Iliana's Choice (Completed) SAMPLE ONLY!

1 - MateLess

A/N - Only chapters 1-5 of Iliana's Choice are available on Wattpad.

Iliana

I finger my dress, poking my forefinger through a hole in the lace. The dress loosely hangs on me like a sack. When I was in the hospital I lost weight that I couldn't afford to lose. How much have I shrunk in the last year? Two, three dress sizes? The plumpness that females usually gain before their first shift was nowhere to be found on me. I gained maybe five pounds, and that's generous. If I lost twenty pounds, then gained five, I was still a good fifteen pounds underweight. More, if you consider that we are supposed to be about ten pounds overweight in the couple of months before a shift.

Grief from rejection does that to a wolf. That's what we are taught and that's what I now know for certain.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I never overheard him? If I could have spent the last two years in blissful ignorance of my truemate loving my sister. I would never have known that he was my mate, not until I shifted, and I would have just been happy, been... living.

The white lace is scratchy. I absentmindedly fiddle with it while avoiding the speculative looks from the pack. Some of the older packmembers are looking at me with pity. I know what they are thinking. I took too long to shift. I should have been weak, a puny runt wolf, judging from the length of time it took me. Two days, nearly. Forty-two hours of excruciating agony. Then, finally, I shifted into a grey wolf the size of a beta female. Not only is she not a runt, but she is a feral, wild beast who immediately tried to rip open Georgina's throat. Too bad Alpha Alexander was there, worried about the juvenile female whose heart was so close to giving out from pain and stress. His concern for me saved Georgina's life. My newly-shifted wolf was no match for her alpha.

That was five months ago. I spent three weeks recovering in the hospital. I was released and managed to convince mom and dad to let me have absolute seclusion at home until the ceremony tonight.

My brand-new Wolfspirit is... lonely, sad, and wild. It takes everything I have to keep her together, to keep us together. The final meld of my soul to hers is supposed to be a beautiful thing. Instead, I am putting up emotional walls against my own pack, my family, as they stare at me in concern and curiosity because she is hurting so badly.

Oh yeah, I definitely know what they're thinking. A too-long, painful, delayed shift, a feral wolf, seclusion from my friends and packmates. No one knows that I was rejected before I could even sense who my mate was. Rejection is so rare, our alphason's truemate notwithstanding, and to be rejected before your shift is impossible, supposedly. I wish.

Too weak, too ugly, too boring, a loner freak.

I am none of those things. I am not. I promise myself I am none of those things.

I hear Alpha Alexander announce Cinda's name. I can see the unmated wolves ahead, long lines of males on one side, females on the other. If I were unMated I would walk the line of males (or females, if that is what I preferred) searching out my mate. Two other recently shifted wolves have already Claimed their mates tonight. Both pairs already knew who their mate was, but this tradition dates back generations and everyone likes it so much, so we pretend to be surprised. I smile faintly when I see Cinda practically dance down the line. Her mate, Teddy, placed himself at the end, I guess to prolong the anticipation. He is watching her approach with the goofiest smile on his face. This is their night and they are so happy. I'm happy for them. I am. I just wish that my story was like theirs.

"Iliana, step forward and seek your mate," Alpha Alexander has the faintest look of hope in his obsidian gaze. Everyone says his black eyes are scary, but I can see the softness underneath. He is hoping that I step towards the line of males. I meet his gaze and see the hope fade. I wonder what my expression holds for him. A bleak certainty that my future holds no mate for me? Yeah, probably that.