I WAS MESMERIZED BY YOU

I waited for Savy to finish dressing up, and then followed her down to the third floor. There was a lounge room here and I could hear music.

The moment we got into the room, I saw the person I was looking for, "Lola!!!"

Lola looked startled, and then she smiled her beautiful smile, "Hello Alpha."

"Hi Sam!" Some of the guys said.

They were gorging on pizza. The Morning Light guys were here too, playing at the pool table.

I grabbed Lola and pulled her to the side with me. Savy pulled Lizzy over.

Lola listened patiently to my plan. I handed her the notes. She opened one of them and smiled, "This is devious, Alpha."

I grinned, "Savy helped me."

Lizzy said, "I'll help with the second part."

Lola hummed, her musical hum, she was thinking, "The boys are just playing. But I agree I cannot commend their choice of entertainment."

"We're just playing too." I told her, "Wouldn't it be fun?"

This made her laugh, "I cannot imagine how we would pull it off."

"Just put the notes in their pockets tomorrow after the concert." I said.

"What are you girls doing?" Jonah asked.

"Nothing, just girl talk." Lola answered without missing a beat. That made Jonah back away at once. Guys usually avoided girl talk. Lola turned out to be surprisingly good at keeping secrets.

"I didn't know Sam could girl talk." Shannon said. The exception to the rule of guys avoiding girl talk was Shannon, who was quite good at it.

"We're teaching her." Lizzy said.

"Very suspicious." Shannon said, but he didn't have a chance to elaborate.

There was a knock on the door and Killion and Rebel joined us, "Luna is here."

Mate!

"Wait what?" Some of the guys exclaimed when they realised Killion was refering to Rebel and not my mum.

The guys go over to check him out, "Luna, as in Sam's mate?" Dean asked once he put the two and two together.

I realised then that Mate had not been introduced to everyone yet.

"Who else?" Nix taunted, "Awww... Is the omega broken hearted?"

"Not just the omega." Jonah said wriggling his brows, "Lots of guys are going home to cry tonight."

The guys laughed like it was a good joke.

"But I'm not." Jonah felt that it was important to inform me, "I mean other guys, not me."

Harvey, being a good Beta helped Killion keep the curious guys at arms length.

"So introduce us." Shannon said.

So Harvey did. Introducing the others to the third Beta, Ki, and the Luna, Bell.

"I can't believe our Luna is going to be a man." Tim said, he sniggered, "Luna Bell."

Rebel growled low.

Tim quirked his brow, "What? That's your name, right Luna?"

Rebel shrugged and move forward, his Alpha dominance raging.

I noticed Shannon was very quiet.

"What?" I asked him.

"Where did he suddenly come from?" Shannon asked me, "He has no scent, and you... Well, you... Sam, don't take this the wrong way, but you had never shown any interest in guys..."

"Yeah, but he's my mate. So please just take care of him for me." I said.

"Do you play pool, Luna?" Nix asked. Nix seemed to have taken a liking to Rebel.

Rebel gave a curt nod.

The guys reset the balls for a new game.

Naturally, Mate and Killion won.

After that, the competition was on. They set Harvey and Marlow against them for another round of pool. Mate would show off, jumping the ball, and intentionally knocking it in a bad way to hand the game over. Killion was just as bad.

Lorents are the worst show offs in the continent.

But the guys cheered, "Luna! Luna! Luna!" Whenever he attempted a trick shot.

After that they challenged him one of the video games. This one, they won, but mostly because Rebel didn't play computer games. What guy didn't play computer games?

One thing led to the other and it was soon really late.

I felt really really happy just watching everyone and Rebel. I watched him take on each of the guy's challenges, video games, arm wrestling... win or lose, they were having fun.

"We've got a really strong Luna." I heard Tim say and felt my heart swell with pride.

Weird. It's not like I did anything to contribute to who mate was. But I was so damn proud of him. By tomorrow both packs will hear about Luna Bell.

"My turn to challenge the Luna." Dean said.

"What are you going to do, omega?" Nix snorted derisively, "Unless you wanna challenge Luna on whimpiness, you haven't a chance."

"Shut up, Nix." Ben said.

