Thanks guys for all the love. Please keep reading and commenting. This chapter is especially long since it has much to say about Hannah and Adrian's story.
Picture of Hannah as Karen Gillian above :)
Chapter 2
I looked at Hannah. She was staring at the table while clutching it until her knuckles had gone white. We were facing the boys, so we could see their actions. Adrian was completely ignoring us although all his friends glanced at us and gave us friendly smiles. They had a new addition in their table today. Katie. Grant had his arms slung behind her chair and Katie was leaning into it. If everything had gone right, Hannah would have been sitting there too.
For as long as I could remember, Hannah had had a crush on Adrian. Adrian had never given off that vibe but still had been pretty damn protective of her. And, me? I had daydreamt about my best friend being my sister-in-law and us giggling all night through for forever. But none of us had gone beyond dreaming because of the whole mate thing. Hannah's feeling never went beyond a crush because there was always the fact that there was a mate selected for Adrian by the Moon Goddess. But all that changed six months ago.
When we realised that the Moon Goddess had chosen her.
That fateful afternoon, I was walking with Hannah to my class when Adrian had passed us by for his own classes. He must have bumped into Hannah because the next thing I knew, both of them had frozen with their eyes fixed on each other. Hannah had looked ecstatic but nervous, waiting for his reaction.
Adrian got over the shock first because he looked at Hannah with a grim look and said
"Hello, mate"
Every single person in that hallway stopped as they heard what he had said since he hadn't exactly been whispering. And they went downright crazy when Adrian grabbed Hannah and kissed her. Hard.
After he had let her go ( I could not say when, since I had my eyes closed) , he abruptly turned around and walked off to his class leaving chaos behind him. Hannah was grinning and crying at the same time. Her wildest dream of being the mate of the guy she had loved all her life had come true. She was so elated that she didn't even realise what the whole thing meant.
She was the future Queen of the Werewolf Dynasty.
My mother had been the only child of the previous King after whom she had become the Queen, making my father the King. Adrian, being the first born was the future King while I was merely a princess.
The news that the Werewolf Dynasty had found their future Queen spread like wildfire. The girls who had high hopes of sitting on that golden throne someday didn't take kindly to it. They glared at her the whole day and passed snide comments. We went home to find that Adrian had already told our parents and Hannah's about them. Both the couples were grinning from ear to ear. My mother had always loved her as her own and had shared my dreams of seeing them together.
That evening there was a great celebration filled with happiness and envy. The first hint of something being wrong was when Adrian stood up in the middle of dinner and asked that nobody outside of this clan find out that he had found his mate.
Everyone present was surprised but they agreed nonetheless. My father, in an attempt to explain this bizarre request, stood up and explained that it was to protect the future Queen from rogue wolves as much as possible but I could see that even he was confused by my brother's order. Everything went downhill from there.
From the next day, Adrian pretended that Hannah didn't exist. The kiss he had given her in the hallway was a far away dream that might as well have never existed. As the days passed and my brother continued to be a jerk, Hannah's elation turned to despair and heartbreak while the jealousy of the other girls turned into malicious pity. My parents were bewildered and furious at Adrian and naturally took Hannah's side. Since then, Hannah had turned into a shadow of her real self and it got worse every day. The only silver lining in this whole tragedy was that my brother, who had previously his fair share of girlfriends had never looked at another girl twice. Even though he ignored Hannah, the other female sex was non-existent to him too.
This brought us to now. With Hannah looking miserable and Adrian looking as if he had no care in the world.
"Do you want to leave?" I asked her quietly.
She jerkily shook her head and looking up gave me a tremulous smile.
I looked at my brother who must have felt eyes on him since he looked around and his eyes fell on me. I glared at him promising retribution while he raised one of his eyebrows and looked back at his friends.
That's when I saw a shadow fall on the table. I glanced to my right and saw Jim, a guy from our History class, standing there. But he wasn't looking at me, his eyes were on Hannah. He cleared his throat.
"Umm, Hannah?", he said, with a squeaky voice which sounded loud since it reverberated through the cafeteria. The place went deathly still.
I elbowed Hannah since she didn't seem to hear Jim. Bewildered, she looked up and noticed the guy standing there.
"Hi, Jim, what's up?" she said, smiling kindly while looking nervous. Her eyes kept glancing from Jim to somewhere close to where my brother was sitting.
"I was thinking, could you probably help me with my History? I am falling behind in that class and I noticed that you were quite good at It.", he said, shifting his feet from side to side. The poor guy probably hadn't expected such a large audience to hear his request.
All the students in the cafeteria held their breath waiting for Hannah's answer. I glanced at Adrian discreetly. He was staring at his table with a grim look while a muscle ticked in his jaw.
This had happened quite a few times in the last few months. Every time a guy approached Hannah for one thing or the other in front of Adrian, he would get this pissed look in his eyes. No guy ever flirted with Hannah fearing the retribution from Adrian but still there were requests for tutoring and whatnot now and then
I had told Hannah about this obvious show of jealousy from Adrian to get her hopes up, but she merely replied that it was the wolf in him that got pissed. Not Adrian. Never him. Although I wasn't that sure.
Hannah was looking at Jim like a deer caught in headlights. Before she could reply, Grant stood up from his table and told Jim
"Hey Jim, tell you what, Katie is the top student in History. She can help you out, in my presence of course." Katie looked at Jim and nodded.
Although Adrian ignored Hannah, his friends had all become quite protective of Hannah.
Jim looked at Grant and nodded. He must have realised that he was being given an easy way out from this messy situation and he eagerly took it. Smart guy.
Hannah took a relieved breath. I glanced at her. The idiot always got this way when a guy approached her. Once she had told me, this was because subconsciously she felt as if she was cheating on my brother.
