MARKING HIS VIRGIN MATE

It was a night to devour not a wedding. The silk white gown sprawled lifeless on the bed I was about to lose my virginity in. The gown's silk glow was a reminder of my life, which was pure; and tonight that glow was about to get dimmed. Everyone in the mansion knew what this night meant. Tonight the Alpha would claim me. I touched the fabric with trembling fingers. Cold. Smooth. Almost slick. The new life in Kai’s mansion ever since I stepped in has been suffocating and cold, the air felt different, pressing against me like a physical force. I have always been the one who never fit in the family, the outcast. A forbidden birth. My mother once the Queen of our pack had been burned alive for breaking our oldest law. They said she betrayed Blackstorm, my stepfather, with a human. And not just any human one powerful enough to taint our bloodline. That made me what they despised most: half human, half wolf. Weak. Unfit. Powerless. I’d been born without the Mystidan, the power that ran like fire through every true wolf. On the day of my birth, my eyes had glowed purple instead of the blood-red of the Mystidan-born. My mother had been forced to confess. I was a living testament to her crime a child of forbidden love. In our pack, marriages were rarely about love. They were forged to preserve bloodlines, secure alliances, and maintain power. My stepfather had ruled for decades, my mother at his side, until her affair shattered everything. The pack’s power drained, protections fell, and something darker awakened a curse that whispered our extinction. The elders decided the only way to stop it was to bind me to a powerful Alpha from another pack. A sacrificial union to salvage what remained. But who would want a half-human mate? Kai. The name alone sent a tremor through me. I’d seen him many times before the engagement. The Alpha of the Deline pack, tall, handsome, intimidating his eyes are hazel green, a significant way to identify the Deline pack. He was constantly the topic: Mean, merciless, and extremely brutal. I don't think he really wants me, maybe he wants to consolidate power and rebuild his own legend, probably hoping for a different breed. My body was simply the site where his ambitions would be fulfilled, or maybe I was wrong. A knock. It was Elisa, my personal maid, telling me I had five minutes left before Kai would arrive. She looked troubled as if worried for what was about to happen tonight. Five minutes left before my life is flipped around. I turned to the mirror. The girl staring back didn’t look like a future Luna. Dark hair plaited tightly back framed a face too pale, too uncertain. My eyes that reflected the colour of shame shone like injuries. I undressed, setting my day dress aside, and slid into the white gown. It was exactly my size, thin and numb. Goosebumps underneath as my heartbeat increased. The door flung open, without a knock. Kai entered. Authority swirling around him, the whole room was covered with his presence, wide shoulders, lean muscles, and his aura that of an Alpha so powerful that it made the air linger with it. His face was a perfection with eyes that glimmered with something so blue and secret. His scent is distinct; rain-soaked earth and pine, all forming a colliding scent of coppery tang of wolf blood He said nothing. And stepped to the other side of the room reaching for the table, he washed his hands in the bowl of water that rested on the table. And the droplets of water remained on his hands are he turned around from the table. Then he began to undress, looking like something he had done a thousand times in front of different women, not a sign of shame in his eyes. My breath caught. My cheeks turned pale red, and I looked away. But the sound of slipping clothes from his body was louder than a gunshot. I dared to turn my head and look at him, he was already naked, and his smirk sent a shiver down my spine. “Get in the bed, mate,” he said, his voice deep, commanding. “I’ve waited long enough for this moment,” he said, and lay on the bed I froze. I knew better than to miss a second without moving, my hands shook as I tried to take steps forward, closer to the consummation bed. I stood at the edge of the bed, reluctance setting in as if I had a choice to decline, my heart pounding. He jumped out of the bed and approached me, I could see the hunger growing in his eyes. Impatience is slowly creeping in. He pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was just like the first time he forced me to kiss him at the pack’s dinner party. It wasn't gentle. I stood breathless for a moment. And my heart rate was already out of control Then, without a strain on his muscles, he lifted me and laid me on the bed. I stiffened as his body settled on me. His warmth spread out through the fabric of the gown before reaching my skin, his breath coming in hot against my ear. “Are you afraid?” he murmured, almost surprised. “Don’t fear makes the bond weak.” “I…” My voice was shattered, tiny and miserable in the huge room. He lifted my chin and pressed a kiss again, slowly beginning to devour me. “I told you before Luna, I would have you,” My breath ceased, I remembered when I always tried to avoid him. I shut my eyes. “Open them,” he ordered. I opened them slowly and his eyes burned gold now, exposing the inner glow of his beast, the intimidating yet alluring stare of a predator about to devour its own. His lips slowly trailed along my stiffened neck, and soon his fangs pierced through causing a sharp sting. I shook, my fingers clutching at the sheets. Pain bloomed, but it was laced with something else something different. It was as if he was opening me to a different portal. “Relax,” he whispered against my skin restraining my resistance. “I’m only marking what’s mine.” I tried to stay composed, but the room felt smaller as if the walls were beginning to come in. His pangs pierced deeper, tearing my skin. Warmth spreading through my skin. Something swirled inside me something I’d never felt before. Not the Mystidan exactly, but a flicker of energy deep in my core, answering his claim. He drew back slightly, lips curved in satisfaction, a smear of crimson at the corner of his mouth. “Good,” he murmured, as if speaking to himself. “Let’s begin.”