Fated to Break Open

Chapter 4

VALIK POV

Sleep eluded me.

I lay in the dark with my eyes open, listening to the pack settle around me and pretending the ache in my chest was something I could ignore.

It did not work.

The house had gone quiet hours ago. Outside, the territory breathed in familiar patterns—distant footsteps on patrol, the low call of a night bird, the wind combing through the pines beyond my window. Sounds I knew. Sounds that had steadied me through years of leadership, war, grief, and recovery.

Tonight, none of them reached me.

Only her.

Not her voice that I hadn’t heard.

Not her name that I didn’t know.

Just the pull.

A low, merciless thread beneath my ribs, tugging in the direction of the infirmary. Insistent. Patient. Certain in a way I refused to be.

My jaw tightened.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

I had never wished for another mate.

Never desired to be brought back to the edge of something fate had already used once to hollow me out. The bond was not a blessing. Not always. Wolves dressed it up as sacred because we needed to believe the thing that chose us knew better than we did.

But bonds did not choose wisely.

Wolves did.

And mine had already chosen wrong once.

Heat crawled beneath my skin, slow at first, then sharper. Restless. Unwanted. My body felt too tight, too aware, like every nerve had turned toward a girl lying unconscious under Heather’s watch.

My fingers curled into the sheets.

The fabric tore softly beneath my grip.

I forced my hand open.

No.

I would not go to her.

I would not stand beside that bed like some half-starved beast, guarding a woman I did not know because fate had snapped a chain around my throat and called it destiny.

My wolf paced beneath my skin.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Silent no longer.

He had been quiet when I carried her into the infirmary. Watching. Waiting. Assessing what I refused to understand.

Now he wanted.

The wanting was the problem.

It rose through me in waves, heating my blood until every breath felt too shallow. My chest ached with the need to move. To return. To check her breathing. To scent her properly. To know exactly where she was, who stood near her, whether she had woken, whether she was afraid.

A growl slipped out before I could stop it.

Low.

Rough.

Mine, but not entirely.

I closed my eyes.

The darkness did not help.

It only gave memory more room.

Victoria.

The name surfaced unbidden, unwelcome.

My wolf’s pacing slowed.

Then sharpened.

Even now, after all this time, there was a part of me that remembered her as she had been before. Sweet in public. Bright in private. Laughing with her head tipped back, red hair catching sunlight like flame. She had been beautiful. Everyone had thought so.

I had thought so.

The bond had found her and, like a fool, I had trusted it.

At first, she had seemed happy beside me. Proud, even. She liked the title. The respect. The way heads turned when she entered a room on my arm. She liked being Luna when it looked like reverence.

She did not like the weight.

The meetings bored her.

The injured made her uncomfortable.

The old wolves asking for judgment, the young ones needing guidance, the endless small duties that made a pack function before anyone ever raised a blade—she began to avoid them one at a time.

A missed visit to the clinic.

A forgotten promise to the mothers whose mates were on border rotations.

A complaint about ceremonies running too long.

A smile that stayed fixed on her face until the doors closed, and then vanished like it had never been real.

I told myself she needed time.

I told myself the role was heavy.

I told myself a bond meant patience.

The distance grew so slowly I almost respected its cruelty.

By the time I understood it for what it was, she was already gone from me in every way that mattered.

My grip tightened again.

The sheets tore further.

I remembered the night she did not come home.

The first hour, I was irritated.

The second, concerned.

By the third, my wolf was at the door, pacing hard enough beneath my skin that I nearly shifted in my own hall.

Then it hit.

A sharp, slicing pain through the center of my chest.

Not physical.

Worse.

The bond had flared wide open, forcing me to feel what she had never had the decency to confess.

Pleasure.

Hers.

With someone else.

My wolf had howled so violently I thought it might split me in half.

I had gone still. Completely still. Standing in the dark of our room, one hand braced against the wall, feeling my mate give herself to another man while the bond dragged every second of it back to me like punishment.

I had asked her why.

That was all.

Not screamed. Not struck. Not begged.

Why.

Victoria had looked at me with eyes so calm they were almost bored.

