The Forsaken Bond

Fractured Ties

I am his fated mate! Mom. Are you even listening to yourselves?.

You couldn’t wait to find me! Instead you choose my sister!

She said looking at Alexander.

What if Isabella finds her true mate, what becomes of him? what becomes of her?

Why couldn’t you wait to find me?

It’s the pack rules Sophia, said the Alpha. As the future Alpha of the moon shadow Pack, He is supposed to find his mate before the age of eighteen. And if he doesn’t then he’d need to choose. he has chosen.

Eighteen is still a young lad.

Besides you made this rules, they can be changed! She said looking at Alpha Darius

No on asked you to be a late bloomer, retorted the Alpha.

No more beating round the bush. This is final. Said Alpha Darius. And no one object.

Isabella still hadn’t spoken. She stood rigid by the window, face pale, eyes glistening, but she made no move to defend, to apologize, to reach out. The silence from her hurt worse than words ever could.

Sophia rose on unsteady legs. Tears burned hot behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall here not in front of the people who had just carved out her heart with calm, reasonable voices.

“You’re choosing expediency over the Goddess’s will,” she said, voice shaking but clear. “Over me.”

Alpha Darius’s expression softened, but only slightly.

“This is not a rejection of your worth, Sophia. It is a necessity for the pack’s survival. Alexander and Isabella will hold the mating ceremony next full moon. The pregnancy is already known to the elders. We ask only for your understanding and your silence on the matter.”

Silence.

As though her devastation were something to be politely concealed.

Sophia looked at Alexander one final time. The man who had begged her to stay just a little longer last night now stood like stone unmoving, unapologetic.

The bond that had sung so sweetly between them now felt like barbed wire tightening around her lungs.

She turned toward the door.

“I understand perfectly,” she said, the calm in her voice eerie even to her own ears. “You’ve all made your choice. Now I will make mine.”

The heavy door closed behind her with a soft, final click.

In the empty corridor, the first sob tore free raw, ugly, unstoppable.

The future she had glimpsed so clearly standing beside her mate, leading beside him, building a life under the same moon shattered into ash and blew away.

In its place rose something colder, sharper.

Resolve.

They believed they could erase her without consequence.

They would learn how wrong they were.

And somewhere beneath the grief, a quieter, darker question began to form:

If the Moon Goddess had allowed this betrayal, what else had She planned for the one left behind?

Sophia staggered through the dim corridors of the pack house, her footsteps resounding like distant thunder in her ears each one a silent indictment of the life she had believed was hers. The walls, once comforting sentinels of her childhood, now loomed oppressively, their shadows twisting like fingers reaching out to pull her back into the suffocating embrace of betrayal. She didn’t halt until she burst into her room, the small sanctuary at the end of the east wing where sunlight usually filtered through lace curtains like a promise of better days. But today, even the light felt mocking, illuminating the remnants of a dream that had shattered into irreparable fragments.

She slammed the door shut with trembling hands and collapsed against it, sliding down until her knees met the worn wooden floor. The sobs erupted then uncontrollable, guttural waves that wracked her body, tearing from her throat like shards of ice. Tears streamed unchecked, hot and relentless, blurring the world into a haze of pain. The mate bond, that once-golden thread woven by fate itself, now pulsed with a venomous agony, a relentless reminder that Alexander was out there alive, breathing, entangled in another’s arms. In Isabella’s arms. Her sister’s.

Why? The question clawed at her mind, sharp and insistent. No one told me Isabella was training to be the Luna. No one whispered a word about her dating him. Why didn’t I know? Sophia pressed her forehead against her knees, curling into herself as if to shield her heart from the onslaught. Isabella, her quiet, introspective sister the one who preferred moonlit walks and ancient lore over the clamour of pack gatherings. How had Isabella slipped into the shadows of secrecy, weaving a life with Alexander while Sophia remained blissfully ignorant? The pack house buzzed with whispers; rumors were the lifeblood of their community. Yet this? This monumental secret had evaded her entirely. Was it deliberate? Had the elders conspired to keep her in the dark, deeming her too fragile, too unimportant to burden with the truth?

And the pregnancy?... Goddess, the pregnancy. Sophia’s breath hitched, a fresh sob escaping as the impossibility of it all crashed over her. He was at the Academy for two years. How did Isabella get pregnant? She was even carrying his child, and I didn’t know? The timeline gnawed at her, a puzzle with jagged edges that refused to fit. Alexander had been gone, honing his skills in distant lands, surrounded by rigorous training and isolation. Visits home were rare, fleeting mere days at a time. Had he stolen away in secret, rendezvousing with Isabella under the cover of night? Or was there something more sinister, a web of deception spun long before his return? Sophia’s mind raced through fragmented memories: Isabella’s occasional absences, excused as “retreats for spiritual growth”; her sister’s sudden glow, attributed to “pack duties.” Had those been lies? Veils over stolen moments that conceived a future heir while Sophia pined for her fated one?

The betrayal burned deeper, twisting into something raw and visceral as her thoughts turned to the previous night. I allowed Alexander to taste me, to touch me! He kissed me, we made out Goddess, the way his hands roamed, igniting fires I had never known. Sophia wept harder, her body shuddering with the memory. His lips on hers, urgent and possessive; his fingers tracing paths of heat across her skin, teasing boundaries she had held sacred for so long. She had stopped him before it went too far, insisting on the ceremony, on doing it right. But he had pushed, reluctant, his eyes dark with desire. Why? He’s been sleeping with my sister, yet he had the audacity to do that to me? He knew he’d already made his choice… Yet he did all those things to my body.

Sophia rocked slightly, clutching her arms around herself as if to erase the phantom sensations. The mystery of it haunted her why would he pursue her so fervently, knowing the bond had snapped into place, knowing Isabella carried his child? Was it cruelty? A final indulgence before committing to his “chosen” path? Or something more calculated, a test to see if the fated pull would override his obligations? He had whispered “mate” like a vow, his gaze smoldering with what she had mistaken for destiny. But now, in the harsh light of revelation, it felt like manipulation.