I Was Raised To Kill My Mate

Chapter 1: Ashes and shadow

Sera’s POV

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The night was thick, heavy with the smell of wet earth and pine. My boots sank into the mud as I slipped through the trees, every sound amplified—the snap of a twig, the rustle of leaves, even my own heartbeat. I hated nights like this. Hated the way they reminded me of Ember Village.

I swallowed hard and forced the memory away, but it was always there: flames licking the sky, smoke stinging my lungs, my parents’ screams slicing through the chaos. I had buried that girl deep inside me, along with my wolf, but some nights she clawed her way back, hungry for revenge.

Be careful; careful, his voice hissed in a low voice next to me.

I worked around and turned to see Liam coming out of the shadows. His eyes were keen, full of worry. “Don’t get distracted. It is your first out of camp shift. One wrong move and—”

I do know, I said, but my voice was even tighter than I wished. I did not require a lecture by the camp babysitter.

Liam grinned, although he did not look amusing. “I’m not here to babysit. I came to see that you came back alive. The forest isn’t forgiving. Not tonight. Not that the scouts are rogue and are trying you.

I folded my teeth and continued to go on, the tension within me like a living being coiling itself. A flicker of instinct in my wolf is roused a little, a twitching of the instinct I long had repressed. The smell of allure had lingered, and it was lingering under the damp earth and the fallen leaves. My wolf seemed to fiddle with me and said that we were not alone. I tightened my jaw and pushed it one way down, as I had not done in years. Not now I would allow it to have its way.

The rebel scouts proceeded without a noise as dark shadows. Their torches danced in and out of the tree trunks, creating very long and dancing shadows. I obeyed, maintaining steady breathing, my senses observant.

“Do you feel it?” I spoke to Liam, but that hardly made me above the wind.

He shook his head. “Feel what?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. There was a flash of crimson at one side of my vision, so brief as to be imaginary. I knew better that there was something glimmering among the trees, nearly that of fire. Magic had its way of expressing itself in the shadows, a low beat which would be felt only by persons like myself. My pulse sped. This air smelled differently. Charged. Alive.

“Keep moving,” Liam muttered. Never let your fantasies play.

I would have been tempted to place an objection, when I saw again a twitching movement. And then it hit me, the scent.

Something impossible.

Familiar. Terrifying. I could feel my wolf screaming inside my chest, itching to find a way out, tearing apart, hunted. But I forced it down. Years of training had ensured that I hid this fact, and I had to suppress the wild and concentrate on the mission. And I could not have allowed Liam, or anybody--to see.

Then I saw him.

The woods appeared to grow still and frozen another beat, then the shadows sharpened around a colossal figure which came out of the gloom. The torchlight fell upon his eyes and glowed faintly gold in the moonlight. His wolf… my wolf… I froze.

Impossible.

“Liam…” It was a strangled kind of voice. “Do you see that?”

He looked and his forehead wrinkled. But his lips were frozen also. There was no mistaking it. The wolf, himself tall, broad, and unbelievably strong, was coming his way, with the predatory elegance. The scent hit me fully then. My stomach got into a knot, my breath seized.

It couldn’t be.

It was him.

Alpha Jayce.

I had been preparing for this all my life. I had fantasized the killing of him, and re-lived the evening at Ember Village through my mind till I could not pass the tree, that I could not enter the woods without knowing each disposition, each weakness. And now he was here. Real. Alive. Breathing. And my wolf knew him immediately.

It screamed within me, and shivered with anger, with terror, and with something. Something I refused to name.

Calm down, Liam, calm down, I said to myself, but I was hardly able to hear him. It was reduced to that solid-eyed predator coming my way and the air was full of danger and something. Something electric.

I slowly drew my dagger and took great care not to make any noise. I had shaky hands, and had to hold them steady. “I… I am able to manage this, I said to myself rather than to him.

No no Jayce, the wolf said to me, halted a few feet away. He examined me as a maze, head tipped, and eyes nipped. Sera, said he, low and rough, his voice gravel and honey mixed. You are not supposed to come here single-handedly.

My breath caught.

He knew my name.

“You…” I said hiss between my teeth. “You killed them. You—”

His mouth smiled the most slight smirk. “Did I?” His tone was mocking, threatening and exasperating. You have thought so all your years. But you’re here. Alive. And looking at me.”

I lifted the dagger still higher, and my hands were shaking. “You’ll pay for Ember Village.”

He threw back his head, with eyes blazing in the fire-light. “You’ll have to try.”

My chest gave a growl that was low and threatening. My wolf leaped, and my mind pulled out his claws, and just as he was about to leap I pushed him back. I would not give him that gratification. Not yet.

Then, before I could even make a strike, he was moving more quickly than I could see. His hand came out and hooked my wrist holding the dagger. Power such as I had never dreamed ran in his hand. My wolf screamed, and it wanted revenge.

Be careful, he said against my ear, lips touching my flesh, scratching and burning. “I can smell your wolf. I can smell me in you. Do you feel it?”

I recoiled, heart beating. “I… I feel nothing. Nothing but rage.”

He smiled and made a low laugh which made my blood run hot and cold at the same time. “Do you? Or do you not wish to own up what your wolf knows already?

I froze. My wolf trembled beneath the surface, torn between fear, anger, and something far darker. This was the moment I had trained for. The moment I had fantasized about. And yet… I couldn’t bring myself to hate him completely.

His gaze held me in place, eyes gleaming like molten gold. “You’re mine, Sera. Whether you fight it or not.”

I pulled my wrist free, backing away, but the truth clawed at me. My wolf howled, instincts screaming in both terror and longing. He smelled like fire, power, danger, and… home. And I hated him for it. Hated the way my chest ached, hated the way my skin warmed under his gaze.

“You think you can bind me?” I spat, voice trembling. “You don’t know me!”

His smirk widened. “I know enough.” He stepped closer, slow, deliberate, letting the tension coil between us like a drawn bowstring. “You can run. You can fight. But you can’t deny what’s coming.”

My pulse raced, fingers tightening around the dagger. My wolf roared, claws itching, ready to leap. But the moment stretched, frozen, as if the world itself waited for my next move.

I had trained for this moment. Every nightmare, every day of hiding, every ounce of rage, I was ready.

And then, the forest seemed to shrink around us. The scent of magic, the flicker of crimson light I had seen before, it pulsed stronger now, tying me to something I didn’t understand. My wolf trembled with recognition.

He saw it too. His gaze flicked toward the same shadow. “Do you feel that?” he asked, almost softly.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My mind was spinning with fear, fury, and something else… something I refused to name.

Then, without warning, he moved closer. Not threateningly, not violently, but close enough that I could see the faint curve of his jaw, the dangerous set of his shoulders, the way his eyes glimmered gold in the torchlight.

“You can try to run,” he whispered, voice low, hypnotic, deadly. “But you’re mine. Fireborn.”