Chapter 3

For the first time in her life, Ivy felt herself hit rock bottom. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out of them. Her eyes were the only functioning body part left as all she could do was cry and watch as the elder and her father engaged the boy. Her mind was going through a lot of emotions; anger, bitterness, sorrow, confusion.

She snapped out of her stupor as the boy identified as Max opened his mouth to reply.

"While I would have opted to follow tradition, my heart belongs to someone else." She felt the tears intensify as she looked at the boy. It almost felt like betrayal because if she could recall, he had never mentioned anything about liking someone else. Sure it wasn't her business but he should have mentioned something like that. Surely he could sense the feelings she had in her heart. Suddenly jealousy was added into the mix.

She opened her mouth to speak but she clenched her fists and steeled her tongue. If she said anything now, she wouldn't stop. She ran deeper into the forest as she climbed up a tree, ignoring the many cries of her name.

She tried to hold back the tears but she couldn't anymore, and this time an even bigger stream than the first one escaped her eyes. She sobbed as she jumped from tree to tree trying to escape the imaginary voice playing itself over and over in her feeble mind.

She was too preoccupied in her emotions and she stepped on a rather thin branch. She couldn't do anything as it snapped under her weight. She felt gravity fight against her pulling her to the ground. Falling from such a height wasn't going to do anything to her but the wound may be brutal. She couldn't fight against it because she wasn't in a stable emotional state. She could only close her eyes as she felt the ground inch closer and closer.

She felt something snake around her waist and her back, and the direction of her fall changed. She heard the sound of heavy breathing and wanted to open her eyes to see who had saved her however, she didn't open it. Something told her not to. The entire event felt surreal and she thought she may have hit her head and was currently dreaming. It didn't feel like a dream no more as she felt the ground meet them.

Her eyes were still closed as she felt her feet meet the ground. She finally had the courage to open her eyes and look at her saviour but his back was faced towards her.

"Are you okay?" she heard him ask.

"Umm… yes," she replied quite unsure of what to do in a situation like this.

"Good," she heard him say. This time she had composed herself and listened to his voice. It was deep, almost commanding but yet it wasn't. It felt almost musical to her. She took a sniff of his scent and her eyes widened. He was like her. Now it made sense, there was no way she could have been saved by a human. They didn't have that level of agility.

"Who are you?"

"Oh, just a stranger," she heard his reply to her question. "I was just taking a stroll when I heard someone yelp."

Her hand instinctively moved to cover her mouth. She hadn't realized that she had yelped.

Despite being sure of who he was, she made to ask him a question. "Are you a –"

"A werewolf?" he completed for her, "yes I am. And I know you are one too." She nodded. It was pretty obvious.

"What I want to ask is what a beautiful werewolf such as yourself," she felt heat rise to her cheeks at that, "is doing all alone in the woods, and crying no less."

She blinked at him, not that he could see her, his face was still turned away from her, before turning away and answering. "I don't want to talk about it."

She saw him shake his head slightly. "I understand," he said before continuing, "but if I may? No matter what it is do not let it get to you." His voice was a lot deeper now but she could still feel the consoling tone he was using.

"Life is full of ups and downs and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You may have been expecting something and the complete opposite happened, such a thing should not get you feeling down…"

She was about to growl at him. He just met her and here he was giving her advice about her life. Something however stopped her from doing so.

"… don't mind my ranting. It's just… I really hate seeing people cry. I believe people should smile, always."

She arched an eyebrow. "Even if the cause of sadness was being rejected in front of the entire pack for the mate selection ritual?"

She frowned as she heard him chuckle. "What?"

"It's just that to me… the mate selection ritual is rubbish."

Okay that was it. He just insulted her entire belief and she didn't care if he saved her life, he was going to have a piece of her mind.

Before she could open her mouth to speak, she heard his voice loud and clear again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult your belief system it's just… forget it." He crouched down and looked like he was about to jump when he spoke up. "You have company." And he was gone.

She watched him leap and disappear into the night before turning her head to see her brothers approaching.

"Don't run away like that kiddo, we –" she heard him pause as he looked at her. "What's wrong?"

She met his gaze before shaking her head. "Nothing." She turned to leave with them, unaware of the deep blue eyes watching her in the distance.