Cruel Alpha’s Refuge

7. Chapter

Corin

The huge pendulum of the clock carved into my chest with every strike. Boom. Boom. Boom. The people in the ballroom counted down in chorus, their voices echoing like a jubilant roar against the marble walls. I felt my blood begin to boil, but this was not fever. Something ancient, something rising from deep within, pressed against my bones. My wolf had finally awakened.

Midnight.

I was eighteen.

In that sacred instant, an invisible, blazing chain yanked at my soul. The sensation hit me with such primal force that I nearly collapsed. The bond. The tight, pulsing thread that chained my soul to another. I sensed the scent of cold ice and pine, and my instincts cried out in bliss.

Glacier.

He was my mate. Fate had not lied. His promises had not been empty. The bond vibrated between us, clear and undeniable.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Mason, the Alpha of Brown Stone, suddenly turn away. His face darkened, his shoulders tensing as if he were in physical pain. He did not speak to anyone, did not say goodbye. He simply headed for the exit. His heavy steps thundered across the parquet floor, and he never looked back. He left the hall, abandoning the Silver Stone pack in the middle of their celebration.

I did not care. Why would I? Only Glacier existed.

Glacier stepped to the edge of the platform. He extended his hand, and I, trembling, dressed in my ruined, stained golden gown, dizzy from the call of the bond, walked toward him. I heard mocking laughter from the crowd. I saw Lumi’s triumphant smile. But I looked only into my mate’s eyes. I waited for him to take my hand and reveal our fate to the world.

My fingers were almost touching his when Glacier suddenly pulled his arm back in disgust.

“Stop right there, you pathetic mongrel,” his voice cut through the hall like a whip.

I froze. The bond in my chest thrashed violently, as if my heart were being torn out alive.

“Glacier,” I whispered, tears choking my throat. “You feel it. You do feel it. You are my mate. It is midnight. Fate chose us.”

Glacier’s face twisted with arrogance. He stepped closer, only so everyone could hear him. “I feel it, Corin. I feel your weakness. Your filthy blood trying to cling to me. Do you really think fate could make such a mistake? That the future Alpha of Silver Stone would be bound to a half blood wreck like you?”

Lumi swayed up beside him, and Glacier wrapped an arm around her waist.

“I, Glacier, heir of the Silver Stone pack, declare before all witnesses that I reject the bond,” he shouted toward the ceiling. “I reject Corin, the mongrel, as my mate. You are not worthy of me, and you never will be.”

The moment he spoke the rejection, the blazing chain inside my soul snapped with blinding pain. It felt as if my flesh were being ripped apart from the inside. I collapsed to the floor, all the air torn from my lungs. Waves of agony painted my vision red.

Laughter exploded through the hall.

Lumi bent down toward me, her cloying perfume filling my senses. “Did you hear that, nobody? Even fate was only joking with you.”

Glacier’s father, the Alpha, stepped forward then. His voice was cold as a gravestone.

“Corin, daughter of Luke. You are hereby cast out of the Silver Stone pack. Stripped of your name and our protection. You have one hour to leave our territory with your mother. If you are found here after that time, you will be hunted as prey, and the pack may kill you.”

The crowd cheered.

Glacier did not even look at the girl writhing on the floor whose soul he had just shattered. Instead, he kissed Lumi openly while pack members began to shove and mock the “birthday girl” lying in the dirt.

I lay in the center of the ballroom, in my ruined dress, an empty void where the bond had been torn away. Mason was already far gone. I could not expect his help.

I was completely alone among the wolves.