by C. R. Jane
I shakily pushed my hair out of my face, a tremble sounding through my laugh. “I must have hit my head pretty hard,” I murmured.
He hummed, not really agreeing or disagreeing with me.
“Thank you, Marcus,” I whispered as I struggled to stand up then. He just nodded in response.
“Hey, take as much time as you need,” Daxon said anxiously as he put out a hand to help.
I stood there unsteadily, overwhelmingly tired. I was overcome with emotion. Was I really losing my mind?
I couldn’t think of another explanation.
“I just need to get back to the inn and sleep,” I told Daxon wearily.
“I’ve got my bike outside,” Marcus offered.
A low, threatening growl came out of Daxon’s throat, and Marcus’ eyes widened. He held up his hands and took a step backwards. “Just kidding,” he said quickly.
The men here sure were growly, I thought idly, my mind too full to really think too much on it.
“I’ll get you home. We’re just down the street,” said Daxon firmly. Suddenly, I found myself swooped up into his arms, my body humming at his proximity and that scent of his.
“What are you doing?” I asked, too tired to assert my female independence and all the other things I should be saying right now. I laid my head down on his shoulder, not really caring where we were going as long as I found a bed soon.
“I don’t trust you’d be able to hold on if I took my bike, so we’re walking there,” Daxon explained, but I was already on my way to dreamland.
“Hey, man, I didn’t know,” I thought I heard Marcus say. But his words didn’t make sense.
Daxon’s smooth walk combined with his steady heartbeat soothed me into a sort of in between dreamland. I was barely aware of us making it to the inn, or that Daxon took me into my room and laid me down on my bed.
I was barely aware of his lips that brushed against my forehead and the strange look in his gaze as he stared down at me or his touch as he brushed a strand of hair from my face.
I was barely aware of anything.
But that night, I dreamed.
“It’s going to be perfect,” my mother said brightly as she zipped up the back of my dress. I touched the lace, a little in awe. The dress was gorgeous. The second I’d seen it in the store window, I knew it would be perfect for tonight. And even though it was way beyond our budget, my mother had agreed. It wasn’t every day you were presented to your fated mate.
“Tonight will be the best night of your life,” she promised me.
I just wondered why her eyes said something else. Threads of trepidation began to weave their way through me. Who was I kidding… They’d been building the second I’d seen Alistair at that pack dinner.
At eighteen, you’re brought to your first pack dinner. It’s supposed to be the moment when you’re accepted and become a member of the pack family. I’d been excited…and terrified to go. Mother was an omega, the weakest member of the pack, and she didn’t go to many pack events or talk very much—if at all—about the ones she did attend. She’d never said anything outright bad about the pack, but she always came home…defeated. I wasn’t sure if that was the right description. It was an odd, uncomfortable feeling.
But any uncomfortableness had disappeared when I’d walked into the hall and felt it, that pull, like a string was snapping into place, propelling me into the room as if I had no control. Our eyes had met, and that had been it.
I’d loved him the moment I saw him, convinced that the moon goddess must have blessed me to give me someone like him.
Mother smiled at me again, and I took a deep breath, drawing strength from her sweet smile. I trusted my mother with everything in me. If she told me everything was going to be great, I could believe her.
Straightening my shoulders, I smoothed out my dress one more time. The dress was a navy-blue color with a black lace overlay. It was mermaid style, perfectly form-fitting until it flared out at the bottom. It had a sweetheart neckline that displayed my mother’s necklace perfectly. I’d been shocked when she’d presented it as one of my eighteenth birthday presents. I’d loved that necklace since I’d found it in her bedside table. And even though she never wore it, always telling me it was too special to wear all the time, as a child, I’d often peeked looks at it whenever I was in her room.
Now that I was wearing it, I had trouble not touching it constantly, afraid that it would fall off and get lost. My mother had tears in her eyes when she gave it to me. It was the most special thing I’d ever owned.
“Ready to go?” she asked, shaking me out of my thoughts. I looked at her face one more time, looking for the reassurance I, at eighteen, still desperately needed.
“He’s your true mate,” she whispered. “It will be just like all the stories we’ve always talked about.”
“Let’s do this,” I answered, giddy anticipation pushing away the fear…at least a little.
There was a car waiting outside of our apartment. I wouldn’t expect less since my true mate happened to be the next alpha, something I could barely comprehend. I didn’t know yet where I would fall in the pack as far as dominance went, but since my mother was an omega…chances were I wasn’t going to blow anyone away.
I took another deep breath, my heart dropping a bit when I saw that Alistair wasn’t inside the car. I slid into the cool leather interior, rubbing my arms, suddenly chilled.
The ride was silent. The driver didn’t put down the privacy screen at all, and my mother was oddly quiet and tense the entire time. The lights of the city passed by, but I didn’t stare at them with the same avid fascination as I usually did. It felt like I was on the edge of a precipice right now…my whole life about to change.
And I was terrified.
