Rejected by Her Professor Wolf: Rejected & Reborn Series Book 3 Read online

  REJECTED BY HER PROFESSOR WOLF

  REJECTED & REBORN SERIES BOOK 3

  HALEY WEIR

  Copyright © 2021 by Haley Weir

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Join the Fiction Obsessed Book Club today and receive a FREE paranormal romance.

  FictionObsessed is your go-to place for irresistible shifters and magical happy-ever-afters.

  https://fictionobsessed.com/gift/

  CONTENTS

  1. Ciara

  2. Ciara

  3. Blaine

  4. Ciara

  5. Ciara

  6. Ciara

  7. Blaine

  8. Ciara

  9. Blaine

  10. Ciara

  11. Blaine

  12. Ciara

  13. Ciara

  14. Ciara

  15. Ciara

  16. Ciara

  17. Blaine

  18. Ciara

  19. Blaine

  20. Ciara

  The Rejected & Reborn Series

  About the Author

  Complete Series by Haley Weir

  1

  CIARA

  What’s the saying…out of the frying pan, into the fire?

  After years of enslavement, I’d managed to escape my cruel alpha and overlord. With a handful of shifters, we got on a boat and fled. The boat trip after escaping India was hell. It took too many days to count. Honestly, I don’t even know if it was weeks or months that we were on the boat. Time passed strangely on that ship.

  When the ship finally docked on dry land, I knew that I should be grateful and overjoyed. After all, I had escaped slavery, and not many wolf shifters in Mumbai could say the same. But really—London?

  There had only been one other coup attempt in the history of the slaving mines in Mumbai, and it was during that coup that my mate was able to escape.

  We were arranged mates before we were even captured and enslaved. Granted, neither of us really wanted to be in an arranged relationship. But that was just the way it was. When the slaving mines began, Blaine and I were taken together. We tried to make it work, even in servitude. Looking back on it, maybe I was the only one actually trying to make it work.

  There were talks of escape right from the very beginning. But I knew, or at least I thought I knew, that they would fail. That’s why I didn’t get on the first boat with Blaine. I remember standing there, begging him to stay and telling him that drowning at sea was no better than being a slave in the jewel mines. But he didn’t listen. He got on the ship and left.

  It didn’t bother me that he got on the ship. Honestly, in hindsight, I wish I had gotten on the ship too. But it was the look he gave me as I stood on land and watched him set sail. I realized he hadn’t ever cared about me. He hadn’t wanted to be my mate, and he was happy as a clam that he got to sail away that day. Away from India…and away from me.

  I remember how rejected I’d felt, and how alone. But now, I’ve escaped all on my own. I don’t owe my freedom or anything else to anyone. And it honestly feels good not to have a mate anymore. Would I have rather not been rejected years ago? Of course. And would I have rather Blaine stayed behind with me than go off on his own? Of course. But none of that matters because now it’s my turn to be free, and I don’t need him or anyone else.

  But does it really have to be London where this ship is landing now? This is the same exact place where Blaine is living, or at least it was the last time I heard news of him. I suppose it’s bittersweet because while I’m ecstatic to be free from the mines that enslaved me in Mumbai, I’m not extraordinarily pleased to be in the same city as the mate who rejected me.

  Maybe he’s left by now and gone somewhere else entirely. And even if he hasn’t, this city is big enough for the both of us. London is filled with people and possibilities. There’s no reason that Blaine and I need to ever run into each other on the streets here.

  The trek here was exhausting, and as I stumble off the ship and into the port, I am immediately disoriented. Imagine you’re a bird kept in one of those glass cages where only the top is punctuated with holes to breathe, and you’re too afraid to try and fly because everything looks like an illusion. Every time you tried to fly before, you were met with a glass wall and a solid concussion. Then, all of a sudden, the cage is gone. Except you can’t tell whether it’s real freedom or if the glass is still there. That is how I feel now.

  “Do you need some help?” one of the women from the ship asks me as we all disembark.

  “No, thank you. I’m fine,” I say, not really meaning it but also not wanting to talk to anyone at all. I just want to find a place to sleep. It’s literally my only goal at this moment in time. Between the physical exhaustion from the journey, and the emotional exhaustion from all the memories of Blaine coming crashing over me once I heard that the ship had landed in London, I am more drained than I have ever been in my entire life. Slavery was easier this, I almost think to myself, but then I shake the thought out of my head.

  Nothing would make me return to the place I left.

  I make my way out of the port and into the city streets. It’s remarkably crowded here and yet everyone seems to be in a good mood. I guess that’s just how you feel when you own yourself, instead of someone else owning you. I’m in a good mood too—because I’m free.

  There is a slight, misty rain in the air and the scent of city streets seems to linger on the breeze. It’s cold, so I’m glad that I took a blanket from the ship with me since otherwise I would probably be freezing.

