Rejected, but not Broken
Chapter 77

Gabi’s POV

I feel weird and my head feels heavy. I try to open my eyes and they are heavy too. What is going on with me? I think back to the last thing I can remember, and I remember being at my parent’s graves and talking to them and then I remember looking up and seeing that gun pointed at me.

I jump and start to check myself for shots, and I don’t find any real injuries although my stomach hurts and my left thigh — hurts a little too. I remember a dart being in me and I had been shot in the stomach, and I guess the second shot hit my th!gh.

“You are OK, it was just tranquilizer darts, we wanted to get you with no injuries to yourself, or to us” I heard a male voice speaking to me.

I am fighting to open my eyes, but they are so heavy. I try to talk and end up coughing and I feel a bottle being placed into my hands.

It is water, you have nothing to fear from us, we just want to talk to you, and then we will be taking you back to Red River. Your mate and teammates will be meeting us at the gate, along with Derek and Piper” the male voice speaks again.

I take a sip of the water and my throat feels better, “How long have I been out?” I asked. I know that Heath and Tanner must be frantic, and my teammates too.

“About an hour, you weren’t falling asleep so I had to give you a second dose, you are pretty strong, and I didn’t want you to be able to shoot us until I could speak with you. I didn’t want you hurt, or my people, we have tried to be peaceful in our issues with Red River and the River Bed packs” the male voice tells me.

“My parents were killed the first time you came onto our packlands. They counted, they loved me, and you took them away from me. They were all that I had here” I can feel my voice break as I spoke, and I can feel the tears falling from my eyes.

“I am very sorry about that, my Beta at the time, he acted on his own in doing that. I was told what happened when the team came back, and I killed him myself for doing it. No one was supposed to die they were just supposed to disrupt the meeting and drop off a warning letter that was all.

He decided to kill them when he found them, and I am truly sorry that he did that. We did not know that he had a separate agenda than what we were doing” the voice told me, and I could hear how sympathetic he sounded.

“Being sorry won’t bring them back” I told him quietly.

“I know it won’t, but I wanted you to know that I am sorry that it even happened. It was not what instructed, and I took care of the problem. We don’t have a lot of time and I need to speak to you about why we even started this whole thing.

I knew you would understand why, and I need you to tell the story for us, they will not listen to us, I detailed it out in several letters to River Bed, and Alpha Lowell refuses to acknowledge his part in it or let me free of it. I cannot continue to live like this for the rest of my life and I need to be let go.

I have been punished for being born an Omega for too long and I need your help” the man spoke to me again.

“My help? How can I help you? I am not a member of the Red River pack anymore, and I have no power to help you there” I told him. I try to open my eyes again and I can get them open a little, but I just see from his knees down and I can’t see his face.

I have been placed on a couch and I feel better now that I have gotten some water in me, and I drink again. I know the tranquilizer will be wearing off soon. I am making progress. I do notice that my thigh holster has been removed and I do not know where my gun and vest are, but I still have a knife in my boot in case of emergency, at least I did when I was taken.

I wiggle both my legs like I was testing my mobility, and I felt the knife in the side of my boot, and that does make me feel better, I don’t know who has me or their agenda, and until I do, I will be on alert.

“Can I ask your name, please? I have been calling you the “female trainer” for the last few days” the man asked me.

“My name is Gabrielle, and I go by Gabi. I just don’t understand why you would take me. I don’t know how I can help you at all” I told him.

“Actually, we needed to take Piper, at least for an hour, but she doesn’t roam, her parents warned her, and she stays in the house, except for the training sessions, which I am sure you all told them that is was mandatory.

She has only left the pack grounds once, for your sister’s birthday party, and then back again, but we didn’t have the resources to get her that time” the man told me. I wrinkled my nose at him referring to Taylor as my sister, I do not claim her, at all.

“I do not acknowledge her as my sister, I have no ties to the Crimson Shadow pack at this time. If you took me to get ransom then you made a mistake, you should have grabbed Taylor.

She is the one that they value between the two of us” I can hear my voice waver at saying this out loud, as it still hurts admitting that their love for her is so much greater than what they feel for me.

She is a horrible person on the inside and I cannot imagine why they would value her so much, and me so very little. It was like the love that they had for me, I am assuming that they really did have some love for me when I was 2, was taken and given to Taylor, so they had none left for me anymore.

I will not allow this to make me sad. I have parents and I already know that Heath is making plans for when we make it to the gate if this guy is telling me the truth.

“We did not take you to extort money from Crimson Shadow. I took you because I heard a rumor and if it is true, then YOU are the perfect person to understand why we did this” he told me in a calm tone.

“What is the rumor? And what is your name?” I asked him.

“My name is Anthony Johnson, and my friends call me Tony. I was an Omega from the River Bed pack. The rumor was that your true mate, your first mate, was Derek Stryker, the new Alpha of the Red River pack and that he rejected you to pick a chosen mate, and stronger mate, to increase the size of his pack, and to have a “strong” Luna by choosing Piper” Anthony said to me.

