The Mate I Was Never Meant To Have

"I, Alpha Kael Blackwood, reject you as my mate." The words didn't just hurt, they had a physical weight to them, like a stone falling into the middle of the pack square. For a moment, the only sound was the sharp, collective intake of breath from a hundred people. Then the change occurred. The crowd leaned in. A few turned away, uneasy with the extreme sensitivity it had shown. Most just observed with the cold interest of someone seeing a car accident. I stood rigid in the center of the chalk-drawn mating circle. The dust from the evening air appeared to cover the back of my throat and stop me from speaking let alone breathing. My mate, the destined match the elders constantly gushed about with hushed respect, the Moon Goddess's real gift, was tossing me away before the ink on his alpha ascension had even dried. "No..." My lips hardly said the syllable, a weak, sad sound I immediately regretted. Kael's eyes stayed wide. His jaw was set, his features etched from the same harsh, uncompromising stone as the mountains encircling the Mooncrest territory. In his eyes, there was not the smallest bit of remorse. He looked at me like a landlord viewing a bad tenant. "You heard me," he said, his voice carrying clearly over the quiet square. After that came the snap. Though not loud, it felt like a steel cable inside my chest breaking under stress. Our unseen, recently created link over our souls broke. A white-hot spike of agony drove straight through my ribs, forcing a small, choked gasp from my throat. I stumbled back a step, my boots scuffing the dirt, my hands flying to my sternum as if I could actually keep the parts of my spirit intact. Nobody came to assist me. Nobody entered the circle. Why should they? I was an omega, an orphan whose lineage ended at the cemetery gates. Beside Kael, Selena Thorn shifted her weight. Selena was the daughter of a nearby Alpha, sleek, polished, and with the natural confidence of someone who had never had to seek permission to exist. A slow, private smile gently touched Selena's lips. It was not a hurtful sneer but rather something worse. Kael moved just one step closer, closing the space between us. A ridiculous, desperate hope exploded in my breast for a fraction of a second. "He's going to take it back. It's just a test," I thought. Rather, he bent down, his voice falling to a low, deadly murmur intended just for my ears. "You can never be my mate. Look at you, Aria. You're a liability." The words dissolved deep into me. The little pride I still possessed turned to ash. The crowd started murmurring. People turned to one another, assessing the consequences of the spell broken. I didn't linger to hear what they were saying. I just and started running. Nobody said my name. Within minutes I disappeared beneath the tree line. I ran blindly, ignoring the low-hanging branches that ripped at my woolen jumper and slapped across my face. The physical discomfort was a faint thud in comparison to the raging fire in my chest. Every breath felt like inhaling shattered glass. "Why?" Every stride I made raised the question's rhythm against my skull. "Why then give me the bond if I was meant to be rejected? Why give me a glimpse of belonging before tossing me back into the dark?" I wondered. I did not stop until my lungs were burning. I collapsed by the edge of the rushing boundary stream. Dropping to my knees in the wet moss, I gazed down at my reflection in the dark water. The moonlight highlighted the tear marks on my face, which made me look tiny, pale, and damaged. "Are you happy now?" I murmured to the deserted forest, my words thick with rage. The trees gave no consolation, only the slow, unconcerned flow of the water over stones. The rhythm of the trees then changed. I froze as my breath caught my throat. My ears moved to battle the background sound of the stream. I heard clear sound of a dry branch giving way under a lot of weight. It was not an animal. It was too much weight and too deliberate. I shot to my feet and moved away from the water's edge until my shoulders met the rough bark of an ancient pine. "Who's there?" There was silence. Then another snap, this time closer, with a sound that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. Although the Mooncrest borders were meant to be guarded, an omega by herself at midnight posed a simple target. A second later I felt the smell—sour, metallic, and heavy with decaying flesh and old sweat. I knew they were rogues. A quiet growl to my left moved through the undergrowth. Then another one from the right replied. A third answered from the darkness right in front of me. They were cutting off my route back to the pack grounds by circling me. Among the ferns, two sets of brilliant, blood-red eyes penetrate the gloom. Then three more shun also. The lead wolf stepped into the faint moonlight. It was a large, manged beast, its gray fur missing in patches where harsh pink scars crossed its shoulders. Its jaws had strands of thick, dark saliva hanging from them, and the stench of new copper clung to its snout. Recently eaten, but evidently not satisfied. Already weakened from the severed mate connection, my inner wolf whimpered. There was no fighting this nor running from it either. A pack of beasts who had long-since lost their humanity, pushed me against the water. The lead rogue drooped its head, its shoulders tightening up ready for a spring. I closed her eyes, my hands grasping the rough bark behind me. I waited for the impact, the teeth, the last numbness. Rather, a sound like lightning hitting wood ripped across the clearing. It was a deep, guttural roar that vibrated right through the soles of my boots and shook the leaves from the canopy. It was not a typical wolf's howl. A significant collision shook the ground. I barely opened my eyes to watch the lead rogue flying backward across the air and collide with a large oak with a dull, sickening thud. The beast did not rise once more. Its neck was bent at an impossible angle. The creek was covered by a heavy, stifling silence. The last three rogues immediately dropped their tails, their violent postures crumbling into scared whimpers. Their trembling was so strong their claws scraped against the rocks. A man rose from the dark brush shadows. His dark, utilitarian clothes appeared to absorb the light. Though his hair was as black as pitch, it was his eyes that stole my breath away; they were a piercing, molten gold, burning with an old, frightening intensity I had never seen in any alpha. . The stranger ignored me. He first looked at the deceased wolf, then moved his golden eyes to the other three. "Leave," he remarked. He kept silent. He did not growl. Though a flat, muted command, it had the weight of an absolute law. The rogues had no second thoughts. They scattered like rats, turning and running into the undergrowth. I stood immobile against the tree, my heart thumping against my ribs so powerfully that it was disorienting. "Who..." I voice cracked, failing me. The stranger eventually turned his head, his golden eyes fixed on me. A shock went through my spine the second our eyes met. The intense, excruciating heat of the mate bond I had felt earlier was absent. This was unique. It was a low, resonant buzz that felt like it vibrated in my bones—an old, heavy, dangerous feeling that aroused my wolf from its panicked coma. The man's eyes narrowed a little, a tiny change in his face showing that he, too, felt it. The moonlight caught the sharp contours of his face as he made a slow, deliberate stride ahead. He was very attractive, but in a way that felt predatory, like a gorgeous knife. A few feet distant he paused to study my face. His voice was a deep, resonant rumble that sent an odd chill down my spine. "So," he said softly. "At last we found you." I gasped, my thoughts racing as I pushed myself harder against the tree. "Found me?" I wondered. He watched me, not with sympathy, and not with the dismissal I was used to, but with the strong, unrelenting concentration of a man who had at last located a reward he had been seeking for a very long time.