005
1900 Words
Rowan’s POV.
I couldn’t stop pacing.
The walls of the mansion felt too tight tonight, like they were closing in on me, brick by brick, dragging my lungs with them. My boots sounded across the floor, my hands were fisted at my sides, and the silence around me was deafening...even with the weight of music pounding downstairs where the rest of the pack was drinking, laughing, breathing like they hadn’t buried someone two years ago.
I couldn’t stand them.
The way they all moved on. The way they forgot.
Jace would’ve hated it.
He always hated silence after a death. He was the kind of person who would’ve played guitar in the hallway just to keep me from thinking. Just to make me roll my eyes and tell him to shut the hell up.
And now he was the silence.
I stopped in front of the massive fireplace and stared at the flames like they owed me something. Like if I stared hard enough, maybe the past would twist backward and give him back.
But all it gave me was Ayla.
Ayla.
That name tasted like blood every time it crossed my mind.
I closed my eyes, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. My wolf stirred restlessly beneath the surface, pacing like I was. He hated this too. This bond. This curse.
Because that was what she was.
A curse wrapped in soft skin and fragile bones. A broken omega with eyes too big and a voice that trembled even when she wasn’t speaking.
The girl Jace had died for.
The girl I was bound to.
I hated her from the second she and her mother showed up at the gates. I was twelve. Jace was twelve. She was eleven. And even then, I could feel it...something in the way Jace looked at her like she was the sun and he was just some moth trying to be worthy of its light.
He stopped playing football with us. Stopped sneaking out at night. Started writing poems. f*****g poems, like a cliché loser from a movie.
All because of her.
“She’s different,” he told me one night, lying on our roof, eyes full of stars and hope. “She doesn’t care that I’m Alpha-blood. She just… sees me.”
I remember laughing in his face. “Yeah, right. She probably just doesn’t know how to act around you like the rest.”
But he didn’t laugh back. He looked at me, serious, stubborn.
“You’ll see, Ro. She’s worth it.”
She wasn’t.
And the thing that made it worse?
Jace already had a girlfriend.
Liana.
Pretty. Strong. The kind of girl our mother wanted Jace to end up with. She was Luna material…graceful, ambitious, sharp as hell.
And she hated Ayla from the moment she saw her.
Jace tried to play it off for months. Said Ayla was just his friend. His best friend. Said she was like a little sister, that she didn’t threaten what he and Liana had.
But Liana saw through him. Saw the way his eyes lingered a little too long when Ayla walked by. The way his voice softened when he talked about her. The way he made excuses to see her, to check on her, to protect her like she was made of glass.
They fought about it all the time.
“I’m not stupid, Jace,” I overheard Liana snapping one night behind the training hall. “You say she’s your friend, but I see the way you look at her. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” Jace had said, voice low and tired. “You don’t understand. Ayla’s been through enough. She’s important to me. She’s... she’s just different.”
Liana didn’t believe him.
And honestly? I don’t think I did either.
Because two years ago, on her sixteenth birthday...the day he planned to tell her how he felt, to finally confess it all...she got attacked.
Rogues hit the pack borders harder than ever before. And Jace… stupid, selfless Jace… he ran to save her. I was minutes behind him. Just minutes.
By the time I got there, the scent of blood was thick in the air. Jace’s body was slumped over hers like a goddamn shield. She was sobbing, clutching him, her face covered in cuts and her hands shaking.
She lived.
He didn’t.
And I never forgave her for that.
I shouldn’t have. She should’ve died that night. Not him. Not him.
And like some cruel joke from the Moon Goddess, the moment I dropped to my knees and screamed over his body, my wolf howled in my chest, not from grief...but from recognition.
A mate bond.
With her.
The same girl he died saving. The girl he loved more than anything. The one person in this whole damn pack he’d give his life for.
And he did.
And now she was mine.
I let out a low growl and slammed my fist against the stone mantel, the c***k echoing through the empty room.
“Rowan?” someone called from behind me, snapping me out from that painful memory.
Beck. Of course. Always checking in like I was about to break.
“I’m fine,” I snapped without turning.
Beck stepped in anyway, arms folded. “You don’t look fine.”
I looked at him through the mirror above the fireplace. My reflection was wild...eyes glowing faintly, shirt clinging to my chest with leftover sweat from the run earlier, jaw tense.
“I said I’m fine.”
Beck gave a small shake of his head. “She didn’t even do anything tonight.”
I turned around slowly. “What did you say?”
