Chapter Four - The Bitter Send-Off
1648 Words
Ember’s POV
I hadn't slept a wink all night, and the day was just crackling with predawn when it was time for me to leave. The entire pack came to watch me leave.
Of course they did. Silvercrest loved nothing more than a spectacle. And what better entertainment than seeing the worthless omega finally sent away?
Children darted around the gates, pointing at me like I was some caged animal on display. Their giggles stung more than if they had thrown stones.
“She’s really going,” one boy whispered, eyes wide. “Good riddance.”
“Maybe the Black Fang wolves will skin her alive,” another replied with a laugh, making the group of them double over.
My steps didn’t falter. I refused to give them the satisfaction. Even among the adults it was no better.
Women leaned close to each other, lips twitching as they whispered words sharp enough to cut me from afar.
“About time.”
“She’ll embarrass herself there just as she did here.”
“Imagine the shame of Silvercrest sending that to a rival Alpha.”
Warriors lined the path, their stances casual, their grins cruel. Some spat in the dirt as I passed. One tilted his head toward me with a smirk.
“Should’ve put her down years ago,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.
My wolf whimpered low in my mind, pressing herself against the edges of me as if she wanted to vanish. I kept my chin high, though my stomach twisted with every step.
I wouldn’t break, not here.
At the gates, she was waiting for me.
Lisa.
Draped in pale blue silk that shimmered like water, her golden hair braided back to show her perfect features, she looked like the Luna she had always been groomed to be. Her posture was flawless, her smile radiant though it never reached her eyes.
The crowd hushed as she walked toward me, her steps slow, deliberate. She stopped in front of me, tilting her head as though she pitied me.
Her hand lifted, cool fingers pressing lightly against my cheek.
“May you finally be of use to someone, Ember,” she said, her voice a soft purr.
The words sliced deeper than any blade.
Behind her, the crowd chuckled. Someone clapped, as if she had delivered a clever blessing instead of a venom-laced curse.
I swallowed hard, locking my gaze on hers. “One day, Lisa,” I whispered, so only she could hear. “One day, you’ll choke on that smile.”
Her eyes narrowed for a flicker of a second, but then the radiant mask returned. She stepped back, spreading her arms as though presenting me to the pack like an offering. Sasha looked beside her, eyes glinting with satisfaction. This has always been what she wanted.
The gates groaned open. The guards nudged me forward.
I didn’t look back.
The car zoomed off the stone road, the steady hum of the car stabbing into my bones. I kept my hands clenched in my lap, my nails digging crescents into my palms. If I loosened my grip, I was afraid I might shake apart.
“You know the stories, don’t you?” the one sitting beside me asked. His grin was full of teeth.
I kept my eyes forward. “No.”
He chuckled. “About Alpha Jayden. They say he killed his last mate.”
The second guard snorted. “That’s not the one I heard. Some say she dropped dead from fright before he even touched her. Imagine that. Dying just from looking at him.”
They both laughed, the sound echoing cruelly.
My grip tightened on my skirt. “Stories are stories.”
“Not these,” the first replied. His voice dropped lower, almost conspiratorial. “They say he doesn’t speak to women at all. He only orders them. No warmth, no kindness, just ice.”
The other added, “And his wolf… they say it has no voice. That he’s cursed. Half-beast, half-shadow. Alpha Jamie is a saint, Alpha Jayden is a demon.”
My wolf whimpered louder, retreating deeper into me. Sometimes she whimpered, sometimes she went silent entirely. That silence was worse—a void where her steady presence should have been.
Fear coiled in my gut, but I clenched my teeth. I would not let them see it.
Still, their words crawled beneath my skin, staining every thought. A cursed Alpha. A killer. A man who silenced even wolves.
And I was being delivered to him. By the so-called Saint. A man who once loved me.
By the time the sun dipped low, the Silvercrest border lay behind us.
The air changed the instant we crossed.
It grew heavier, thicker, like invisible hands pressing against my chest. The trees were different here. Older, gnarled, their twisted branches like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. Shadows clung tighter, stretching long and jagged across the ground.