I flinched as it was still painful to be told you are not good or valuable enough to be wanted, all because of some stupid rating scale, that really cannot determine your value in life.

“He was my mate. He did reject me to take Piper as his chosen mate because I was an Omega, and he “needed someone stronger” and he did want to increase his territory. He made his bed and now he can lie in it. I have my second chance mate and Tanner loves me, please let me contact him, he will be worried sick” I asked Anthony.

I can see him fully now, he was a good-looking man with brown hair and honey-colored eyes, and a strong jaw, he looked capable and strong. He looked like a leader and I see a girl, a little younger than him, probably 17, behind him watching us from the tent flap, like she was scared to approach me. She had long light brown hair and those beautiful honey-colored eyes too.

She seemed to want to enter and say something, but I know Anthony probably told her to stay back. I smiled at her, and she gave me a big smile, and when she smiled, she was absolutely gorgeous.

Anthony turned to see who I had smiled at and said, “That is my little sister, Marie, she just turned 18 last week, and I pray to the Goddess she gets a good mate. I don’t want her going through the same thing that we had to, is it almost too painful to bear.

“Gabi, I will be letting you mindlink them when we leave here to go to Red River. I have no interest in hurting you at all. In fact, I have almost 250 packmembers to protect and they are all valuable to me.

They have all escaped from bad situations where they were abused, in one way or another, and just want to have a safe place to live and be able to take care of their families. We didn’t want to hurt anyone or have any of us killed either. The letters being delivered ended up with us being attacked by River Bed, and Red River, and we just fought back to protect ourselves.

Only your parents were innocent victims in this. We only protected ourselves and we lost a few, but they lost more than us. I did leave a note behind at your parent’s gravesite, so they would know our intent was not to hurt you at all.

I already told them that we would be bringing you back, tonight, to the front gate at Red River at 9 pm. So, we only have an hour to talk before we need to start heading back, would you like an apple or something to eat?” Anthony asked me.

“No, I am good right now, Anthony. So, you are taking me back to Red River? Tonight, right?” I asked him.

“Yes, we wish you no harm, I just needed an opportunity to explain to someone who won’t make it disappear or sweep it under the rug. I’ve sent notifications to both Alpha August Lowell and Alpha Monty, along with an explanation of why, and they both ignored it, and then they started having my people attacked for delivering the messages.

I hate people have been killed over this, but with the exception of my former Beta killing your parents, it wasn’t us who started this. It was Alpha Lowell, and then Alpha Monty. They planned this whole thing, and I have proof of it” Anthony told me.

“OK, what did you want me to relay to Red River?” I asked him.

“I want you to allow me to speak to Piper at the gate. I need closure as I was her true mate at River Bed. Her dad found out when he saw us k!ss in the packhouse right before she left for Alpha Training and he threw me in the cells, while they spoke to Piper.

The next day Piper came down with her parents to the cells and rejected me. Because her dad told her I wasn’t strong enough to run the pack, or good enough for her. He said an Omega cannot run a pack, and that I would not be strong enough to protect Piper, in case of attack.

Everything that he said, she repeated, and I saw her crying while she did it, but she still did it. She didn’t love me enough to give me a chance to prove myself. She just stepped on me and ground me down like I had no value or worth.

I was on the ground writhing in pain and was never given the opportunity to accept her rejection, so every time that she slept with someone at Alpha Training, I felt it. The pain is horrible, and now that I know that you were Derek’s true mate, I know that you know that familiar pain. The one you feel when your mate betrays you with another. I have suffered for a year, even with begging for me just accept the rejection, with refusals from both Piper’s dad, Alpha Lowell, and from Alpha Monty.

They both knew what I was going through and didn’t care, because I am an Omega, and to them both, I do not have value” Anthony told me. I do remember the pain of betrayal. I am glad that it kind of tapered off, especially after Taylor’s birthday party.

The pain is tremendous, and for them to want him to suffer, when all he wanted was to accept her rejection, was so wrong for them to do.

I don’t agree with all of his methods, as his Beta did take my parents from me. But for them to both allow him to suffer in pain for over a year, because they wanted to double the size of their packs by making their children be forced together to be chosen mates.

Both of those Alpha’s made the choice for their children and didn’t give them an opportunity to choose what was best for them, or what they wanted to do. I am disgusted with their actions, and I will help Anthony and his little pack of refugees.

I need to make plans too, because although Alpha Monty is gone, Alpha Lowell is not, and he had his people shoot at Anthony’s people before, and they will do it again.

Piper may have already told him about the meeting at the gate. He may very well decide to show up and take Anthony out, and I cannot allow that to happen.

This bullsh!t has gone on for long enough and Alpha Monty and Alpha Lowell are the reason that my parents are dead now, I will avenge their deaths. If Alpha Lowell shows up to the meeting at the gates, will finish this for them, because I will not allow them to hurt this man any further than they already have.