“Because I wanted to.”

The memory still had teeth.

I turned onto my side, breath dragging harshly through my lungs.

She had not cried. Had not apologized. Had not even looked ashamed when I told her I had felt it.

“You were never going to give me the life I wanted,” she had said.

I remembered every word.

Every pause.

Every careless breath between them.

“You wanted a Luna. I wanted a life. A real one. Easy. Free. Beautiful. Not this.” Her eyes had swept the room then, the house, the territory beyond it, everything my blood had gone into protecting. “Not endless duties and hungry people and wolves who think sacrifice is romantic.”

Then she had smiled.

Small.

Cruel.

“You love responsibility, Valik. I don’t.”

Something inside me had closed that day.

Not broken.

Closed.

I let her go.

Not because the bond stopped hurting. It did not. It tore for months. It dragged at me every morning, every night, every time her absence pressed against the places she had once occupied.

But I had learned.

A mate could be chosen by fate and still be wrong.

A Luna could wear the title and still abandon the pack.

A bond could pull two people together and still leave one of them standing alone in the ruins.

My eyes opened.

The room around me came back slowly—the dark ceiling, the cold air, the torn sheets under my hands.

And now fate had placed another woman at my feet.

Barefoot.

Bloodied.

Terrified.

Barely mature enough for the bond to find her. Barely old enough for fate to decide she belonged to anyone.

My stomach tightened.

She was young. Too young for the weight that would come with me. Too unknown for trust. She had breached my boundary with danger behind her and secrets clinging to her skin. She did not know our laws. Our history. Our enemies. She had no pack scent, no claim, no marker I recognized.

How could I bring that into my life?

Into my pack?

How could I look at a girl who had collapsed from terror and pain and allow the bond to start shaping a future?

No.

The answer had to be no.

My wolf snarled.

The sound escaped my throat as a rough vibration that made the glass on the bedside table tremble.

I sat up, breathing hard.

“We can’t,” I whispered.

The words sounded too thin in the dark.

My wolf pressed against my ribs, furious and wounded, claws dragging along the inside of my restraint.

Mine.

“No.”

Mine.

“I said no.”

The room seemed to tighten around me.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and braced my elbows on my knees, head bowed, forcing air into my lungs one breath at a time. Control was not a feeling. It was a decision. One made over and over again until the body obeyed.

I had made it through worse.

I had survived Victoria.

I had rebuilt my pack’s faith after she left. I had stood in rooms full of wolves who pretended not to wonder what was wrong with an Alpha whose own mate had abandoned him. I had carried the shame because the title demanded I carry it quietly.

I would not let another bond make me reckless.

Not for a stranger.

Not for fate.

Not for the wolf inside me clawing at my chest like he would rather bleed than wait.

“She is not our responsibility,” I said.

The lie landed badly.

It cut through me the moment it left my mouth.

My wolf went still.

Not calm.

Hurt.

Then he growled so low the floor seemed to answer.

I closed my eyes.

It wasn’t just me I had to think about. That was the truth I held onto. The only one that mattered.

It was her.

It was the pack.

It was every wolf who would be forced to accept whatever choice I made because my blood carried authority over theirs.

I could not accept a bond without knowing who she was.

The thought should have steadied me.

Instead, something in my chest twisted harder.

Because the girl in the infirmary had not looked like Victoria.

She had looked terrified.

And when her eyes had found mine before she collapsed, there had been no greed in them. No calculation. No hunger for title or wealth or ease.

Only fear.

And something else.

Something my wolf had recognized before I could name it.

A soft sound slipped from my throat.

Not a growl this time.

Closer to a whimper.

I hated it.

I stood abruptly, pacing to the window. The territory lay dark beyond the glass, moonlight silvering the tops of the trees. Somewhere across the compound, Heather watched over the girl. Zach stood guard. The threat was contained.

It was fine.

It had to be fine.

My hand lifted toward the door before I realized what I was doing.

I stopped.

Slowly, deliberately, I lowered it.

“No,” I said again.

The bond pulled.

I refused it.

Minutes passed. Maybe longer.