It was because it was Hannah, that she took my brother's feeling into account. If it had been me, with my mate being a jerk of the top order, I would have grabbed Jim and said," Forget History, let's go to Vegas, baby."
Oh, well.
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That afternoon, after school, Hannah and I walked home together with both of our guards following us. Since as long as I could remember, I had a guard shadowing my every move. And so did Adrian. According to my father, it was just a precautionary measure since the border of the land was guarded so well that intruders were rarely got the chance to invade. After we found out Hannah was Adrian's mate, she was gifted a bodyguard too. She took this new change in her life in strides, since she also practically had a guard while being with me. Although in her house it was a different matter. It took her two weeks to stop screaming every time she opened her door in the morning and saw a strange guy standing there with a gun strapped to his waist.
One night, Hannah had seen a spider in her room and her shriek had brought the guard rushing into the room with his gun ready. Suffice it to say, Hannah had been embarrassed and had apologised profusely to the guard for the false alarm. After he had killed the spider for her, of course.
Hannah stopped as we approached my driveway. I turned around to see her hesitating to enter the house. After I had assured her that Adrian wouldn't be home yet since he had basketball practice after school, she stepped forward and we both walked up to my house.
After the whole mate fiasco, Hannah had refused to enter our house for two months in case she saw Adrian. She said that it hurt too much. All the sleepovers, lunch and dinner was relegated to Hannah's house. It was only after I had threatened her with broken friendships that she had stepped foot into our house. And even now, I had to make sure that Adrian wasn't home so that Hannah could come.
Sigh.
We entered the house to see Mom and Dad on their way out. When asked where they were going, they merely said that they were going for the monthly meeting with the Elders. I shrugged as I figured it was just the usual stuff.
I wish now I hadn't. Cause it had been far from the 'usual' stuff.
Just as Hannah and I were about to proceed to my room, Adrian came bursting in.
"Hey Dad, why did you send for me so urg..........?", he stopped what he was about to say as he finally took into account the occupants of the room. Hannah had gone still by my side and my parents looked nervous. This was the first time Hannah and Adrian had come face to face without a dozen people passing through them.
"We were going into the meeting and we thought you and Grant could come with us.", Dad said, his eyes flickering from Hannah to Adrian.
Since Adrian and Grant were about to inherit the post of Alpha and Beta from my Dad and Grant's Dad, they had decided to take both the successors to the meetings to train them on what goes on there.
Adrian shakily nodded and abruptly turning from us, ran to his room, probably to get dressed. Hannah stayed frozen until then but seconds after Adrian left, she moved and ran upstairs to my room and slammed the door. I looked at my parents who were looking at both the doors with varying expressions. Dad was looking at Adrian's door with anger while mom was looking at mine with pain. They looked back at me and shaking their heads left the house to go the meeting.
I went upstairs and passed Adrian's room on my way to mine. I glared at it and in an attempt to tamp down the anger, kicked it for good measure. Adrian must have known who it was and what the kick was for because there was no response from inside.
I quietly opened my door and went inside to see Hannah sitting on one side of my bed with a picture on her hand. Tears were silently streaming from her eyes as she stared at it. It was a picture of Adrian with his arm around me and we both were goofily laughing at the person taking the picture. It had been her. It had been the annual bonfire festival and Adrian was wearing a Dr Who T shirt while I was wearing a full sleeve black top. It had been taken one month before The Incident.
I sat there with her for a few minutes. She quietly laid her head on my shoulder and continued crying, the picture frame lying forgotten on her lap.
"I am so sorry Hannah.", I whispered.
"Why should you be sorry? You are not breaking my heart. ", she said, sniffing.
"Every time I see you I feel that I should do something else to convince my brother or at least to understand what is going on. But nothing comes up."
"And you shouldn't be. It should be him who should be explaining this to me.", she said.
After a few more seconds of silence, Hannah said quietly,
"Do you know Ilyssa, before this whole thing, I was terrified everyday that Adrian would find his mate and I would have to see them together all the time. And I used to think, What could be worse than seeing the person you love happy with somebody else? Now I know, what is worse. Having your dream in your hands but still unable to live it. At least if his mate had been somebody else, I could have told myself that he would have been just as happy if it had been me. That it just wasn't meant to be. But now what? I am his mate but he doesn't care. What excuse do I have now?"
My heart kept breaking with every word she said,
"And do you know what the worst part is?" she continued. "It is that I can't even hate him accusing him of being a bastard. Because Adrian is the kindest, gentlest and bravest person I have ever seen. Even when we were young, I hadn't loved him for his lineage. I had loved him for him. And sometimes I feel that maybe with somebody else he would be happy. Maybe he doesn't like me that way but he is so kind that he doesn't want to break my heart by rejecting me. Maybe there is something wrong with me."
I immediately turned her towards me and said, "Don't ever say that again. You are perfect. And you are perfect for my brother although for whatever reason he can't see it."
I hoped it was a valid reason because if not and if it was really that he was a jerk, I would personally kill him.
"But I can't bear this anymore Ilyssa. And recently I have been thinking that maybe............." She stopped, looking at me painfully.
"Thinking maybe what, Hannah?" I stared back at her, suddenly afraid. I was not getting a good feeling about what she was thinking. And I was right.
"I have been ......thinking, that maybe.....I should....reject....him." she said, with her head bowed down.
I froze. Every bone in my body froze. And suddenly looking up I realized, so did the person standing at the door looking at us with horror and pain in his eyes.
Adrian.
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So how was it? I thought Hannah's conversation with Ilyssa was especially heartbreaking. Stay tuned to see what happens next.
In the next chapter we find out what Adrian was doing in their room in the first place and about the 'meeting' that their parents went to.
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And also, who should I cast as Adrian. Tell me in the comments below.
Please comment. I really need some helpful reviews.