Rejected, but not Broken
Chapter 101

Tanner’s POV

There was a great turnout for the town hall meeting tonight. It was standing room only and I felt little arms come around my knee. I looked down and saw Emily smiling up at me and I couldn’t help smiling back down at her.

She is such a cute little girl. I bent down to pick her up and look around for her parents and saw her mom, Sarah, running up to me.

“I am so sorry, Alpha Tanner, Emily saw you and took off for you. I had to pass Hayden off to chase after her. She thinks you and your wife grant wishes as she is so happy with her new clothes and shoes”, Sarah told me.

I looked down at Emily and said, “You like your new clothes?”. “Yes, it’s my favorite color, pink”, Emily said, and pulled at the front of her shirt to show me.

“Yes, it is, and it is beautiful on you too,” I told her, and Emily gave me a mega-watt smile, and then placed her hand in her mom’s hand.

“How is your room? Is everything OK?” I asked Sarah.

“Yes, Alpha, it is perfect. We are so happy to be here. We will be able to have our first good night’s sleep in the last 6 months. Our old Alpha was after me for months before we left. So, we haven’t been able to sleep well in a long time.

If Devon hadn’t been so excited about this town hall meeting and the chance to make the elite team, we would probably have already gone to sleep”, Sarah told me.

“We are glad to have you and you are safe here. We are a strong pack, and we will only get stronger with our new pack members, and with having our own Elite team here in the B***d Rose pack”, I told her.

Sarah thanks me again and walks off with Emily on her arm, and Emily is waving at me as her mom carries her off. I couldn’t help smiling at her and I waved back.

“Got more competition, don’t I?” Gabi says as she puts her arm around my waist.

“Never, you are the only girl for me, my love,” I tell her, and she smiles and lifts her face for me to k!ss her. I pulled her closer to me and put both my hands in her hair at her neck and gave her a k!ss that promised more later until I heard coughing behind me from multiple sources. I lift my head and I see Hudson, Jameson, and Alan all standing there grinning at us before Hudson said, “Hey, didn’t we vote that down?”

“No, I am still allowed to k!ss my teammates,” Gabi told them and then proceeded to go down the line and give them each a k!ss on their cheek. I am trying not to growl at them, but I cannot keep it in, and that makes them grin even bigger at us.

“I told you she slept with all of them. There is the proof. I told you she didn’t know how to fight” Ava said, and Elise and Gina nodded their heads in agreement.

The sound of growling filled the room as Alan, Jameson, and Hudson got in front of Gabi and blocked her from the girl’s view. The whole room was silent as they waited to see what was about to happen.

“That is a complete lie, Gabi is like our sister. She earned her position on the team. Anyone who says differently is a complete liar. In fact, she ended up killing me on about 4 occasions, in the test. I get so sick of petty, lying girls who like to make up stories about the girls that they are clearly jealous of. You need to walk away, right now, or I will show you how well trained we are. I cannot believe that you would talk like that about your Luna, in this pack.

It just goes to show you that no matter where you go, there will always be a group like yours, who can’t feel better about yourself, unless you are tearing someone else down”, Alan said to them, and I reached out to touch his arm, as he was getting really mad, and then I stepped around him.

I could see Hudson and Jameson both glaring at them and about to say something themselves when I spoke up.

“I was going to let you guys know that, in fact, their little leader, Dana, who is gracing our cells downstairs right now, has accepted my offer for her to fight me. We will fight three weeks after I give birth to the twins. Dana wants this fight, so after the babies are here, she will be allowed out of her cell to come and train, so she won’t have any excuse as to why she lost when we got to fight.

Dana is absolutely sure that she will be successful in our fight. I was going to tell you guys after the town hall meeting, but I guess the cat is out of the bag now”. I told them.

“We will be here to watch, as these girls seem like they would be only too happy to try to jump you at once,” Jameson said to me as he looked at the girls. Elise jerked in surprise, and I already knew that Dana had spoken to her about her plan.

Dana can’t beat me, so I already knew that she was going to have to get the girls to attack me from behind. I will take them each on and do harder blows to get at least one or two of them down, for me to handle the rest of them.

I plan on showing my pack what I am made of. The girls aren’t going to know what hit them. Then they can get a surprise afterward.

“I will talk to you guys about it later,” I told them, as I didn’t want the girls to be aware that I knew what they were planning and walked away from them and onto the stage. The guys stayed a little while longer as Ava and Gina tried to smile and flirt, but after what they had just done, agreeing with Ava, and what she said, they could hang it up now.

The guys came up on the stage with me and Tanner and Tanner started the meeting a few minutes later. “Thank you all for coming, we appreciate you all taking the time to come and hear the announcements about what we are planning on doing. First off, we have several members of the elite training team from Ever Green here with us on stage.

I would like you all to greet them and treat them well while they are here. They will be here for the next week, and then they will return to their pack. They are here to start off the new initiative for a second elite training team here at B***d Rose. There are requirements for the Warriors. They need to be able to run for an hour straight, we will set up a track to get that done, and this will be done in human form. This is the requirement for Warriors only.