The car finally came to a stop, and my door was opened by the driver, who once again, didn’t say anything. I moved to slide out of the car, but I was stopped by my mother clenching my arm tightly.
“You know I love you very much, darling. Right?” she asked, again with that falsely bright voice.
“Of course,” I whispered back to her. “And I you.” It was how we always responded to that question.
She let me go, almost reluctantly, and then I walked to my future.
The meeting hall was packed. I wasn’t sure if the enormous numbers were usual, or if it was because the alpha heir apparently had found his mate, but this many people in one room was making my skin crawl.
I’d never been one for crowds, preferring the outdoors over anything, much to my mother’s chagrin. I stiffened as a few people pushed past me to get into the room, and I was almost knocked over.
But there could have been a thousand people in the room and I still wouldn’t have had trouble finding him.
Alistair.
My soul gave a sigh of relief as soon as I spotted him, lounging in a chair as he entertained his adoring subjects. The group gathered around him couldn’t take their eyes off him.
I didn’t blame them. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him either.
It was as if a spotlight was shining on him, the way the light highlighted the top of his head, giving him a halo effect and adding an extra shine to his perfect sable hair that he didn’t need. He threw back his head and laughed at something the man next to him said, and I swore the sound wove its way around my heart and through my veins, running through my body and changing me into something I didn’t recognize.
His green eyes, the color of spring, gazed at me then. They held me frozen in place the moment they locked on me. He smiled, his full lips showcasing a row of brilliant white teeth. Alistair stood up and strode towards me, single-minded in purpose, waving off anyone who tried to speak to him.
“Hi,” I whispered when he finally stood there in front of me.
He reached out a hand and touched my cheek, and I couldn’t help but lean into the feel of him, my eyes closing as I soaked in the sensation of feeling my mate’s touch for the first time.
“Mine,�
�� he growled suddenly, the low purr echoing through my insides.
“Yours,” I agreed shyly, and he grinned, his smile becoming my new favorite thing in the world.
I knew my world would always revolve around him from that moment on. He was the sun that I was meant to worship all my life.
“You’re stunning,” he told me, as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune in having me there in front of him. Alistair took my hand and began to lead me towards the far side of the room where his father, the alpha, and his mother were waiting.
I looked back to find my own mother, but she’d disappeared somewhere in the crowd. I frowned, wondering if I should try to find her for this part.
“We’ll get this over with quickly,” Alistair told me, shooting me another grin and pulling me forward faster.
“This part” was one of the things I’d been dreading. A blood test that would determine my lineage and ensure there weren’t any defects that would cause issues in the alpha’s line. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, a precaution taken because of an alpha’s mate a great distance in the past who had turned out to have schizophrenia. It had come on a year after the marriage, and the woman had almost ended the alpha bloodline forever during a hallucination.
My mother had explained all of this and assured me there wasn’t anything I needed to be worried about. Our blood was pure.
My stomach was still in knots thinking about it.
The alpha stared at me coldly, disapproval written across his features in a way that I hadn’t expected. His features were Alistair in thirty years, and I shivered under his handsome, disdainful stare, trying not to visibly wilt under his attention.
Alistair’s mother, Queen Lydia, was only marginally better. She gave me a small nod, lightly touching my hand as if it was cursed when I was introduced to her. I’d of course seen them from afar at various times growing up, but this was the first time I officially met them both. They wouldn’t be the warmest of in-laws that was for sure. But having Alistair would make up for that.
The alpha and the queen had little to say to me, and having my blood drawn in front of the three of them in the small room behind the meeting hall was incredibly uncomfortable. The doctor gave me a reassuring smile after he was finished and then scurried out of the room to test it.
Alistair guided me to a chair, and we settled in for the short wait.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
The alpha growled in frustration as he paced in front of the fire. “What the hell is taking so long?” he barked as if the rest of us somehow were responsible for the doctor’s tardiness.
A feeling of dread was settling over my skin the longer I sat there. I needed my mother. Alistair’s face was now riddled with worry, and he’d let go of my hand as if he already knew something was wrong with me. Everyone in the room knew the doctor’s absence was not a good thing.
The door finally opened and the doctor peeked his head in, his face completely blank.
“Alpha…sir,” he said, nodding at the alpha and Alistair. “Could I speak to you privately?”
My insides dropped at the doctor’s somber tone. There couldn’t be anything wrong with me, right?
Alistair and the alpha disappeared from the room without a look back. I fiddled with the fabric on my dress nervously, flicking off invisible pieces of lint. I could feel the disapproving gaze of the queen heavy on the top of my head, and I intentionally kept staring at my lap.
The time that passed was excruciating. A loud bang followed by a heavy thump suddenly ricocheted through the room, the sound coming from behind the door that Alistair and the alpha had disappeared behind. I looked at the queen questioningly, but she just sat there stiffly, no concern in her features.
I went back to studying my lap, my nerves on high alert. The door finally opened, and Alistair and the alpha prowled back in.
The doctor didn’t follow them.
