Chapter Three
1061 Words
Mira POV
The weeks crawled by, and Ryder didn't talk to me again.
I caught him watching me sometimes, in the hallway between classes, across the cafeteria while I ate alone at my usual table, once through the chain link fence during Combat Theory when I let myself get pinned by a boy half as fast as me just to keep from standing out. Every time our eyes met, something sparked low in my stomach, and every time, he looked away first, jaw tight, like he was angry at himself for looking at all, like it was a weakness he couldn't afford to have anyone see.
Bree noticed. Of course she noticed. She started sitting closer to him at lunch, touching his arm when she laughed, leaning in so her hair brushed his shoulder, laughing loud enough that the whole cafeteria could hear it and know exactly who she belonged to, or thought she did. I heard the rumors before I heard anything official, whispered in the girls bathroom and passed along in the hallway, that their parents had been talking about an arrangement for years, a joining of two strong bloodlines, an alliance that would make the pack stronger no matter what the mate bond decided to do.
I tried not to care. I failed completely, every single day, a little more each time I saw them together. My wolf sulked about it constantly, refusing to let the matter drop even when I begged her to. He’s supposed to be with us, she would grumble whenever Bree's laugh carried across a room. I don't understand why he's fighting it so hard. Some days I didn't have an answer for her either. All I knew was that every time I saw Ryder's jaw tighten across a crowded hallway, some small, foolish part of me wondered if he was fighting it because of me, or in spite of me.
On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, I woke up already knowing something was different. My skin felt too tight, my senses too sharp, sounds and smells crowding in from every direction, like my wolf had been holding her breath for weeks and finally got to breathe out.
"Today's the day," Mom said at breakfast, and her hands shook around her coffee cup so badly that coffee sloshed over the rim. "Mira, whatever happens tonight at the Ceremony, whoever it is, you come straight home after. Do you understand me? Straight home, no detours, no waiting around."
"Mom, you're scaring me."
"I just want you safe." She gripped my hand across the table, too tight, her knuckles pale. "Promise me."
"I promise."
I didn't understand the fear in her eyes, not really, not yet. I told myself it was just a mother's nerves, the kind every parent probably felt watching their child step into adulthood, and I finished getting ready for what was supposed to be the biggest night of my life.
The Ceremony was held in the pack's great hall, candlelight flickering along the stone walls, every eighteen year old lined up in a row while the Alpha called names one at a time, pulling wolves forward to stand before the whole pack and let the mate bond do what it did, snap into place, undeniable, in front of everyone who had ever known them.
I stood near the end of the line, hands cold, heart slamming against my ribs so hard I was sure people nearby could hear it. Bree was three names ahead of me, dressed in something expensive and tight, and when the Alpha called Ryder forward, I watched her practically glow with certainty, like she already knew exactly how this ended for her.
"Ryder Blackwood," the Alpha called, and Ryder stepped forward, tall and unreadable in front of the whole pack, his expression carefully blank.
One by one, wolves were called to stand near him, and one by one, nothing happened. No pull. No recognition. The room started to murmur, restless, waiting.
Then it was my turn.
"Mira Hart."
I stepped forward on legs that didn't feel like mine, every eye in the hall following me as I crossed the floor. The second I was within ten feet of Ryder, the pull hit me so hard I nearly stumbled, a rope pulled taut between my chest and his, undeniable, complete, like something finally clicking into place after eighteen years of feeling wrong. His eyes went wide, gold flooding to nearly white, his whole body snapping toward me like he had no choice in the matter at all.
Mate, my wolf breathed, relieved, joyful, sure.
The hall went dead silent. I felt every eye in the room on me, on us, and for one perfect, terrifying second, Ryder looked at me like I was the only person in the world, like nothing else existed outside the two of us.
Then I saw his gaze flick past my shoulder, to his father, standing rigid near the front with his arms crossed, to Bree, standing frozen and furious near the side, and something in his face closed like a door slamming shut and locking.
"I, Ryder Blackwood," he said, and his voice came out rough, forced, like the words were being dragged out of him, "reject Mira Hart as my mate."
The words landed like a physical blow, knocking the air straight out of my lungs. Gasps rippled through the crowd. My chest cracked open around the place where the bond had just formed, pain flooding through every nerve I had, sharper than anything Bree had ever managed to do to me, and I heard myself make a sound I had never made before, something broken and small and utterly humiliating in front of the entire pack.
Ryder wouldn't look at me. He wouldn't even glance in my direction anymore.
Somewhere behind me I heard Bree's voice rise above the murmuring crowd, sharp with satisfaction, saying something about how she always knew I wasn't good enough for a future Alpha. I barely registered the words. The pain in my chest was too loud, too consuming, drowning out everything except the sound of my own heartbeat and the ringing silence where the bond used to be.
And that was when I saw my mother, pushing through the crowd toward me with tears streaming down her face, screaming a name that wasn't mine.
- Writer