Eventually the heat beneath my skin dulled from flame to ember. My wolf retreated, not surrendering, but waiting. I knew the difference. He would not forget her. He would not forgive me for leaving her alone.

But for the first time since midnight, I could breathe.

I returned to the bed.

Sat.

Then lay back down and stared at the ceiling until the shapes in the dark blurred at their edges.

I was almost asleep when footsteps approached.

Fast.

Too fast.

My eyes opened.

The door burst inward before I could speak.

A warrior stood in the doorway, breathless, mud streaked along the hem of his trousers, eyes bright with urgency.

“Alpha.”

I was already sitting up. “Report.”

“Beta Zach. He’s chasing after a wolf into the forest.”

The room went utterly still.

My head snapped toward him. “Alone?”

“Yes.”

A flash of irritation flared, sharp and immediate—but beneath it, something else surged.

The bond.

That same pressure in my chest, sudden and vicious, no longer patient.

Awake.

My fingers curled against the mattress.

No.

“She shifted?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They said a wolf crashed through the infirmary doors. Zach went after it.”

Something cold slid down my spine.

A wolf.

Not just a wolf.

Her.

My wolf slammed against my ribs hard enough that my breath caught.

I shut my eyes, fighting the order inside me.

She was not my responsibility.

She had run.

She had chosen escape.

Zach was capable. He was trained. He knew the territory. He could handle one frightened wolf long enough for backup to—

A memory flashed.

Barefoot.

Bloodied.

Terrified.

Then another.

Victoria walking away without looking back.

My jaw clenched.

“How long ago?” I demanded.

“Minutes.”

I was already moving.

I reached the hall before the warrior stepped aside fully, snatching clothes from the chair as I passed. Control vanished beneath command. Orders followed in clipped bursts.

My body knew what to do.

My mind did not.

Because beneath every order, beneath every practiced motion, one truth burned hotter than the rest:

I had left her.

And now she was gone.

Hours later, the forest was alive with search parties.

Tracks crisscrossed the muddy ground. Voices stayed low and controlled. Wolves spread outward in practiced formation, sweeping through brush and shadow, circling back when the trail thinned, pushing forward when scent sharpened again.

We followed her path past the boundary stones.

Past the familiar markers of my land.

Into territory that did not answer to me.

The farther we went, the more my wolf strained against my skin. He wanted control. Wanted four legs beneath him and her scent in his nose. Wanted to hunt until the world gave her back.

I did not let him.

Not fully.

By dawn, the scent led us to the river.

And then it ended.

“I’m sorry, Alpha.” Zach said beside me.

I couldn’t look at him.

The water moved swiftly over stones and whatever lay beneath, dark and relentless. It cut through the land like a wound, wide enough to swallow scent, deep enough in places to hide consequence.

Whatever trail she had left was gone.

Washed clean.

Carried away by the river’s wide mouth.

I stood at the bank long after the others fell silent.

No one spoke.

They were waiting for orders. Waiting for the Alpha to decide whether we pushed farther, crossed into deeper neutral territory, risked conflict over a girl who had not been sworn to us and had fled the first chance she got.

No one knew she was bonded to me.

My wolf clawed at the inside of my chest.

I could order the search to continue. Could push beyond reason, stretch my authority into land that did not belong to me, send tired wolves farther from the protection of the pack after a night of chaos.

But there were other concerns now.

Unknown forces were moving close enough to touch my land.

An Alpha’s duty did not bend for unanswered questions.

Still.

She had been bonded to me.

And she had chosen escape.

It should have soothed me. Should have given me relief. Proof that distance was possible. Proof that the bond did not have to become a chain if both sides refused to hold it.

Instead, it hurt more than I expected.

My gaze lingered on the water, on the place where her presence had vanished.

I had spent the night trying not to answer the bond.

Now it had gone quiet.

I never hated silence more.

My wolf whimpered in my chest, desperate to come out, desperate to hunt her himself.

For the first time since midnight, I did not correct him.

“Where did you go?”

My voice was barely a whisper on the wind.

But the silence was all that answered me.