Chapter Eight
766 Words
I pace the length of the stone room, my footsteps echoing off the walls. Each step is measured, deliberate, as if testing the new strength in my limbs. The man with golden eyes watches me silently, his gaze tracking my movements with an intensity that should make me uncomfortable but somehow doesn't.
"I could die," I finally say, the words hanging in the air between us. Not a question, but an acknowledgment of the truth I'm still struggling to accept.
"Yes," he answers simply. No sugar-coating, no false assurances. There's something almost refreshing about his bluntness, even as it sends a chill through me.
I stop pacing and face him directly. "Tell me everything. No more half-truths or evasions. What exactly am I becoming? What happened to the wolf that bit me? Why did he choose me?"
The man with golden eyes doesn't flinch under my direct gaze. Instead, he moves further into the room with that same fluid grace I'd noticed before—not quite human, but not entirely animal either.
"You're becoming what we are," he says, gesturing vaguely to himself. "A werewolf, though that term hardly captures the complexity of it. We are not the monsters of human folklore, cursed to transform only under the full moon. We are something older, something that exists in balance between two natures."
I cross my arms, trying to steady myself against the weight of his words. "And the wolf that bit me?"
A shadow crosses his face. "An Alpha. One of the most powerful of our kind. He's been... unstable since his chosen mate rejected him.” The man paused looking at me before continuing, “Though, it seems he saw something in you, or at least his wolf did, and bite you to make you his mate.”
I freeze, the words "make you his mate" echoing in my mind like a thunderclap. My pulse quickens, and I'm suddenly aware of a strange sensation deep within me—a pull, a recognition of something I don't understand.
"Make me his mate," I repeat, my voice barely above a whisper. "As in...what, exactly? Some kind of supernatural arranged marriage?"
The man's expression doesn't change, but something in his eyes softens slightly. "It's more complex than that. The bond between mates runs deeper than human relationships. It's primal, instinctive—a connection that exists on both the human and wolf level."
I wrap my arms tighter around myself, as if I could physically hold my body together while my mind threatens to splinter. "And I don't get a say in this? He just...decides I'm his, and that's it?"
The man's jaw tightens slightly. "The bite initiates the possibility. It doesn't complete the bond."
I let out a bitter laugh. "How generous of him."
"You don't understand—" he begins, but I cut him off.
"You're right. I don't understand any of this." My voice rises with each word, frustration and fear boiling over. "I don't understand why some wild, unstable wolf decided to turn me into—into this. I don't understand why I'm not dead. And I certainly don't understand why I'm expected to just accept being someone's 'mate' when I didn't ask for any of this!"
To my surprise, the man doesn't react to my outburst with anger. Instead, he watches me with that same measured gaze, as if he's evaluating something in me.
"No one is expecting you to accept anything yet," he says after a moment, his voice calm. "The bond can only be completed with mutual consent. What the Alpha did was... unconventional. Dangerous. But not irreversible."
I narrow my eyes, not entirely trusting his words. "So I can just walk away? Go back to my life and pretend none of this happened?"
His expression shifts, almost imperceptibly. "It's not that simple. The change has already begun in you. You can't undo what's been done to your body, your senses. But the mate bond—that remains incomplete."
I take a deep breath, trying to process this. "Who are you, exactly? And why are you helping me?"
He studies me for a long moment before answering. "My name is Levi. I'm the Beta of our pack—second in command. My Alpha is the one that bite you.”
I staired at the man before me, my anger starting to come to the surface as a growl came from my throat. Then it seemed like I blacked out from the anger because I was pinned to the floor in the next second, blinking and trying to figure out what just happened.
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