THE ALPHA'S CURSED MATE

Hopeful

SELENE’S POV

I barely slept, my mind kept dancing back and forth from the past and the future. A future that hadn't been promised or guaranteed to me. A past that was filled with pain and anger. I don’t even know why I thought my future could be better than this. I was in this mansion being kept like a prisoner and that alone should have told me what my future looked like. And yet my wolf refused to let me give up on the dream that she had constructed for us. She was setting me up for heart break in my opinion.

By the time footsteps echoed down the dungeon corridor, my body ached from being curled on stone all night, but my mind was sharper than ever — painfully aware of every sound, every shift of air. I couldn’t help the feeling of disappointment when I realized that Dante wasn’t the one who was coming to see me. The most ironic and funny part about my situation right now was the fact that I felt safer around Dante than I did around his wolves.

Two guards stopped outside my cell, I scoffed at the fact that Dante had decided that he didn’t want to face me anymore. Was he so scared of being around me because he couldn’t control himself or was it because he couldn’t stand me? Right now I hated the way I always found myself overthinking everything. I was even bothered by the fact that he hadn't sent Rex to deliver whatever message that he had sent these two to deliver to me, I was also triggered and bothered by the fact that he had sent two strong and higher ranking wolf to me as if I was some kind of dangerous wolf that couldn’t be trusted.

“Stand” one of the ordered, in the same tone that Dante had once used.

I should have been feeling afraid at the sight of these wolves but I didn’t. instead of fear I felt hopeful, silly stupid hope in a clearly hopeless situation.

Maybe Dante had changed his mind, maybe he had realized that he couldn't live without me and I couldn’t live without him. I hated to face these feeling but the truth was that Dante was my mate and I wanted to be with him. Everything if me, especially my wolf screamed that we belonged together and I belonged up there with him. Maybe he wanted us to talk, together we could figure out how to make it work, we had to find a way to make it work. I didn’t want to die..not right now…now right after I found my mate and certainly not by his hand.

I hated myself to clinging onto that possibility, I despised him for doing things that awakened this part of me. A part of me that I never even knew existed.

“the guard opened the cell and gestured for me to step outside. I wanted to protest and tell him that I didn’t want to go anywhere wit him but hope refused to let me. I still hoped that this would be my chance to finally connect with my mate. The guards gave me no hints of what awaited me as I stepped out either.

I stepped outside the cell and waited for them to lock the gate and then they started leading me outside the dungeon. I followed silently, my knees weak but my curiosity at its peak and hope promising me something better on the other side.

We walked up the winding stone staircase, each step bringing warmer air, brighter light, and the distant sound of voices. Dante’s scent was getting stronger with every step that we took and I could almost feel him at this point. When we reached the main hall, the sudden openness made me dizzy. The floors were polished black marble, cold and gleaming. The ceilings stretched high, carved with ancient symbols that pulsed faintly with moonlight. This place was like nothing that I had ever seen, the stories that I had heard about it did it no justice. It wasn’t just a pack house or a place, it was a kingdom and unfortunately I was here as a prisoner instead of a queen. That was a fact of my current situation but things could easily change now that I had been brought up here.

The guards led me down a long hallway and stopped in front of a heavy door. Without a word, they opened it and stepped aside. Inside was a room, not luxurious or comfortable but a room nevertheless. It had a bed, which was an obvious upgrade from the stone bed that I had been sleeping on since I got here and still an upgrade from the one I used when I was still back home. The bed looked comfortable with furs, the room was cosy but small with a small table that I already knew that I wasn’t going to use at the corner of the room. The window was high enough that I couldn’t reach it but it still let in a beam of pale light. So even though the room was a little more cosy and comfortable I was still a prisoner.

Still, despite seen all these things and recognizing that this room was still a cell for me, the absence off chains only made my hope stronger. This had to mean that he was softening his heart to me.