The Alpha's Cursed Healer

CHAPTER 3: BROKEN

ARIA WINTERS

It feels like he's ripping my soul in half while I'm still conscious and aware of every second. I can feel my wolf inside me and she's screaming, howling, trying to hold on as something tears her away from where she's been nestled in my chest since last night.

"Please," I'm sobbing now and I don't care who sees. "Please don't take her, she just woke up, please"

But he doesn't stop and I can feel her claws digging in, trying to stay, but the power is too strong and she's being pulled out of me inch by agonizing inch.

She gives one final desperate howl and then she's gone.

The emptiness where she should be is worse than the pain. It's like someone carved out my insides and left nothing but a howling void.

But then something else rushes in to fill the space.

Hundreds of emotions, all at once.

They slam into me all at once and I can't breathe under the weight of them. I could feel my father's guilt crushing my chest like boulders. He's terrified and grieving and hates himself but he's convinced this is the only way to save me.

Celeste's vicious satisfaction was burning like acid. She wanted this, planned for this, and is savoring every second of my destruction. The chamber’s collective judgment was pressing down on me from all sides.

And the two suspicious wolves in the back, their emotions hit me differently. They're feeling triumphant and excited.

One of them is thinking so clearly I can hear it in my head; "Perfect. Now she's vulnerable. We move in three days."

What? Move? What are they planning?

But I can't focus on that because there are too many emotions flooding into me. Every person in this room, their pain and their cruelty and their darkness, it's all pouring into me all at once.

What the f**k is happening?

I start screaming and I can't stop because it's too much, there's too much, I can feel EVERYTHING…

Suddenly, silver light explodes from my hands and people stumble backward and I hear gasps but I can't see anything except the light and the crushing weight of everyone's emotions trying to kill me.

I need it to stop. I need it to STOP.

Then something in my mind throws up walls that slam down between me and the flood of feelings. The light dies and the crushing weight lifts and suddenly I can breathe again.

I collapse forward onto the stone floor, gasping and shaking and tasting blood where I bit my tongue.

Nobody says anything for a long moment. It’s almost like they didn’t see the light, just me.

"The judgment stands," my father finally says and his voice is completely empty. "Aria Winters is hereby banished from Moonridge Pack effective immediately. She is rogue. If she returns to pack lands she will be executed."

"No," I whisper but nobody's listening.

"Get her out of here," Beta Hammond orders.

The warriors haul me up and drag me toward the door. I try to look back at my father but he's already turned away.

"Dad, please…"

"Don't call me that," he says without turning around. "You're not my daughter anymore."

****

They throw me out at the edge of pack territory with nothing but the clothes I'm wearing and my mother's necklace around my neck.

I stumble into the trees, numb and shattered, and there's blood on my arms from where the warriors' claws dug in when they held me down. My legs are shaking so badly I can barely walk but I force myself to keep moving because if I stop I'm going to collapse and I don't think I'll be able to get back up.

The necklace suddenly burns hot against my skin and I gasp, tearing it off. And for the first time I notice there's a locket portion that can open. What the hell?

I pop it and inside isn't a photo like I expected. It's a tiny rolled piece of paper covered in symbols I don't recognize. And there's a written text at the bottom, in a handwriting I haven't seen since I was four years old. It's mum’s.

"For Aria, when the wolf is gone and the gift awakens.

Find the others.

Trust the Raven."

What? Mother left me a message for right now. She knew this would happen?

I don't understand. I don't understand any of this.

The mate mark on my neck suddenly starts burning and I cry out, clutching my throat.

Then a deep feeling of yearning overwhelms me. Through the bond, I can feel my unknown mate somewhere far away and he's in agony that mirrors what I just went through. The bond pulls at my chest like a fishhook trying to drag me toward him.

He's dying. Whatever's wrong with him is getting worse and the incomplete bond is pulling me toward death with him.

"Well well well," a voice says from the trees. "Looks like someone had a rough day."

I spin around and there's a woman standing at the edge of the clearing. She looks old, but ageless somehow. She dressed in a dark cloak, and her smile is almost like a cry.

"What the… who are you?" I ask, taking a step back.

"Someone who can help." She tilts her head, studying the mark on my neck. "That mate bond is going to kill you, you know. Incomplete bonds always do."

"How do you…"

"I'm a witch, darling. I know lots of things." She pulls out a vial of black ink and a silver needle. "I can hide that mark for you. Make it so the bond doesn't drain you quite so fast. Give you time to figure out what you want to do."

"What's the price?" Because witches never help for free.

Her smile widens. "Smart girl. The price is that the tattoo will hide you from your mate. He won't be able to sense you or find you through the bond. And you'll have about a year before the incomplete bond kills you both anyway. But at least you'll have options."

A year. That's better than the weeks or months I probably have now.

"Do it," I say desperately. “Living with an incomplete bond is hell. Especially with being wolfless.”

She moves fast, grabbing my arm and pulling me over to a flat rock. The needle bites into my skin and the ink burns as she works, covering the mate mark with black thorns that crawl across my throat.

I bite down on my lip to keep from screaming because I've already screamed enough today and I'm done showing weakness.

When she's finished the mark is completely hidden under the thorned tattoo.

"There," she says, packing up her supplies. "That should hold for about a year. Maybe less if you use too much of that empathic gift I can feel practically screaming off you."

"Wait, you know about…"

But she's already disappearing into the trees, her eerie laugh making my skin crawl as I watch her shadow disappear. I stand there alone in the forest, wolfless and cursed. And I have no idea what to do next.