Even the soil felt different beneath the car. A howl split the silence, low and guttural, nothing like the unified chorus of pack wolves. This one was sharper, edged with violence.
The guards stiffened.
Then, they came.
Figures emerged from the trees, one after another, until the path was blocked. Black Fang warriors.
They were nothing like Silvercrest’s polished soldiers, with fancy armors and cars. These men wore scars like trophies. Their armor was dented and darkened, not for show but for survival. Their eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, feral and unblinking.
Predators.
One of them sniffed the air, his lip curling. “So this is the gift Silvercrest sends?”
The others laughed, harsh and humorless.
Their gazes skimmed over me like I wasn’t even worth noticing. They didn't treat me like a person or a woman. Just an object being traded.
Heat burned my cheeks, but I forced my spine straight. I wouldn’t cower.
The Silvercrest guards handed me over without hesitation. No goodbye. No words. Just relief in their eyes that I was no longer their burden.
The Black Fang warriors didn’t speak to me. They didn’t need to. Their silence screamed louder than words: You don’t matter.
The Black Fang pack house loomed like a fortress carved from shadow and stone. Towers pierced the sky, walls thick and cold, windows narrow as slits.
Inside, the hall was vast, lined with warriors standing like statues. Their gazes followed me as I was led forward, each stare a weight pressing me lower.
At the far end, Alpha Jayden sat upon a raised platform.
He didn’t rise, he didn’t move but his presence filled the room anyway. Heavy, suffocating, like the air itself bent to him.
Dark hair fell across his forehead, but his eyes… gods, his eyes. Gray, sharp as steel, cold as winter.
He looked at me once, then turned his gaze to his Beta. His voice was low, rough, but clear enough to carry. “This is what Silvercrest sends me?”
Laughter rippled through the hall.
I swallowed, my throat dry.
Finally, his gaze returned to me. He studied me in silence, stripping me bare with nothing but a look.
When he spoke again, it was not to the room. It was to me. And yet his voice was loud enough for everyone to hear.
“You are not my mate,” Jayden said. “You are not my Luna. You are only here to breed me an heir. Nothing more.”
The words hit harder than a blow.
The room seemed to tilt, my stomach plummeting.
I thought I was ready for rejection. I thought Silvercrest had wrung every last drop of shame from me. But hearing it again, here, in this place where I had no one, it cut deeper.
I was rejected twice in two days.
My wolf whimpered, curling tighter into herself. I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing myself not to flinch, not to break.
I would not cry here. Not in front of him, not in front of them.
The hall cleared, leaving only silence and the echo of his words.
I stood alone in the shadow of the coldest man I’d ever seen, bound to him by politics I hadn’t chosen.
A peace treaty. That’s what they called me. A bridge between enemies, a pawn on the board.
If I failed, if this truce shattered, I would be discarded. If I displeased him, I’d be crushed beneath his boot.
Jayden’s gaze never softened. Suspicion lingered in every flicker of his eyes, as if he expected me to pull a blade from my skirts at any moment.
To him, I wasn’t a gift. I wasn’t even a woman. I was a spy, a trap. A burden.
That night, when shadows stretched long and the hall had emptied, Jayden came to me.
The air shifted before he entered, cold and pressing down on me like frost.
He stopped only a foot away, towering over me, his eyes burning with that same unyielding steel.
“Listen well, Silvercrest girl,” he murmured, his voice quiet but lethal. “You may fool others with your meek eyes and trembling hands, but you will not fool me.”
I clenched my fists. “I never asked to be here.”
“Nor did I ask for you.” His gaze cut deeper, sharper. “You breathe when I say breathe. You move when I say move. Disobey me, and I’ll send your corpse back to Silvercrest as my answer.”
The words slammed into me, colder than ice, heavier than stone.
For a heartbeat, my wolf whimpered, ready to cower.
But then, she growled. Low and soft. The sound startled even me.
I lifted my chin. If this was my fate, then so be it.
I would survive this cold Alpha. I would be more than their pawn.
- Writer