"Music." Dean said, "Do you play music, Luna?"

Dean took out his guitar.

Rebel looked at me, "Yeah, I can play."

Harvey considered this, "It's late, and people are sleeping. If we want to jam, maybe we should do it in the school's music studio."

Killion beamed beautifully, "I haven't jammed in ages, let's go!"

Savy looked at me hopefully, "You're coming right?" I guess she won't be allowed to unless I went. Why did my parents make such an unfair rule for her?

"Of course Sam has to go!" Lizzy said, "The main point Luna is doing this is to show off to her right?"

Lola smiled, "I can probably add your notes to all the phone numbers they've collected there."

Oh yeah, the phone numbers.

For the sake of making those boys pay.

Even getting to the school was a chance for Mate to show off. You should see how the guys came over to admire his cars. Yes, it was in plural. Our packhouse parking lot is now home to four new white cars. And they gleamed under the full moon.

Apparently, one of them was Killion's. Mate had spoken to Alpha James who had reinstated whatever used to belong to Killion's family that could still be salvaged.

So Killion got back the piece of land his home used to be on, and a car that had been left in the Lorent packhouse garage. And I think, whatever monies and investments his parents had made, the paperwork was still pending though, so for now, Killion got his white Mercedes Coupe. Lucky, he had parked it at the pack house that fateful and dark night.

While collecting it earlier today, he was kind enough to bring back Rebel's favourite white Mercedes Convertible, and a white Lamborghini, because it was a helpless lamb, left neglected in the large underground Lorent garage, and Killion had a soft spot for cars. Particularly expensive ones.

And since he was bringing back the lamb, he might as well bring back the horse too, thus the white Porsche.

As I got to know Mate, I realised there were somethings I liked about him, like the sound of his laughter, and the way I always felt safe when he was near.

I also realised there were things I didn't like about mate. Like the way he would use his goddess given powers to torture rogues, or the way he clicked with Henry.

Or the way he showed off his cars.

I wanted to smack his handsome stoopid face.

They had all been gifts on his 16th birthday, the year he got his driver's lisence. Killion's car was also a gift from Alpha James on his sweet 16 too. They didn't earn or work for it. (Okay, neither did I.)

"Puts a new meaning to the word 'sweet'." Tim smiled appreciatively.

"No s***." Harvey said to Tim.

Why were we standing here in the cold admiring them?

"Rich kids..." Shannon huffed, "Sorry, Sam. No offense."

"None taken." I said. Even though I hated it when Krystal or Pearl eluded that I was a "rich kid", somehow it felt like Mate deserved it.

I shrugged. Shannon hated rich show offs and Lorent wolves fell right smack in that category. Normally, I hated them too. But this one was my mate, so it was hard to really hate. And the other one was Ki. It was hard to hate Ki in general.

Killion was planning to wrap his car a midnight blue, "I'm not a Lorent anymore. I'm the Alpha Princess' Beta now." He said.

And then Rebel did something I never expected a Lorent to do. From the look on everyone else's faces, I wasn't the only one surprised.

"Wrap the lamb and horse too." He told Killion, "Then give the keys to Harv and Ben."

The two Beta's pretty much dropped their jaws to the ground. Talk about an over reaction.

He turned to my Betas, "Don't be mistaken, I'm only giving them to you so you can drive my princess around."

They nodded.

"Are you certain, Luna?" Harvey asked when he found his voice.

Mate nodded, "I only need one car. I've barely used these two."

"Thank you, Luna." Harvey said.

"The lamb is mine." Ben said.

Harvey raised a brow at Ben.

"You two fight it out and let me know after I get them wrapped." Killion said.

"Should I wrap my truck too?" Harvey wondered.

Wait a minute... If we keep this up, won't we just end up like a blue version of the Lorent Pack's car parade?

Killion flashed a beautiful smile, "Good idea, Harv."

I know I've said eye rolling was a human teenage girl thing, but at that moment, I rolled my eyes.

And after standing around freezing our butts off, we ended up taking my blue car, Lola's red SUV (borrowed from her mum), and the back of Harvey's truck, since most of the teens could walk home from the school anyway.