Anyone is welcome to come and try. You will be trained in several forms of martial arts. You can pick a favorite martial art, or try them all to see which one you like the most and are the most comfortable doing. We encourage everyone to attend classes. You never know how good you might be at it until you try. My Luna also wants the omegas to come to classes, at least 5 of them, just to learn some self-defense moves, for protection.

Even if you don’t want to become an elite trainer, there is still a lot to be learned. I learned a lot myself as I went and tested to be on the team so that I could protect my mate as they went out for a training mission.

I just wanted everyone to know that they are welcome to try this out, as anyone can be trained and excel at martial arts”. I told them and then looked around to see if there were any questions.

“Are there any questions you would like to ask?” I said after a short time.

“If the Luna is so good, how come you had to go with her to protect her?” Elise asked from the front row with a smirk.

“I’m the Luna’s second chance mate. Her first mate realized his mistake and tried to take his rejection back. I was not going to let that happen. I decided to do that. Gabi did not ask me to. I know I can trust her, it was the first mate that I didn’t trust at the time”. I told her.

“Can I say a few words, Tanner?” Alan asked me.

“Sure, Alan. Come on up”, I told him.

“First off, I want to say that we are glad to be here. We love training and that is the main reason that we do what we do. We are also here for a second reason, but I will get to that later. I just wanted to let you all know something about the team, just to make a point.

It will NOT be easy to make the team. Fifty of you may make it to the end, and be allowed to test, but only a few will be successful. You will need to remember that you have to take out 5 of us, to make the team.

You will be given dull weapons with special paint on them to show the “kills” made on your body. You will be given a paintball gun to make your kills with. If that is your weapon of choice, just know that you are going against 5 people, and we will know where you are from the direction of the shots.

We know and will train you in several different forms of Jiu-Jitsu, both regular and Brazilian, Krav-Maga, Taekwondo, and MMA, as well as teaching you weapons. I would suggest a few weapons classes in your training as well. There is no need to fight one-on-one when you can take out 15 rogues heading towards you to kill you with your handgun. We fight smarter, not harder. Now I have heard a few snide comments about our team member, and your Luna today.

I have to say that I am disappointed. I didn’t know Gabi very well when I met her, and I gave her a hard time, and even canceled training her on Krav-Maga to try to keep her from succeeding and getting on the team. I let someone else’s opinion of Gabi, several jealous people’s opinions, cause me to not see who she is. Since someone here has obviously tried to poison the well. I need to get a few things straight. Gabi is one of the best people I know.

She CARES about people. She wants the Omegas to be able to protect themselves against people who are trying to attack them or s*xually assault them. You may be safe here in your pack, but when you are at the mall or the movie theatre, you still need to be safe.

She understands and wants you to feel safe and secure, no matter where you are. She is a quality person and my friend who I love like a younger sister. You need to support and love your Luna, you can trust her to take care of you”, Alan said and turned to leave the podium.

“Um, Alan, you said you had two things that you wanted to share” Gabi whispered to Alan.

“Oh, and the second thing was we are also here to see if our mates are in this pack, so please stop by and say Hi to us this week. We can answer any questions you have about being on the elite team, to tell you what it entails.

But if you have a friend who didn’t come to this town hall, because they had to work, or couldn’t make it, please have them come by and say hi to us, because we are all excited about meeting our potential mates.

For the three ladies that spoke so badly to Gabi before the town hall began, right here in the middle of the front row. Please do not bother approaching any of us. None of you, thankfully, are our mates, and unless you have an actual question about training, there is no reason for you to approach any of us again. So please, if you are unmated, we have been looking for our mates for a while, and we would like to find you if you are here” Alan said to the pack members, and there were a couple of catcalls and a lot of blushing by some of the younger unmated wolves.

“Before we get out, I know I have said this before, but if you decide to listen to someone who has been discredited twice before and you continue to take her word as the truth. I will not allow bullying, or mistreatment of ANY pack members. If you are doing it, this is your last warning to cease and desist. Dana has done several things wrong, including allowing non-pack members into our packs by letting them know the patrol schedule.

One of the trespassers was a rogue, who, although he did nothing to harm our pack, could have gone very differently and lives could have been lost if he hadn’t been a good man. Numerous rogues could have come onto our packlands and killed several people before we knew they were here.

If anyone else decides to intercede on Dana’s behalf to help her, you will get the same punishment as she has earned for betraying her pack. It will be disclosed after the fight. You are all excused for the night”, I told them.

Several men and some women immediately came up to speak with the trainers. Several others came up to Gabi and told her that they were sorry for listening to anything that Dana had said about her, and for judging her before they knew all the facts. Gabi was gracious, but I knew what Dana had done had hurt her. I will be glad when the babies get here. I want to see the fight myself now too.

Dana will be getting her as*s handed to her since she cannot beat my mate. Gabi and I already know that she has asked her friends to step in to help her, and when and if they do, they will be banished as well. They were warned that interceding would result in the same punishment. So, we will be losing 4 pack members that day, not just one. It will be a good day.