Alpha King's Broken Mate

The Pull of the Oldstones

ORION

The mate bond is a curse.

A chain disguised as destiny.

They say it’s the Moon Goddess’s greatest gift a perfect match, a promise of love so deep it weathers any storm. I once believed that. I was young, newly crowned, and foolish enough to think the Goddess’s choice for me would be unshakable.

Her name was Tanya.

The first time I saw her, she was kneeling at the edge of the training yard, her head bowed in respect. When she lifted her gaze, the world tilted. The bond struck fast, hard, a fire in my chest I couldn’t breathe around. Her eyes… they were the color of honey in sunlight, and when she smiled at me, I thought the rest of my life had just begun.

For a while, it was everything they said it would be. She laughed easily, spoke gently, kissed like the world might end before morning. She fit into my arms as though she’d always been there.

I built a life around her.

And then — I learned what it was like to feel that bond twist into something sharp enough to cut.

......

(Flashback)

It was raining the night I found her. I’d returned early from the northern border patrols, the storm soaking me to the bone as I made my way through the palace halls. I’d been gone for weeks, and all I could think about was her smile when she saw me.

I opened the door to our chambers.

The first thing I noticed was the sound, muffled gasps, the rhythm of movement that froze my blood. Then the scent hit me. Not mine.

I stood there long enough for them to see me. Long enough for Tanya’s eyes to widen, her lips part, not with shame, but with surprise that I’d come back early.

The male beside her scrambled away, stammering excuses. Tanya didn’t move. She didn’t cover herself, didn’t plead. She just stared at me with something cold and distant in her gaze, like I was an interruption.

“You weren’t supposed to be back yet,” she said quietly.

That was all. No apology. No explanation that could undo the image burned into my mind.

Something in me tore then, not just my trust, not just my pride. The bond itself seemed to fray, leaving behind a raw, burning emptiness.

.....

After that night, I couldn’t look at her without tasting bile. The mate bond didn’t vanish, the Moon Goddess never makes it that easy, but it felt poisoned, and I refused to drink from it again.

When she left, she took everything with her but the child she carried. Lyra. My Lyra.

Tanya was gone before Lyra’s first birthday. I never asked where she went. I didn’t care.

Lyra became my anchor, the only pure thing left in a life that had been choked with betrayal. Everything I am now, every decision I make, is for her.

And then… Briseis came.

She is nothing like Tanya. Quiet where Tanya was bold. Careful where Tanya was reckless. And yet… I see her and feel that same dangerous pull I swore I’d never follow again.

I hate the mate bond. I’ll never trust it again. But sometimes, when she looks at Lyra like she’s the most precious thing in the world… I wonder if the Moon Goddess is laughing at me.

......

BRISEIS

The morning after training, my body ached in ways I didn’t think possible. Every muscle protested when I moved, my palms still raw from gripping the staff. The thought of going back to the yard made my stomach twist.

So I didn’t.

Instead, I slipped away after breakfast, taking the narrow path that wound behind the palace and into the forest. The air was cool and clean here, heavy with the scent of pine and damp leaves. Sunlight filtered through the branches in thin, golden beams, warming patches of moss.

I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I needed to be somewhere the walls weren’t closing in and eyes weren’t watching my every move.

The path narrowed, overgrown in places, and soon the sound of the palace faded behind me. That’s when I saw it.

At first, I thought it was just a shadowed ridge. But as I moved closer, I realized it was a wall, or what remained of one.

Ancient ruins rose from the forest floor like the bones of something long dead. Cracked stone blocks jutted from the earth, their surfaces carved with faint, weathered markings, wolves, crescent moons, strange symbols I didn’t recognize. Moss and vines crept across them, swallowing some entirely.

A chill danced across my skin.

I stepped through what must once have been an arched doorway, now little more than two leaning pillars. Inside, the air felt different, thicker, heavier, as if the place itself was holding its breath.

I trailed my fingers over one of the carvings. The grooves were shallow, but I could still feel the shape of a wolf’s head, its eyes marked with tiny circles like stars.

For reasons I couldn’t explain, my chest tightened. There was something about this place… something that made my pulse quicken, as though I’d been here before in another life.

A gust of wind stirred the trees, carrying with it a faint sound, like a whisper, too soft to make out. I froze, scanning the shadows. But the forest beyond the crumbling walls was empty.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the ruins were watching me as much as I was studying them.

I stood there for a long time, letting the silence of the ruins wrap around me. It wasn’t the empty kind of silence, it was full, as if the air carried echoes too old for words.

The carvings drew me deeper. Some were almost completely eaten away by moss, others still sharp despite their age. Wolves in mid-howl. The crescent moon repeated again and again, sometimes surrounded by stars, sometimes above a line of smaller wolves bowing their heads.

One wall was different.

It was darker, the stone a deeper gray than the others, and it bore a single carving: a wolf with its head raised toward the moon, but its eyes… its eyes were not carved as circles like the others. They were carved as flames.

I traced the lines without thinking. The stone was cold under my fingertips, but in the center of the wolf’s chest, the rock felt warm, faintly, almost like it held its own heartbeat.

I pulled my hand back quickly, glancing around, but of course there was no one there. Just the whisper of wind through the leaves, the gentle groan of the old stones settling.

I should have left then. But something in me resisted the idea of turning back.

The ground was uneven, and as I stepped over a tangle of roots, my foot caught on something hard beneath the soil. I crouched down, brushing away the dirt until I found the edge of a flat stone tile. The rest of the floor here was uneven earth, this tile didn’t belong.

I pressed my palm against it. It shifted slightly under the pressure, a soft grinding sound following as if the movement had woken something sleeping for centuries.

A faint shiver ran through the air.

When I looked back at the wall with the flaming-eyed wolf, the carvings seemed sharper, more defined, like they’d just been cut. I blinked, and the effect was gone, but my heartbeat was already too fast, my hands clammy.

I told myself I was imagining it. That I was just tired from training and letting the shadows play tricks on me.

But when I turned to leave, my eyes caught on something near the archway, a symbol scratched into the stone at about eye level. A crescent moon, but with a line of fire running through its center.

It hadn’t been there when I walked in. I was certain of it.

The forest beyond suddenly felt… less welcoming. The sunlight filtering through the canopy seemed colder, and I had the strange sensation that if I looked back at the ruins as I walked away, I might see someone standing there.

So I didn’t look back.

Not once.