  I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders and continue to walk. Aside from the small backpack of supplies that I was given on the ship and the clothes on my back, I have nothing. I remind myself that freedom isn’t “nothing” though—freedom is everything.

  I walk around the city for a while, looking at all the people and trying to see where the passengers went who didn’t seem to have a home to go back to. It doesn’t take long before I can find people sleeping in the underground subway stations because it’s warm down there. I head down to follow one of the women I saw a few streets back. She was begging for coins and then folded up her carboard sign and slung her pack over her shoulder to find shelter for the night.

  It was clever how she did it—walking so quickly through the turnstiles as if she was accidentally falling forward onto the person in front of her instead of trying to jump over the card reader.

  I am not quite so agile about it. I try, but I get caught up in the metal bars. Then I accidently catch the attention of the police.

  “Are you trying to jump the turnstile?” a cop asks.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I lie. “I’m just not quite sure how these contraptions work.” That part isn’t a total lie.

  “Where are you from?” he asks as he looks at me suspiciously.

  “India.”

  He shakes his head and walks me over to a small machine that I am supposed to put money into in order to get a card. Fortunately, my backpack from the ship is outfitted with a small amount of currency—not enough to last long, but enough to keep me from getting in trouble with the cops at least. I put what little money I have into the machine and it spits out a small, rectangular piece of plastic.

  I look up at the police officer as if he is going to show me what to do with it, and with a huff and a very harsh push on my back, he sends both m
e and my pass through the turnstile.

  “Have a good night,” he calls sarcastically.

  For a moment, I almost miss the people in Mumbai. At least they didn’t pretend to be nice.

  The plastic rectangle used up all of the money that I had, which is a problem for my grumbling stomach. But at least it bought me entry into this tunnel where I can sleep without risk of freezing to death for the night.

  I find a corner that seems to be away from the louder parts of the tunnel, and I sit down with my back against the wall as I open up my pack to see what else is packed inside. There are a few packages of crackers, a bottle of water, and some sort of dried fruit, or at least I think it’s fruit—it might be meat. I eat everything that I have so that I can ease the gnawing at my ribs, and then I instantly regret it because now I have nothing left—no food, no money, and nothing except this plastic subway card.

  At least I’m warm and not starving anymore.

  I wrap the blanket around me that I took from the ship and try to get some rest. The subway tunnel is dark and relatively quiet, and for that I am grateful.

  Until a train comes.

  The noise of it is so earth-shatteringly loud and startling that it wakes me from a deep sleep and sends me jumping to my feet. I trip forward and my backpack drops into the deep rivet in the ground that the train tracks run on, and I almost fall into it myself.

  “Shit!” I say aloud as I see my backpack down there beneath the tracks and right next to a very large sewer rat that seems to be curious about what is inside. It isn’t the rat that prevents me from jumping onto the subway tracks to get my backpack, it’s the approaching train. Before I know it, the train is here, and my backpack is lost to me forever. Now, I have only my blanket and my subway card, which I suppose are the most important things anyway.

  I sit back down against the wall of the tunnel again. This time, I am not even going to try to go to sleep. I’m just going to sit here and let my mind wander and my body rest for a bit.

  I think about what I heard about Blaine after he escaped. It’s not that I want to give any of my thoughts to him, but it just sort of happens. As much as I want to hate him for rejecting me and leaving me, I continually find that I can’t. It’s a ridiculously cruel kind of torture.

  The only reason that I even know Blaine ended up in London is because word somehow traveled back to the mines in India. The word passed around was that Blaine had joined one of the wolf shifter packs in London and become a successful lecturer at one of the elite universities here.

  I can see him as a lecturer. Blaine always did strike me as an intellectual. I would have liked to have gotten a chance to know him better. I shake my head, trying to shake off thoughts of him. He is nobody to me anymore. Even if we were once matched as arranged mates, that doesn’t hold ground anymore. He has a new life, I’m sure. And now, so do I. Well, at least I’m trying to start a new one. I suppose that sleeping in the subway tunnel means my new life isn’t off to the most successful start, but that’s okay. I’ll get there.

  After time passed, I got over my anger and resentment toward Blaine for leaving me in Mumbai and breaking my heart. I honestly haven’t even thought about him in years. But now, suddenly, as I find myself in the same exact city as him, it’s like peeling open a fresh wound, and I hate it.

  After a sleepless night, I tuck the metro card in my pocket and wrap the blanket around me like a coat. Then, I navigate up to the streets of the city. Investigating London is kind of exciting. It’s a unique feeling now to be able to go where I want and do anything that I want. Granted, being a slave did mean three meals a day and a bed to sleep in, but the quality of life was absolutely miserable, and I’ll choose freedom over it even if I have to sleep with the subway rats.

