Aria's Revenge

CHAPTER ONE

Aria's POV

Raven's Peak was drenched in a silvery light, widening my unease with them as it seemed to magnify. The pack, assembled around the clearing, low murmurs between them in the silence, the tension hanging over the air. This was supposed to be an ordinary pack meeting, but there was something about the air tonight. My heart beat against my ribs as I scanned the room for eyes, some pitying, some contemptuous.

I searched for Ryder, my Alpha, my mate. I’d felt the bond between us, a bond that sputtered like a burning flame. However, it had recently been faint, like it was slowly extinguishing. But now, standing on my own, without that bond. When he finally poked his head out of the shadows, I leaped with my heart. I had a moment of foolish hope.

His tall frame demanded respect; his cold gaze landed on me, and he strode into the center of the circle. A shiver crawled up my spine as the silence that followed his presence was palpable. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something in his eyes that showed that he wasn’t the man I thought I knew.

His voice echoed across the clearing; "Aria," he said. “Step forward.”

His tone was not warm, but rather icy, commanding. I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped forward, looking at him, confused, but hopeful. “Ryder, what’s going on?”

The look on his face was foreign, he sneered. "What's going on, Aria? You mean you don't know?"

A dread as thick as a serpent about to strike coiled within me and I shook my head. I felt myself shrinking under the weight of their eyes, the pack burning into my skin as they judged me, confused me, and accused me silently.

The silence was broken by Ryder’s voice, like a blade. “She was the woman who betrayed her family, her pack.” His gaze shifted to the pack. “We didn't know what they were feeding Aria. But she has been consorting with rogues, giving them information about our patrols, our weaknesses. She has put our safety at risk.”

I could barely breathe, and the shock had paralyzed me for a moment. Each syllable felt like a sharp jab to my heart, his words felt like an attack. "What? That’s… that’s not true, Ryder, I would never betray my pack, you know that."

But he didn't waver. His face was stone-cold, indifferent. "I have proof, Aria. That should be enough to condemn you as a traitor."

"Proof?" I struggled to wrap my mind around the lie and whispered. Two pack members stepped forward and each one held a tattered map marked with territories and our patrol routes. I knew I'd never seen them before, but they were maps only pack members had access to.

“Recognize these?” He held them up and demanded. “They were in a rogue camp not too far from here. How did they get there?”

I studied the maps again, then looked back at him. "This isn’t mine. I don’t know how… I swear, Ryder, I swear, I had nothing to do with this."

Skepticism and anger simmered just below the surface of the crowd as a murmur went through. They believed him. I could see the change in their eyes from support to suspicion to disdain. I turned to face the faces I’d known my whole life, hoping for a spark of loyalty, hoping for someone to stand with me, to ask Ryder’s words. What I saw was judgment and betrayal.

My voice cracked, “I would never do that. Ryder, I beg you to just believe me, please.”

A twisted satisfaction flickered in his eyes, another tremor through me. His face was a mask of mock sympathy, but he stepped closer. “You'd believe a traitor? I may be your Alpha, but I’m not going to let one weak link take my pack down."

Desperate for some proof, I tried to reach for his hand to let him know I still felt the bond and that he could hear my sincerity. His gaze cold as ice, he pulled away. “You are nothing to me, Aria. I reject you as my mate, and I reject you from this pack.”

The words smacked me in the face like a physical blow and I couldn't breathe. Rejected by my fated mate, the one whose voice cut with nothing but cold words and colder accusations. I felt like the earth itself shifted underneath me, leaving me somewhat unanchored.

I choked, tears burning through my eyes, “You… you can’t do this. You’re my mate.”

He sneered, glancing away. “Not anymore. “From today onwards, you are nothing, Aria, you’re a rogue.’”

A few of the gathered pack began to stir, averting their eyes, unwilling to see what was coming next. Two guards came, grabbing my arms roughly. Ryder’s lips curled into a cruel smirk, and I knew with horrifying clarity that he wanted this. He wanted to see me humiliated and cast out like a criminal.

His voice was devoid of compassion. "Take her to the border. Let her live or die as she has chosen. The rogues can have her now.”

But first, they pulled me away from him, and I fought; my heart was beating a wild tempo, terror and desperation beating to the sound. “Ryder!” I struggled against the guards, shouting. “Please! You know me! You know I would never…”

He turned his back on me, and I pleaded, but he ignored me like I did not even exist. The familiar scents of the home were slowly replaced with the stale stench of rogue land, and I was hauled to the edge of our territory. My heart clawed at fear and my mind raced with disbelief and betrayal. My punishment was to be thrown to the rogues. I became one of the very creatures he accused me of conspiring with.

The guards let me go at the border and I fell to my knees and couldn’t stand. I was hollowed out, a hollow emptiness gnawing at me, trying to consume me. My eyes stung with unshed tears as I stared back at the pack territory, the place I’d called home.

The guards didn’t say a word; they just turned their backs and left me in the darkness.

The final howl that tore through the air was a cry by my former pack as they broke the final ties forbidding them to leave me in the wilderness and be alone. My heart broke again as I watched them disappear.

The shadows were closing in, and I knew what my new existence meant. I was no longer with the Raven’s Peak. No longer Aria, the Alpha’s mate.

I was a rogue. Abandoned, betrayed, alone.

I swore to survive, and at that moment, under the cold gaze of the full moon. No matter what it took.