The Rogue and His Hunter Mate

Jake POV I once lived a happy life. I was with my family and had found my mate. We were just starting to plan our life together: where we would live, where we would work, and how many pups we wanted. We spoke about a great many things and were just waiting for our appointment with the Alpha to approve us moving into our first home. My pack was ruled with an iron fist, which my mate found very difficult to handle at first, but she quickly adapted. Her name was Lily, and she was the most beautiful she-wolf I have ever seen. She had beautiful auburn hair and eyes so blue I felt like I was looking at the sea every time I looked into them. We were happy together, until that fateful day. Lily and I had met when I was out hunting and she was traveling to her friend's pack. We got talking and marked each other then and there before she carried on her journey. When I got home and told my friends and family I had found my mate, they did not believe me, even when I showed them the mark. What I never noticed was that when I showed the mark, my brother Luke went to his friends and started ranting and raving about how I was undeserving of a mate and how he wanted to take her from me. He hadn't even seen her yet. But when he did, his words quickly changed to actions. A few days after marking her, my mate arrived at our boundary line asking for me. We then quickly moved in together once her pack and family had been informed. They forwarded on her belongings and came to visit us. Her family was so friendly and welcomed me warmly into their family. Luke took an instant liking to Lily, but I knew that she would always remain faithful to me; she never struck me as the kind to cheat. And if she did, I would know—the pain from our bond would be excruciating. That’s the curse of the mating bond: if one is unfaithful, the other mate will feel the cheating. The pain is unbearable, often resulting in the mate's death if the cheating is a common occurrence, as it eats away at the wolf’s soul. Lily quickly became my light in the dark; everything in my life became better when she entered it. I was able to do my job better, I became a better person, and I even made more friends. The room always seemed to fill with joy whenever Lily entered. She became my heart and soul. A few days before the event, Lily and I had been speaking as she found out that she was pregnant with my pup. The pregnancy was only in the early stages, so things could still go wrong, but we were delighted. We decided to keep the news to ourselves for the time being, both of us relishing in the fact that we would soon be parents. But my brother took that from me. He r***d and killed my mate in a brutal fashion, telling me that she had been calling for me right up to her last breath, begging me to save her. When I found her, my mind broke. I went mad. I lost my mate and my pup, all in one go. And the person responsible? My own brother. My mind went into overdrive, and I just lost who I was. Luke and his friends managed to get hold of me, then used my madness to explain how my mate had died—they claimed that they saw me forcefully mate with her and then kill her because she refused me. I have no idea how Luke managed to get everyone to believe that, but he did. Even our parents believed what Luke said, disregarding that we were happy together and always seen being affectionate to each other. I loved Lily with all of my heart and being, and the fact that everyone could believe I could be so evil really hit me hard. It turned out that even though I had grown up in the pack, and had worked hard and trained even harder to keep others safe, everyone thought the worst of me. My parents believing it hit me hardest of all, I think. When I turned to them for help, they turned their back on me. I just hoped that one day the truth would come out, but above all, I wished for my death so I could be with my Lily again. Luke and his friends hid me in a warehouse where they would inflict pain on me and my wolf to keep us mad and angry. The hatred that seeped into my heart was planted there by my own brother, who always inflicted the most pain, saying that I was the hated and unwanted child of the family, and that if only I had given Lily up to him, then she would still be alive. While I was in that warehouse, I came to realize a lot of things. One thing being that Luke was the one behind all of my misery. All the times I lost my jobs, my friends, got beaten up, and even that one time when I was poisoned with wolfsbane—it all came down to when Luke got involved in my life. We were brothers, but for some reason, Luke always wanted me to be at rock bottom. When I had found my mate before he found his, I think that was the turning point for Luke, as he then had to get rid of me. The happiness I shared with Lily was too much for Luke to bear. And when he approached Lily, she turned him down, saying that she loved me and wanted to be with me. Luke thought I did not know, but Lily and I never kept secrets, and she told me what had transpired between them that day: that when she turned to leave, Luke pulled her back and tried to forcibly take her. That was one of the reasons why we were considering moving packs and raising our pup away from Luke. After a few days, the madness took full control, and I felt like my wolf and I had been pushed back into our mind, neither one of us able to break free. My wolf wanted me to come forward and take control; he didn’t like that his mind was being warped by our brother and his wolf. He wanted to be free again. Then one day, my brother came in and released me from the chains. He and his friends marched me through town and to the Alpha’s home, where he presented me as a criminal and claimed that he had found me in the woods hiding like a coward. I tried to refute the claims Luke was making but was silenced by an Alpha command. I was not even allowed to defend myself; instead, I had to stand there in silence and listen to the accusation without any defense. The Alpha and Luna were taken in by these claims and sentenced me to death. Luke and his friends tortured me before I managed to break free. The loss of my mate and pup followed by the torture had sent my wolf mad, and he attacked people and homes, seeing them as betraying us after all of them turned their back on him. Luke’s wolf ended up chasing me off the pack’s territory, which was a blessing and a curse. I could no longer go home, but it also meant that I would no longer be reminded of my mate. Just as I escaped the pack boundary, Luke threw a knife at me, and it hit me in the side. I screamed and fell to the ground before I felt Luke pull it out and laugh at me, leaving me where I fell. I have no idea how long I laid there, but after a while, I managed to control the pain as I felt the wound slowly heal itself. When the pain was to a point where I could move, I got back up on my feet and stumbled forward a few steps before I felt another pain wrack my body. I felt when the Alpha broke the pack bond with me and branded me as a rogue. It hurt like hell, but nowhere near as much as when I lost my mate. To show the pack what they had done, I let out one howl that was filled with sadness and agony. It shared my pain and brokenness. The howls that followed from the pack was shocking; they howled in support of me rather than against me. But I quickly took off, not wanting to remain in such a place or pack any longer. My wolf and I decided then that we would focus on ourselves, keep ourselves alive, and then work out what to do once we were somewhat on our feet. We ran into the forest and never looked back at our home. Our friends and family forsake us, we had nothing but each other, and I was scared, but our will to live was stronger than it had ever been. I cried at night for what I had lost: my mate, my home, and my possible pups. I had died the day my mate was killed and again when I left the pack. But I never knew how true that was until a few years later. My life has been reduced to nothing, all because my brother killed my mate. No matter how much I racked my brain, I could not think of one reason as to why Luke would kill her. There was no reason; he didn’t gain anything. It has been a few years since then. I have learned to hunt and cook the meat to eat, how to make any place a home, and got odd jobs where and when I can to buy proper food and other utensils and essentials. My wolf disappeared for a while after the knife incident, but he reappeared about a year and a half later. I just laid low for that time, not wanting to draw attention to myself without my wolf. When I got him back, he felt different, but I was just glad to have him back with me again. When I did once manage to settle down, I was run out of town by a group of wolves who had found out about my past. No one tried to stop them when they beat me, took everything, and then threw me over the boundary to die. I managed to live, though, and spent a few months hidden in forests and anywhere I could find where no one would find me. Eventually, I went back to odd jobs as I moved around until I came upon a deserted area in a forest which looked like it had once housed someone. There was a place for a fire to cook, benches, even a bed and moth-eaten covers. But never look a gift horse in the mouth. I took what I could get. I visit the nearby town to get odd jobs and buy food. Many know I am a rogue, but the town seems more welcoming than any other place I have been since I left my pack. So now here I am, living in a cave in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere. My home sweet home, as they say.