  As I walk around the city, I find myself having trouble letting go of old feelings that are resurfacing. But Blaine rejected me—not the other way around, so I should be mad and bitter and nothing else. He made a whole new life in the city, and I need to think about myself now and forget about him. I need to gather my bearings and figure out where I’m going to live and what I’m going to do. With no money, no place to stay, and not a single personal possession to my name, this is going to be a challenge.

  “Hey,” a voice says from behind me.

  I turn quickly to see the woman who I followed into the subway tunnel when I was looking for a warm place to sleep last night.

  “I saw you earlier,” she says.

  I brace myself, thinking that she is going to yell at me for following her or tease me for making such a scene at the turnstile. But instead, she holds out her hand.

  “Take it,” she says. “I had a decent day on the street, and I think you could use a hot coffee and maybe a warm cup of soup more than me.”

  I look down and see a crumbled-up piece of paper money in her hand.

  “Are you sure?” I ask. One of side effects of going through such a hard life up until now is that I don’t trust anyone.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” she smiles. “And you might want to start coming up with your begging angle before morning.”

  “My what?”

  For a second, she looks at me as if I’m something other than human—which I am, but she shouldn’t know that. I haven’t shifted at all since I got on that boat when we left India. I’ve been in human form the entire time, and although I am absolutely dying to shift into a wolf, I’ve refrained because I know that drawing attention to myself is not a good idea. But I don’t think that’s what this woman is getting at.

  “Begging. You want to survive, don’t you?” she says.

  I nod, but I still feel completely clueless about whatever it is that she is trying to talk to me about.

  “Girl, you need to make some money on the street,” she says. “That’s how the world goes round. You don’t have money, you don’t eat, and you don’t sleep, and you basically don’t exist.”

  “So, I need to have money in order to exist?” I ask in bewilderment.

  “Yep, now you get it.”

  She stays for a few more minutes, telling me how I can make a cardboard sign, use a disposable coffee cup to collect coins, and look desperate enough for some people passing by to help me. I value her conversation and company more than anything else. But then, she leaves.

  “Will I see you again?” I call after her.

  She shrugs her shoulder as she walks away and shouts something back over her shoulder at me. “Just remember,” she says. “No one ever gives help for free.”

  That seems like a pretty dreary sentiment. After all, how is it even considered help, if there’s a price to pay for it?

  2

  CIARA

  I quickly learn how to get by as a street urchin. I become a fast expert at begging for coins and then I manage to scope out the best sleeping areas in the abandoned subway stations. Abandoned stations mean no loud train noises startling me awake. The tradeoff for that is the very, very large sewer rats that seem to have free reign of the abandoned stations, but that’s fine because they don’t ever bother me. They stay on their side, and I stay on mine.

  For some, this might seem like a horrible existence. But for me, I’m free and that is all that matters.

  Yeah, I look a little rough around the edges now—years of slavery, a month-long ride on a cargo ship, and living on the streets tends to do that to a person, I think. But I am happier than I can remember ever being because I’m free to choose my own path in life and am not “owned” by anyone anymore. I choose sewer rats and freedom any day over imprisonment.

  On a particularly cold night, as I’m huddled up in my blanket near the street level entrance to the subway station, trying to get a few more coins before calling it a night so that I can afford a small, black coffee in the morning, a woman stops to talk to me.

  “Hello,” she says with a smile as she crouches down on her knee in front of my cardboard sign. She drops some coins and a paper bill into my paper coffee cup.

  “Do you
think you might need some help?” she asks. “A warm place to stay, perhaps? And a hot shower?”

  “No,” I say as politely as I can while shaking my head. “I’m okay out here but thank you for the money. I appreciate it.”

  She smiles and nods, but I can tell that she isn’t yet finished.

  “I know of a shelter nearby that I can take you to if you’d like,” she offers.

  She seems kind enough, but the thought of going anywhere that jeopardize my freedom is enough to scare me away from the idea instantly. I remember the old woman’s words: no one gives help for free.

  “No, I’m okay thank you. I have a place to sleep.” I try to act casual and run my fingers through my knotted blonde hair, but when I do, my fingers get stuck because it’s been too long since I was able to wash my hair properly.

  I think that she can sense my apprehension and can also see that I’m lying about not needing a warm shower and a soft bed for the night.

  “You are free to come and go as you please at the shelter,” she says. “No one will make you stay there if you want to leave.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” she nods. “It’s just a place for you to have a bed, a shower, and a good meal if you want it.”

  With some hesitation, I take the woman up on her offer of help, simply because a hot cup of coffee and a warm shower sound delightful.

  When I get to the shelter, I use every resource and take advantage of everything they have to offer. I get all cleaned up, which feels amazing, and then go and stand in line for a hot meal. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything hot, unless you count coffee, but that isn’t really considered food.