My Fated Mate, My Enemy, My Second Chance

Mira POV I learned a long time ago that being invisible was a kind of safety. If nobody looked at you, nobody could hurt you. That was the rule I lived by since I was eight years old, since the night my mom packed one bag each for us and we ran from a pack I don't remember, to a pack that never really wanted us either. "Mira, you're going to be late," Mom called from the kitchen, her voice tired the way it always was after a night shift at the pack clinic. "I'm already going." I grabbed my bag off the floor and headed out before she could look at me too closely. She worried when she looked at me too long. I always figured it was because I had my father's eyes, and she never talked about my father, not once, not in ten years. Our house sat at the edge of Blackwood territory, closest to the woods, farthest from anyone who mattered. That was on purpose. My mom picked it that way. Low rent, low visibility, low everything. Sometimes I wondered if she chose the location the way a soldier chooses cover, always thinking one step ahead of a danger I couldn't see. Walking to school, I kept to the tree line instead of the main road. It was longer, but I didn't have to pass the pack house, where the Alpha's family lived in a house the size of a small hotel. I didn't have to see Ryder Blackwood's silver truck in the driveway, or think about the fact that in two months, on my eighteenth birthday, the Moon Goddess Ceremony would happen and every wolf my age would find out who their mate was. I already knew I wouldn't like the answer. Fate had never been kind to me. At school, I slid into my seat in the back row of Advanced Combat Theory just as the bell rang. Coach Reyes didn't look up from his clipboard, which was good, because it meant he didn't see me flinch when Bree Calloway "accidentally" knocked my books off my desk on her way past. "Oops." She didn't even try to sound sincere. Bree was a warrior's daughter, ranked, popular, and had hated me since freshman year for reasons I never fully understood. Maybe it was because I was easy. Maybe it was because my mom worked at the clinic and Bree's mom was the kind of woman who thought that made us less than her. I bent down and picked up my books without a word. Arguing only made it worse. I learned that lesson the hard way in ninth grade, the year I ended up with two cracked ribs and a story about falling down the stairs that nobody actually believed but everyone pretended to. "Careful, Mira," Bree said, sitting down in front of me. "I wouldn’t want you getting hurt before the Ceremony. I wouldn’t want your mate to see damaged goods." Her friends laughed. I said nothing. I had gotten very good at saying nothing. What none of them knew, what nobody in this whole pack knew except my mother and me, was that I could have broken Bree Calloway's wrist in under three seconds if I wanted to. My wolf and I had trained in secret every morning since I was fourteen, deep in the woods behind our house where nobody ever went. My mom taught me herself, movements passed down from a life she refused to explain, and by then I could probably have held my own against most of the ranked warriors in this pack twice my age. Nobody knew that. And nobody was going to. "Being strong just makes you a target," my mom always said. "Being invisible keeps you alive." I didn't fully understand what she was protecting me from. But I had stopped asking. Every time I brought up my father, or why we left our old pack, or why she still checked the locks three times before bed, her face went pale and tight, and I hated putting that look on her, so I let it go, again and again, year after year. Coach Reyes finally started class, running us through footwork drills. I held back on purpose, letting my movements go sloppy, letting Bree "win" our sparring match even though I could have taken her down blindfolded. It was exhausting, pretending to be less than I was, every single day of my life. At lunch I sat alone, same as always, at the table closest to the exit. From there I could see the whole cafeteria, which meant I saw the second the room went quiet. Ryder Blackwood walked in. He was the kind of tall guy that made doorways look small, all lean muscle and quiet command, the future Alpha of Blackwood in every line of him. Girls turned their heads. Guys straightened their spines like they were trying to seem taller around him without even realizing they were doing it. He didn't seem to notice any of it, or maybe he was just used to it by now. I had never spoken to him. Not once, in four years of school. He was two ranks and a whole universe above someone like me. For one strange second, as he crossed the room with his tray, his eyes caught mine. It was nothing. It lasted half a second. But something in my chest lurched, hard, like my ribs were trying to crack open from the inside, and for just a moment I couldn't breathe at all. Mate, my wolf whispered, and I felt her go very still. I blinked and the feeling was gone. Ryder had already looked away, already sitting down with Bree and the others like nothing happened, like he felt nothing at all. It's nothing, I told myself. It has to be nothing. But my hands were shaking, and my wolf wouldn't stop pacing, and somewhere deep down I already knew my quiet, invisible life had just run out of time. Whatever that feeling was, it wasn't going to leave me alone, and some small, stubborn part of me wasn't sure I wanted it to.