I tried to look at Alistair for clues, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. His entire frame was stiff and unwelcoming. The dread in my stomach was in full force now, and I was sure that I was going to throw up at any moment.
The alpha muttered something to Alistair and prodded him in the back. Alistair stiffened somehow even more, and then he finally looked at me.
The words he uttered after that became etched into my soul, carved so deep, there would never be a way to forget…or recover.
“Rune Celeste Esmeray, I hereby reject you as my mate and sever our bond. From this time forward, you are nothing to me. I swear this under the moon goddess.”
Alistair’s words were cold and firm, and they sliced through me like glass.
I sank to my knees, the ache in my chest so terrible, it felt like I was dying. I clenched the fabric of my dress, trying to hold myself together. Something shattered inside of me. It took me a moment to realize it was my heart.
I was destroyed, ravaged…ruined.
“You are a blight to this pack. You will serve in my son’s household so a close eye can be kept on you and no further shame brought upon your family or our kind,” the alpha said then.
His words didn’t register though. I was on the floor, my soul leaking out from the wound spreading in my chest.
I wished for death as I lay there, and they left me like that, slamming the door behind me as they all left the room.
While I lay there, my shame was announced to the crowded room, and my mother left me willingly, telling the alpha she never wanted to see me again.
I was alone, a bitter and terrible future laid out for me that I’d never dreamed I would see.
And even after all that was done to me in the many days that followed…
I still loved him.
Sweat dripped down my spine as I emerged from my nightmare. I did my best to not think of that day, the day that had changed the course of my whole life. Evidently, my dreams hadn’t gotten the memo.
I threw the covers off, desperate to get some air. I tried to take deep, soothing breaths and calm my racing heart. The urge to tear at my skin was always present when I thought about that day. I raced to the window and threw it open, sucking in big gulps of the fresh night air outside.
My heartbeat finally slowed down enough for me to think clearly.
“I’m here. That’s over. I escaped. I’m free,” I whispered to myself, a mantra I had to tell myself daily.
Leaning on the windowsill, I put my face on my hands, my body beginning to shake. Sometimes, it felt like I’d never truly be free. Lifting my head up, I stared at the moon, its pale light somehow lighting up the whole black sky. And for the first time in a very long time, I pleaded to the moon goddess, asking for relief from the pain I could never seem to get rid of.
She didn’t answer me.
But I hadn’t expected her to.
She never had before.
Needless to say, when I went to work the next day, I was not in a good mood. And even though I tried to do all the things that I knew would help with tips, I was off.
Evidenced by the fact I’d just dumped a Sprite in a customer’s lap.
Fuck.
I stormed to the back, leaving Eve to give the customer a towel. I didn’t have it in me to give them the necessary niceties my accident would require. I’d just have to give Eve any tip they left, not that I expected that to happen.
In the back, I started to fold silverware, hoping that the rest of my tables could survive without me for a few minutes while I got my head on straight.
But doing any task seemed to be impossible for me as I reached for the silverware, and instead, accidentally pushed the entire tray onto the floor, the clang of the metal against the tile reverberating loudly around me.
“Seriously?” I heard Wilder’s voice snarl from behind me.
And that was it. I’d had enough.
I passed the bar, ignoring where Wilder was staring at me, and I all but ran to the hallway where I leaned against the wall and tried to get ahold of myself.
I wond
ered when it would ever get easier to not let the past leak into the present and try to ruin it.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not paying you to stand around and take breaks whenever you want!” growled Wilder from a few feet away.
I tried to stop myself, I really did.
It just didn’t work.
“Can you shut the hell up and leave me alone for five fucking minutes?” I snapped at him, my entire body shaking with rage. Something inside my chest felt like it was about to leap at him, and I had to hold on to the molding on the wall behind me to keep myself in place.
Wilder just stared at me astonished for a minute as I held my breath, just knowing he was about to fire me. I mean, for someone who was supposed to be on their best behavior trying to hold onto the job they desperately needed, I was constantly toeing the line with him. And I definitely had just blown right past that line just now.
Wilder snapped into action then and before I could blink, he’d hauled me around the corner and his body was pressed against me. His mouth claimed mine in a bruising kiss filled with a thousand dark promises that I couldn’t examine just then. He grasped my face with both hands as his mouth claimed me, again and again. His taste was addictive, and my tongue swirled and danced against his, just trying to get more. I grasped the thin soft material of his shirt, trying to pull him even closer to me as my moan and our combined harsh breathing echoed in the hall around us.
His hand wrapped around my throat, not too tight, just to let me know that in this moment, I belonged to him and there was nothing I could do about it.
I waited for the familiar panic to spring up inside of me that had always followed Alistair’s domination of me.
But there was nothing like that. If anything, it just fanned the flames of lust threatening to break out of control all over my body. There was a building ache inside of me, and I was desperate for him to ease the pain. His lips moved from my mouth down my neck as he inched my skirt farther up until one of his hands was dancing along the line of my thong. I thrust against him, unable to do anything but follow the blind passion that had overtaken my brain.
