Rejected by My Alpha Mate; Nyra's Awakening

Chapter 24: Chapter 24: What’s Wrong?

"You are the best I ever had."

"I can’t get that day out of my head."

The words felt like a guide. Like a promise after years of suffering, years of being rejected-- someone finally admitted to wanting her.

She felt tired. Wanted to give up, but hearing that voice, she followed itp without questions, letting it lead her back to the light.

--

Nyra wakes slowly. At first, she can’t tell where she is, her vision is blurry from last night, and her head is pounding. Her lips and throat feels dry too.

Julian rushes over, helping her seat up, Nyra, you’re awake. How do you feel?"

"Like hell" she mutters, holding her head. "And my throat is very dry." freewebnøvel.com

Julian wastes no time before putting a cup of water and a pill in her hand.

"Here, take this."

"Thank you." She says hoarsely, handing the empty glass back to him. "Where’s everyone? What happened?"

She can’t remember much. Just that she’d been dancing with some new friends, them someone had offered her a cup of punch-- everything else after that is blank.

She glances back at Julian, and the expression on his face tells her something went really wrong last night.

"Why are you looking at me like that? What did I do?" She looks down at the oversized t-shirt. "Did I embarrass myself last night."

Julian shakes his head. "I’m sorry." The guilt has been eating him from inside out. It’s his fault for hosting this stupid party anyways. "I-You didn’t do anything wrong?"

Nyra frowns. "Are you okay? What’s wrong? Tell me what happened?"

Wait-- she remembers something now. Strong arms carrying her, someone whispering;

"You are the best I ever had."

"I can’t get that day out of my head."

Adrian’s voice. She’d thought she had been dreaming, was he really here with her?

"Julian... last night. Adrian was here, right?"

Julian looks pissed at the mention of his name, but he nods. "Yeah. The entire group was here, but I sent them home."

"Why, I thought-"

His jaws are clenched so tightly, it must’ve hurt. "You shouldn’t even be thinking about that bastard right now. Just rest."

Nyra watches him carefully, sensing the tension radiating from him. "A tell me what happened after I passed out. You’re scaring me.."

The door opens before he can respond. Elena walks in with a tray of hangover soup, and more water, looking tired.

"You were drugged last night Nyra."

The words don’t register at first. She simply stares at Elena, waiting for her to laugh. For either of them to say it’s a joke.

But neither of them are smilling.

"W-what!?" She looks between the both of them. "How? When?"

Julian shoots Elena a look, but his older sister just rolls her eyes. "She deserves to know what happened to her, Julian."

He scoffs at her, coming to seat on the edge of the bed.

"Umm, yeah, we’re still trying to figure exactly why it happened, but so far we hear they were just trying to use you to get to Adrian."

Oh, so that’s why he sounded so guilty lady night.

"Thankfully we got there in time." Elena adds, setting the tray down. "We managed to stop them before they did anything fatal."

"Did anyone else get hurt?"

Julian frowns. "You were almost assaulted and you’re still worried about other people!?"

Nyra frowns at his tone. "What’s wrong with you? Why are you yelling?"

"It’s nothing." He grumbles, "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you."

Elena sighs. "Just rest, Nyra. You can stay here the entire weekend if you’d like.."

She hesitates, staring between the two of them suspiciously, "Okay... I’ll rest. But can you give me my phone first?"

"No!" Julian responds too fast, making Nyra raise a brow at him. "I mean.. that’s really not a good idea right now."

"Why?"

"You’re still weak. You should sleep..."

Nyra holds out her hand stubbornly. "Now I want my phone even more. Give it."

"I don’t.." he rubs the back of his neck. "Look! Last night things got ugly. Adrian and Anna had a big fight because of what happened, and now there are screenshots. Just give it a few more hours."

"I can handle it," she insists, sitting up again. "Hand it over. I’ve taken worse you know."

They go back and forth for a few minutes, before Julian finally sighs in agreement. "Fine! But if it gets too much, you stop. Deal?" He walks over and places the phone in her palm.

Nyra nods and waits until he steps back before unlocking the screen. The moment she turns on her data, the phone starts vibrating with hundreds of notifications: Tags, comments, messages.

The academy general group has thousands of messages.

What the hell-

So many other students have tagged her to a post on the academy student’s page. It’s from Anna late last night,

The caption reads: "The truth about their ’perfect’ mate bond."

She scoffs, already expecting some jealousy driven posts, only to stumble into multiple screenshots of private messages between Anna and Adrian.

Nyra’s heart drops as she opens the first one.

The second one is even worse than the first, then the next, and the next, each one progressively worse than the last.

Nyra freezes at some point, staring at the glowing screen. For the first in years, tears flood her eyes almost instantly, spilling down her cheeks.

She tries to hold them back, but it’s useless.

Adrian really thinks this of her? But thinking is one thing. Actually saying it out loud--

Oh God.

"Nyra?" Julian says worriedly, when he notices the tears. "Hey, put the phone down. You don’t need to see that right now."

But she can’t. The she reads every single text these people exchanged about her. All twelve slides.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Nyra drops the phone, teary eyes meeting Julian’s worried ones.

"Let’s- let’s find a way to break this bond."

"Nyra.."

"I don’t want to be his mate anymore. I, can’t take this anymore, Julian"