We carpooled over to the school. Harvey had the keys to the side gate and to the music practice room. I followed them down the darkened hallways.

It felt so strange, like we were breaking in.

Finally, we reached the jamming studios. It was a largish room with a drum kit and amps and wires all over the floor.

Mate made a face at the mess on the floor.

"It's a little messy." Harvey admitted.

"Let's set up and start!" Nix was all fired up, "Luna VS Omega."

"What instrument do you play, Luna?" Harvey asked politely.

"Anything is fine." Rebel said.

Dean plugged in his guitar. His face was set in determination. This was someone who practiced night and day on that guitar.

"Do you still remember how to play a guitar, Luna?" Killion asked.

"Probably." Rebel said. He wandered over where there was an old wooden guitar sitting in the corner. He picked it up and plucked. It was so out of tune, even I could hear it was off.

"I can lend you mine, Luna." Harvey said.

Rebel shook his head, "This one is good." He sat on a nearby barstool and started tuning.

"Omega, play an A for me, please." Rebel said casually.

Some of the guys sniggered at Dean being called the omega.

I suppressed a sigh at my mate. On one hand he picked up the humble guitar (plus points), on the other he called Dean 'Omega' (minus points).

Dean plucked the A note.

Rebel finished up tuning the old guitar. Ben set up a mic for the guitar, just to balance it with Dean's plugged in one.

Rebel plucked a riff, missing a few notes, screeching a bit at the fret changes.

Nix smirked, "Ready Luna?"

Ben, Harvey, and Killion were chilling back on the side. Did they think Rebel even had a chance? Or were they on Dean's side? Or maybe it wasn't as big a deal to the guys if their Luna played or not.

The only one who looked serious about this was Dean.

"Alright, Omega first." Rebel allowed.

Dean pressed his lips together and played a pretty fast riff. He played it faster and faster till his finger slipped.

"11 times." Nix announced. The guys clapped.

"What the hell is that?" Killion asked.

"Speed round." Ben explained, "Now Luna can you play the same riff? Start moderate, and speed up at each repeat."

Rebel nodded, then he repeated Dean's riff, "Like this?"

The guys nodded. He got it.

Rebel started then, he picked up speed... faster and faster...

"No s***" Harvey said, not realising that he was in my earshot.

"Watch your language, Beta." Killion took great pleasure returning the reprimand to the good beta.

"Pardon me, princess." Harvey said immediately. Such was the smoothness of a well trained beta.

"18 times." Nix announced.

The guys clapped.

"Almost beat your record, Harv." Ben said.

"Round 2. Fancy stuff." Nix said.

Dean played something that wasn't too fancy.

"Your turn, Luna. Just one up that." Ben said.

So Rebel did.

Dean's turn.

Rebel's turn.

Everyone clapped after each turn.

Dean's turn.

By now, it was getting fast and fancy. In fact I recognized whatever Dean played as something Ben had been practicing lately.

Rebel's turn. He played the exact same thing without mistake. Then he played some more and finished the entire thing with a flourish.

My mate was such a show off.

I hated show offs.

So tell me why my heart skipped a beat. And when the everyone cheered and clapped, why did I feel so proud of him?

Rebel on the other hand just smiled a very little bit.

"Looks like you've got competition Harv." Nix smirked, "Last round, original composition. Dean first."

"This is only one shot Luna. Each of you play and sing something within 5 minutes." Ben explained.

Dean said, "Let Luna go first."

"That's not fair." Shannon protested, "You went first when it was to your advantage."

"It's fine. There is something I've been thinking to try." Rebel said, "It's been on my mind lately."

And then, he pushed the mic away from the guitar and started playing, unplugged.

"I once said, my search for love,

Was never going to end..."

The song went on, Mate could sing. His voice deep like the ocean, the song crashing like waves, it wasn't easy to make out all the words he sung, but I heard him sing,

"And I was mesmerized by you,

lovely in sight.

And I was mesmerized by you...

Though I don't say my mind,

I was mesmerized by you."

"Oh my goddess." Lizzy said, putting her hand on her heart.

Yeah, me too. My heart for that moment just melted. And no matter how much I would never ever ever admit to it, I think I had a crush on my mate.