I Would Rather Be a Rogue Novel – Coming of Age Tiny branches cracked under his feet, disturbing the eerie silence of the forest. His trainers squelched with each step, soaked through by the wet, spongy moss, his feet freezing cold, but Felix didn’t pause nor slow down. He only fixed the straps of his backpack sliding off his shoulders. It was light, very light – he only packed bare essentials to take with him.
No matter how regretful it felt to leave behind all of his belongings – and, more so, his mother’s belongings – back in the pack, he couldn’t afford to let anything slow him down… If he didn’t get out of the forest, out of this place, before morning, it would all be over. He wouldn’t get another chance to escape. Somewhere in the distance, howling sounded out. Felix instinctively flinched, glancing back… His foot got caught in a hole, and he fell face flat on the ground.
A surprised, pained yell almost escaped his throat, but he clamped her mouth shut just in time. Ignoring the ache in his ankle, he scrambled back to his feet, brushed the wet, rotting leaves off his face, took a deep breath, and resumed his run. *** It all started two months ago… Or perhaps ended would be a better term? That’s when his life, which had never been easy, completely fell apart. On the day of his eighteenth birthday, he caught a whiff of a scent. Familiar, yet somehow new. A scent of his mate.
Biting his lips to suppress the tinge of excitement raising within him, despite his insistence that he didn’t care about the fated mates, he followed the scent like a threat… “Is this a joke?” he couldn’t help but voice his thoughts out loud as he arrived in front of the person the scent was coming from. It was a joke. It must have been. Or else, was it some sort of cruel punishment? Because he was always so rebellious, saying that fated mates were bullshit and so on? Felix had no idea what Moon Goddess was thinking, but one thing he knew for sure:
there was no way he could ever be together with his so-called mate. “I accept your rejection,” he said, before the man in front of him so much as had a chance to speak. The man, his… mate, Jared, the leader of the Moonhill Pack, raised his brows. “What? I’m not rejecting you.” “Yes, you are.” Felix slowly nodded his head. Of course he was! Even if he didn’t quite know it yet. “No,” Jared’s surprise turned into a wicked grin, as he stepped forward, toward Felix.
“You’re my mate. From now on, you’re mine.” “…Yeah, not happening!” Feeling the growing pressure from the Alpha’s presence, Felix turned around on the spot, and dashed away at full speed. Damn! It! All! His cheeks were burning, his whole body felt hot. Just because Jared got a bit too close. Cursed mate bond! He ran out of the room, out of the building, out of the whole building complex, and deep into the forest. Only once he was so far away that he could no longer smell even a tinge of Jared’s scent, did he finally stop.
He leaned against the tree, and slowly slid down, staring at the moon as if looking for answers. There was no way he would accept this bond. Yes, Jared w