her shoulders, and the silver crest of one of the most powerful wolf families in the territory shone against her uniform.
Dressed in a skirt that reached her mid-thigh, her shirt exposed so much cleavage that I wondered if it was appropriate for college.
The crowd parted for her as she walked through, stopping beside Elliot. Her red-painted lips stretched with a smile at him. Her fingers slipped casually around his arm.
It made my stomach twist.
“Y-you never let me touch you like that, Elliot.” I barely realized when I blurted it, but it hurt too much. I tightened my fist around my shirt, unable to stop my tears. “You said you were a germophobe, so no one should touch you.”
“Who is this pathetic one, Elliot?” Ivy purred, without taking her eyes off me.
“She’s the wolfless mutt, Mina.”
“Wait…” Ivy snickered. “You mean that bitch that refused to leave you alone at eighteen. Oh, my goddess! I can't believe she showed her face again.”
“I thought sending her off to Canis pack would keep her away; maybe she would grow a darn brain since she can't find her wolf. But she is here now.” Elliot slapped a hand over his face, a sigh escaping him. “I wish we could banish her.”
“Well, I did try years back. Maybe I should have told you to suggest Trix pack instead; she wouldn’t have survived a month there.”
“At least they would have shipped her dead body; it’s better than looking at her right now.”
“Y-you want me dead, Elliot?” I blinked. “But you are my mate.”
“Oh, Mina.” Ivy sighed; the way she said my name made me feel small. She shook her head slowly, her words slow as if she spoke to a pet. “You weren’t expecting a Beta to mate with you, did you?
You can't be that stupid.”
“B-but, the moon goddess made Elliot my mate.” Maybe Elliot’s forgotten; if I say it many times, he might remember. He wouldn’t be so mean; we grew up together.
“A mistake!” he hissed. ‘I don’t know what sick joke the goddess had in mind when she paired me with you, but I know it’s something that can be fixed, can't it?”
“N-no,” I whispered, dread coiling deep in my stomach as I watched Elliot take a deep, long breath.
“Mina Haven.” My stomach dropped. There was something final about the way he said my full name; I’d watched this happen on rare occasions to other wolves, but nothing could have prepared me for it. He straightened his shoulders, and at once, green light surged all around him.
His beta Aura surged; my knees nearly buckled beneath it. Then he spoke the words that would destroy everything I had believed about us. “I, Elliot Roux, Beta of the Roux pack, reject you, Mina Haven, as my mate.”
At once, pain exploded through my chest. A sharp gasp tore from my lips; it felt like I’d swallowed searing hot iron and glass, as something had ripped straight through my ribs. I dropped to one knee; a cry escaped me.
The crowd erupted with laughter while someone else whispered, ‘She actually thought the Beta would claim a wolfless girl.”
I pressed a trembling hand against my chest. It hurt, goddess, it hurt; but beneath the pain, I felt something stranger bloom. For a split second, my chest rumbled as I heard a low growl. At first, I thought it came from Elliot, but it came from deep inside me.
My head snapped up, and suddenly the sensation vanished. As quickly as it came. I stared at the ground, breathing hard.
No.
Impossible.
I was wolfless; I had always been wolfless. In our world, once you don’t get your wolf at sixteen, then eighteen, it meant you were nothing. You could never get a wolf. So I knew there was no wolf inside me.
What had just growled?”
“Mina?” I looked up to find Elliot staring at me. His expression had changed into something else. His eyes dropped to my chest first, then back at my face. He looked almost…afraid. The expression disappeared so quickly that I wondered if I had imagined it. I forced myself to stand despite the pain still coiled in my chest.
My legs shook, but I put all my strength into stopping myself from crying. I couldn’t anymore; not here in front of these wolves. “How could you do this to me?” I asked; the words came out barely above a whisper.
Before Elliot could respond, Ivy stepped forward. Her hand lifted before it came down hard against my cheek. The force caused my already weak knees to buckle. She lifted her knee and kicked me to the ground. “You disgrace!” she snarled, her claws showing. I pressed a hand against my hot, stinging cheek.
“You’re a wolfless mutt, yet you dare pretend to growl?!”
“Yeah.” Elliot chipped in. I wondered where that sound came from. So you were faking?” He laughed. “What were you hoping to do? Scare me into being with you?”
“N-no. I-I didn’t know when it happened, too. I did not do it on purpose.”
“Liar!” Ivy seethed, stomping her heel on my foot.
“Ahhh!!” I cried, the smell of my blood in the air as her heel sank into my skin.
“Wolves, real wolves, would have healed by now. But you are weak, useless.” She withdrew her foot. The wound she left looked deep; blood seeped from it. Pain spread through my ankle to my knee.
“Why…what is that?” My eyes widened at the sudden heat spreading through the wound.
“Silver-laced wolfbane, darling.” Ivy winked.
“Wolfbane?” I gasped. “B-but it kills wolves. It’ll kill me!”
“No, it kills wolves, Mina.” Ivy chuckled. “You are not a wolf; you’re a mutt freak. And I have to do the pack a favor...” She lifted her arm; her claws had fully released now, the sharp things glistening in the morning sun. “I get to rid this pack of your existence!”
My eyes snapped shut, waiting for the final strike. The poison already seeped into my blood and bones; I couldn’t fight back even if I wanted to. And being wolfless didn’t help matters.
Suddenly, a whiff of air passed my face. The blow never came, but a roar did.
“Let her go!”
My eyes snapped open at that familiar, deep, striking, powerful voice. I glanced at his broad shoulders, my throat burning both from the poison and Elliot’s rejection.
“A-alpha D-Declan?”
