Mated To The Supreme Alpha King

Escaping Banishment

Celine

The cell is a tomb of stone and shadow, the air thick with mold and despair. I scream until my throat bleeds, raw cries for Mother echoing off the damp walls.

My nails scrape against the rough stone, splintering, tearing, until blood streaks down my fingertips and smears the walls like accusations.

She was my mother. My guiding moon. The one who braided my hair under starlight, humming ancient songs, teaching me to hear the pack’s heartbeats woven into the wind. I would have clawed my own heart out before ever laying a hand on her.

Why me? The question loops, vicious and endless.

They all saw how she held me closer than anyone, how our wolves sang in harmony. Father knew. He knew. Yet he handed me to Kael like I was nothing, seconds after crowning him Alpha.

Exhaustion finally drags me under. I collapse on the freezing floor, my tears drying into salt on my cheeks.

Hours later, or even days, the iron door grinds open, metal screeching against stone. Torchlight spills in, carving his silhouette from the darkness.

Kael.

Even without seeing his face, his scent floods the cell: pine, smoke, and that new, biting cold.

I scramble to my feet, my legs trembling, bracing for whatever comes next.

“You were the last to leave her bedroom,” he says, his voice a low rumble that cuts through the damp air like a silver blade, cold and unforgiving. “You served her dinner. Why would you kill her?”

The question lands like a slap. He believes it. He actually believes it.

My chest caves in. “Maybe you should tell me why you all think I did,” I snap, my voice shaking with fury and hurt. “You didn’t even hesitate before throwing me down here. What makes you think I could ever kill my own mother?”

“Shut. Up.” He orders. “You will address me as Alpha if you want to keep breathing.”

I laugh loudly. “As if banishment is any better than death.”

He steps closer, the shadows clinging to him like armor. The torchlight catches his eyes, dark with no emotions inside them.

“We all know why you did it,” he remarks, his voice quiet now, deadly. “You thought poisoning her would force my hand and make me claim you. You’ve always wanted to be Luna, Celine. Even if it meant stepping over your mother’s corpse to get there.”

The words hit harder than any fist. My breath catches, turning sharp and painful.

I stare at him, searching for the lie, for the Kael who once looked at me like I was the only light in his world.

There’s nothing there but contempt.

“You really think that of me?” I gasp, the words scraping out like broken glass. “After everything?”

He leans in, close enough that I feel the heat of his breath, close enough that his scent nearly drowns me all over again. A cruel smile curls the corner of his mouth.

“You think we can ever be mates?” he taunts, his voice soft and venomous. “I rejected you, Celine. Years ago. I didn’t need words for you to feel it. You were just too blind and desperate to notice.”

The confession lands like claws ripping through my chest. All those stolen glances, every lingering look I hoarded like treasure; he’d been pushing me away the entire time, and I’d mistaken silence for longing.

“You’re heartless,” I choke out, tears burning hot down my cheeks.

His smile fades into something colder. “But I can be merciful when I choose.” He straightens, towering over me in the flickering torchlight.

“Confess. Admit you poisoned her. Say the words, and I’ll accept you as my mate. We’ll rule the ArrowFang Pack together side by side with you as my Luna.”

The offer hangs between us, sickening and glittering. Everything I once dreamed of, handed to me like a noose disguised as a crown.

I gather the blood and spit in my mouth and launch it straight into his face.

It lands on his cheek, stark red against pale skin, but he doesn’t flinch or wipes it away. He just stares down at me, his eyes narrowed to onyx slits.

For one heartbeat, the cell is perfectly still. Then he turns and walks out.

The iron door slams shut with a finality that rattles my bones. I sink to my knees in the dark, the taste of my own defiance bitter on my tongue.

I curl into the corner of the cell, my arms wrapped around my ribs as if I could hold myself together.

I reach inward for her, my wolf, my constant shadow, the wild heartbeat that’s lived under my skin since I first shifted. But all I feel is nothing, a hollow ache where she should be.

I reach again, desperate, clawing through the fog of grief and exhaustion.

‘Come back. Please. I need you.’

Silence. An emptiness so vast it feels like part of my soul has been carved out. She’s gone..The truth crashes over me like ice water. Banishment severs the wolf.

Sometimes it returns when the sentence is lifted. Sometimes it never does. I don’t know which fate is mine, but the loss hits harder than any physical wound I’ve ever taken.

It’s a tearing, burning agony deep in my bones, as though every shift I ever made is being undone all at once.

My skin feels too tight, my blood too thin, my chest a cavern that echoes with nothing.

A broken sound escapes me. A hoarse, barely human sound. I have no strength left to scream, just this ragged cry that scrapes my throat and dies against the stone.

My mother. My pack. My wolf. Everything that made me whole ripped away in a single night.

I press my forehead to the cold floor, tears soaking the dirt beneath me, and for the first time, I truly understand what it means to be empty.

In that hollow darkness, something shifts inside me. No more begging. No more waiting for mercy that will never come.

I have to run.

Kael wears the Alpha title now, and he will make me pay for every second I defy him. He’ll drag this out, break me piece by piece, parade my suffering until the pack forgets I was ever one of them.

I see it in the ice of his eyes, the cruel twist of his mouth when I spat in his face. He wants me on my knees, but I won’t give him that.

My wolf is gone, torn away with the first whisper of banishment, but I’m still a daughter of the ArrowFangPack. I still know every hidden passage in this house, every loose stone in these old cells, every guard rotation my mother made me memorize “just in case.”

I drag myself upright, my palms slick with blood and grime. The pain of losing my mother, my wolf and my home still claws at my chest, but I shove it down deep. Grief will have to wait.

Survival comes first.

I begin pressing along the walls. My fingers probe every seam,l and every rough edge.

I chant out loud as I feel the walls: cold, solid. Cold. Solid… There.

Behind the rusted water bucket, a section of mortar crumbles under my palm. I dig harder, my nails splitting, blood slicking the stone. A loose block shifts, then another.

I throw my shoulder against it. The wall gives with a low groan, stones tumbling outward into moonlight.

Fresh night air floods in, sharp with frost and pine. I squeeze through the narrow gap, scraping skin from my arms and ribs, and tumble onto frozen grass outside the pack house walls.

For one heartbeat I lie there, staring up at the moon, Mother’s moon, tears freezing on my lashes.

Then I get up and run like I've never done before.

I no longer have my wolf to lend me speed, or the pack bond to guide me, just raw will and fear for my life driving me into the black heart of the woods.

Behind me, the ArrowFang stronghold looms silent, but I know it's only a matter of time before they’ll come for me.

My legs burn, my lungs screaming for air I can’t give them. Every step drains me further; without my wolf, there’s no surge of strength, no endless well of power.

I don’t stop. The forest is a blur of black trunks and silver moonlight, branches whipping my face, tearing at my already shredded skin.

Then my foot catches on a gnarled, hidden tree root. The world tilts violently. I pitch forward, arms flailing for balance that isn’t there. My body hits the slope hard and I’m rolling, tumbling down an unseen incline like a broken doll thrown aside.