Broken Luna, Unbreakable Bond

CHAPTER 3: BROKEN MERCY

Mei Ling POV

I wake up in a bed that is not mine, in a room that is not mine, with a man watching me that I have spent three months trying to forget.

Amar sits in a chair near the window, perfectly still. His ice blue eyes are fixed on me, never blinking, and they are not cold anymore. They are burning with an intensity that frightens me.

I try to move, but my body does not want to cooperate. Everything hurts.

"How long?" I ask. My voice is hoarse from not using it. "How long have I been here?"

"Four days," he says quietly. "You have been here for four days, and you have been unconscious for almost all of it."

I try to remember how I got here, but everything is fuzzy. I remember being in the alley. I remember the cold concrete against my skin. I remember the pain in my stomach from hunger. I remember thinking I was going to die alone.

And then I remember his arms around me. I remember feeling safe for the first time in months. I remember his rage when he saw what had been done to me.

"You were dying," Amar says, and his voice is flat, controlled, but I can hear the anger underneath. "Your pack left you to become a rogue. They beat you. They starved you. And you did not even fight back."

It is not a question, so I do not answer.

Amar stands up from his chair and walks to the window. He looks out at the forest beyond, his shoulders tense.

"Look at me," he says, and again, I cannot refuse. The Alpha command in his voice is too strong.

I look at him.

"I made a mistake," he says slowly, like each word is painful for him to say. "Three months ago, I rejected you. It was the wrong thing to do. I was wrong."

My heart starts to race.

"You said—" I start, but my voice breaks.

"I know what I said," he interrupts. He turns away from the window to face me. "I said I did not accept you. That you were weak and worthless and beneath me."

Tears start to fill my eyes.

"I was wrong," he says again. "I was wrong, and I have been paying for that mistake every single day."

He walks to the bed and sits down carefully, like I might break.

"I felt the mate bond the moment I saw you," Amar says, and his voice is raw with emotion now. "And it scared me. Because my last mate died, Mei Ling. And the bond with her killed me too. She got poisoned by a rogue hunter, and because of our mate bond, when she died, part of me died with her. I swore after that, no more bonds. No more mates. No more weakness."

He reaches out and touches my face gently, and where his fingers touch my skin, I feel warmth spread through me.

"But you are not weak," he continues. "You survived when anyone else would have given up. You endured pain that should have broken anyone. You did not fight back not because you were weak, but because you were wise enough to know when fighting would only make things worse. That is not weakness. That is survival. That is strength."

"I am still weak," I whisper. "Look at me. I cannot even protect myself."

"You are going to heal," Amar says, and his voice is certain, strong, absolute. "And when you heal, I am going to teach you to be strong. Real strong. The kind of strong that nobody can ever take from you again."

"Why?" I ask. "After you rejected me? Why would you care?"

"Because," he says, and for the first time, I see something soft in those ice blue eyes. Something that looks like love. "You are my second chance. And I am not going to waste it."

He reaches out and touches my face again, and his touch is gentle and warm and safe.

"Rest," he says. "When you are stronger, your real training begins. And Mei Ling?"

"Yes?" I whisper.

"Nobody is ever going to hurt you again. I swear it on my life. On my pack. On everything I am."

For the first time since I was a little girl, I believe someone when they promise me safety.

But that night, while Amar is downstairs, I overhear him talking to his Beta, Ravi, in the hallway outside my room.

"We have a problem," Ravi is saying, and his voice sounds worried. "Someone from her old pack is claiming that Mei Ling is not who she says she is. He is saying that her father hid something. Something very big."

"Like what?" Amar asks.

"Like the fact that her real mother was a royal from the Eastern Pack," Ravi says quietly. "And that Mei Ling has a claim to their throne. If that is true, then she is not just a wolf. She is royalty."

My blood goes cold.

No. It cannot be true.

"If that is true," Amar says slowly, "then every pack that finds out about her will want her dead or enslaved. The Eastern Pack does not share power. They kill anyone who is a threat to their throne."

"Exactly," Ravi says. "Which means the moment any other pack finds out she is here, we are at war. Every pack in the region will be hunting her."

I pull the blanket over my head and try to stop shaking.

I thought I was running from my past.

But my past is much darker and more dangerous than I ever imagined.

And now, the man who rejected me is the only thing standing between me and complete destruction.