Chapter 4: Second Chance Mate?
1352 Words
"Take your filthy hands off my mate!"
Kade Blackwood's roar tore through the Northern forest.
Six Silver Moon warriors stood behind him, torches in their hands, breathing hard. They had followed their Alpha through the forbidden border, but now they were frozen — staring at the Devil himself.
Rhys Volkov.
Shirtless in the freezing night, tattoos moving like living smoke over his chest, his eyes glowing blood-red. And in his arms — their rejected Omega. Wearing his jacket.
Rhys didn't let go. His arm around Aria's waist only tightened, pulling her bare feet off the cold mossy ground.
"Your mate?" Rhys laughed. It was not a human laugh. It was a low, dangerous rumble that made the Silver Moon wolves whimper and step back. "That's funny, Blackwood. An hour ago, you screamed to your whole pack that you rejected her. You broke the bond. I smelled it from my river. The whole forest smelled your rejection. So tell me, Alpha... which lie should I believe?"
Kade's grey eyes were blazing silver. His claws were out. His canines were elongated. His wolf was raging inside him, clawing to get out.
He wasn't looking at Rhys. He was looking only at Aria.
At her torn blue dress. At the blood under her nose. At another man's jacket swallowing her small body. At her bare, bleeding feet.
And at Rhys's hand on her waist.
Something feral snapped inside him.
"Aria, come here. NOW." His alpha voice slammed into the clearing, making even the trees shiver. It was a direct command. An Omega could never disobey an Alpha command.
Aria flinched violently. Her knees buckled. For eighteen years, that voice had controlled her life.
But she didn't move.
Rhys growled, and his red eyes flared brighter. He stepped fully in front of her, blocking Kade's view. "Don't you ever use that tone on her again. She is in MY territory now. Your alpha voice means nothing here. She doesn't answer you anymore."
"She is MY pack!" Kade snarled, taking a threatening step forward. His Beta Jaxon grabbed his arm. "Kade, don't. This is Volkov's land. We can't—"
"I don't care whose land it is!" Kade threw Jaxon off. "She is my responsibility. She ran away like a child. She could have died!"
"Responsibility?" Aria's voice finally came out.
It was small, hoarse from crying, but it stopped both Alphas cold.
She stepped out from behind Rhys. Rhys immediately tried to pull her back, but she shook her head. Her hands were shaking, but her eyes — red and swollen — were locked on Kade.
"You rejected me," she whispered. "In front of everyone. You said I was a mistake. You said I was pathetic. You said I would never be enough."
Kade's jaw clenched. "Aria, I—"
"You humiliated me!" Her whisper turned into a scream, eighteen years of pain exploding out. "You let Elena laugh! You let them all laugh! You threw me away like trash! And now you come here and call me YOUR mate?"
Tears were streaming down her face again, but this time they were angry.
"You don't get to do that! You don't get to break me and then act like you own me!"
The forest was dead silent.
Kade stared at her, his chest heaving. For a second, his cold mask cracked completely. Regret, pain, and something that looked a lot like self-hatred flashed across his face.
"Aria, please," he said, his voice low, broken, only for her. "I had to. You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly!" she spat. "You wanted Elena. You wanted a strong Luna. So you got one. Go back to her!"
Rhys was watching this exchange with murder in his eyes. His fists were clenched so tight blood was dripping from where his claws dug into his palms. Jealousy — ugly, possessive, ancient jealousy — was burning his cursed blood.
He had waited five years for his mate. Five years of loneliness while his curse made every wolf fear him. And the Moon Goddess had finally given him a gift — a small, broken, fierce Omega with the scent of snow and moonlight. His second chance.
And his first mate was still standing there, looking at her like she was his salvation.
No. She was HIS now.
Rhys moved before anyone could blink. He grabbed Aria's hand and pulled her flush against his chest. His red eyes burned into hers.
"Tell him," he growled, his voice possessive and desperate. "Tell him who you belong to now, little mate."
Aria gasped. His touch sent that same electric spark through her body again — silver and black light crackling where their skin met.
"What are you doing— leave her—" Kade lunged.
Rhys snarled and threw his free hand out. A wave of pure, dark Alpha power — the cursed power that could steal a wolf's strength — slammed into Kade and his warriors, making them drop to their knees.
All except Aria. She felt nothing but warmth.
Kade roared, fighting the pressure, his own Alpha power flaring silver to push back against Rhys's black-red aura.
Two Alphas. The two strongest Alphas in the region. Both unleashing their full power in one small clearing.
The air itself started to crack.
Aria was caught in the middle. The pressure was too much. Her head was pounding. The hollow ache in her chest where Kade had ripped the bond was burning, and the new, warm spark where Rhys had touched her was burning too.
Two bonds. Two pulls. Ripping her in half.
"STOP IT!" she screamed, clutching her head. "STOP!"
A sudden, searing heat exploded in her spine.
It wasn't like the rejection pain. This was different. Wild. Ancient. Like lava being poured into her veins.
Her newly awakened wolf, who had been whimpering, suddenly threw her head back inside Aria's soul and HOWLED — not a whimper, but a deafening, royal howl that shook the leaves off the trees.
*ENOUGH!*
Both Kade and Rhys froze. Their eyes widened in shock. Because that howl... that howl was not an Omega howl. It was not even an Alpha howl. It was something they had only heard in legends whispered by elders.
Aria's body started to glow.
A soft, pure, silver-white light started seeping from her skin. Her brown eyes flashed — and when she opened them again, they were no longer brown. They were glowing, pure, icy white.
Her bones started to crack.
"Aria!" Both Alphas shouted at the same time, reaching for her.
She fell to her knees, her back arching in pain as fur started sprouting all over her body. But it wasn't brown fur. It wasn't grey fur. It was fur as white as fresh snow under a full moon. Fur that seemed to sparkle with its own light.
She was shifting. For the first time in eighteen years. At eighteen, wolfless Aria Quinn was finally shifting.
Jaxon, behind Kade, whispered the word that everyone was thinking, his face pale with terror.
"...White Wolf."
Rhys's red eyes went wide with absolute, possessive awe.
Kade's face went completely bloodless. Because he knew the legend. Every Alpha knew it.
*The White Wolf is born once every hundred years. Whoever possesses her, possesses the power to rule all packs.*
And he had just rejected her.
The light exploded.
Where Aria had been kneeling, there was now a wolf. Small compared to the giant Alphas, but stunning beyond words. Pure white from nose to tail, with eyes like molten silver moonlight.
She lifted her head and looked at the two Alphas who were both obsessed with her — one who broke her, and one who wanted to own her.
And then, behind her white wolf form, in the reflection of the moonlit creek, a shadow moved.
It wasn't a wolf shadow.
It was the shadow of a woman with long white hair and a crown of bones, standing right behind her, her hands on Aria's wolf shoulders.
Both Alphas stumbled back, choking on air.
Because that woman... was supposed to be dead for eighteen years.
- Writer