“Ayla,” he said. “She just passed by. Didn’t look at you. Didn’t say a word. And yet you still...”
“I don’t need you analyzing my choices,” I cut him off. “I told you to let it go.”
He hesitated. “She’s still a member of this pack. You can’t keep pushing her like this.”
“She’s not pack,” I hissed. “She’s the reason Jace is dead. Don’t ever forget that.”
Beck looked away.
Smart.
I didn’t need his guilt.
I already had my own.
But I couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t reject her. That would be mercy. She didn’t deserve it. She needed to feel the pain. Every single day.
I wanted her to suffer like I did.
I wanted her to walk through hell, just like I had since the night I held my twin’s dead body.
I stormed out of the room before Beck could say something else that would make me punch a wall. Again.
The hallway was cold, darker than usual, the sconces moving like they were trying to warn me off. But I didn’t stop. My boots pounded the floor, the noise echoing off the walls like thunder. It suited me. Thunder felt right. It sounded like war.
And war was coming.
Not the kind with claws and teeth, but the kind that came with robes and scrolls and ancient laws written in blood. The kind that came with Council meetings.
I shoved open the heavy oak doors of the Council Hall without knocking. They all turned...eight elders, each old enough to have witnessed at least four Alpha reigns. Their expressions varied...some annoyed, others tired. One or two wary.
But not a single one dared to challenge me.
Because I was Alpha.
Because I’d earned it the moment Jace’s heart stopped and mine didn’t.
The silence thickened as I strode to the head of the crescent-shaped table. I didn’t sit. I never did. That chair used to belong to my brother. Now it was just... empty.
“Alpha Rowan,” Elder Marek greeted with that careful tone he always used, like he wasn’t sure if he was addressing a teenager or a loaded weapon. “We weren’t expecting you so soon.”
“Then you should’ve,” I said, voice low, controlled.
Elder Malina folded her hands in front of her, silver hair braided down her back. “The matter of the Luna, Alpha. It can’t be delayed much longer.”
I didn’t respond.
Not right away.
Because every time they said that...“Luna”...all I heard was her name. All I saw was blood. Jace’s blood.
“You know the laws,” Elder Rurik said, clearing his throat. “An Alpha must secure the bloodline. Strengthen the bond with the pack. Without a Luna...”
“I’m not interested,” I cut in, voice sharp enough to draw blood. “We’re stable. We’ve reclaimed the borders, trained twice as hard, tripled rogue deterrents. You’ve all seen the numbers. We’re stronger than we’ve been in years.”
“Yes,” Elder Malina said gently, “but not whole.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Wholeness is a luxury. Not a necessity.”
“Rowan,” Marek said again, softer this time. “You’re doing more than anyone expected. But you’re still young. And grieving. We don’t want to push...”
“Then don’t.”
“But tradition...”
“Tradition buried my brother,” I growled, stepping closer, palms flat on the table. “Tradition let the rogues in. Tradition keeps demanding sacrifices, and I’m done offering up pieces of myself.”
Malina flinched slightly. “We all miss Jace.”
“You don’t get to say his name,” I snapped, eyes flashing. “Not like you knew him.”
But they had. Jace had charmed them, earned their respect despite his age. Even at sixteen, he’d had the voice of a leader and the heart of a damn king. He walked into this room once, long before I ever did, and they listened. Not because he was destined to be Alpha... but because he was already leading.
He would’ve been a better ruler than I ever could be.
And he would’ve done it with Ayla beside him.
They never made it that far, though. Still... she owned him.
And now I owned her.
A twisted full circle.
The silence in the council room stretched again.
Elder Marek cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “The Seer has spoken,” he said slowly. “She claims the Moon Goddess has shown her a vision. That the Alpha has a mate. One he refuses to accept… nor reject.”
My jaw tensed. “So now we believe in visions.”
“When they shake the entire Circle with divine force?” Rurik answered, “Yes.”
Malina leaned forward. “The Seer says your bond is alive. That it burns through the tether of this pack. That it’s affecting everything.”
“Then maybe the Seer should stay out of my head.”
“Rowan,” Marek said, choosing his words like they were weapons. “A mate is a gift. Whether you feel it or not. Whether she was expected or not.”
“She is not going to be Luna,” I said coldly. “She might exist. She might wear the mark. But she will never rule beside me.”
Malina gave me a pitying look I wanted to claw off her face. “Then you sentence yourself to a life of suffering.”
“Good,” I muttered. “Then maybe I’ll finally feel something.”
- Writer
