The Alpha's Cursed Mate

ELARA’S POV The heavy rain poured down on the windshield like it would break through any moment from now, turning the road ahead of me into a blurry mess. I grabbed the steering wheel tightly, my beat-up truck groaning against the wind that howled through Blackthorn ridge. “Ugh”. I let out a loud sigh and tried to comfort myself. “It’s high time I scrap this old thing and get a new one.” I said tiredly. “But please. Just get me home. I can’t afford to be stuck in this storm”. I pleaded as if the truck was a living thing that could hear me. I sighed again. Ten years of these storms and they just never got easier. Especially on nights like this. I couldn’t help that empty feeling in my heart. Nights like this were a reminder of how lonely I was in this cruel world. My mind just kept drifting back to that night, despite the effort I put in to stop remembering. Ten years ago, my parents had been driving home from the clinic, just like I was now. They were happy. Owners of the best vet clinic in Blackthorn Ridge. The best parents in the world to their daughter. They couldn’t predict that they’d meet an unfortunate end. Bear attack. The reports said it was a bear attack. They were ripped apart in the woods off the side of the road. But I saw the photos the sheriff tried to hide. That wasn’t a bear. Those wounds didn’t come from any bear I had ever read about in vet school. Too clean in some places and too brutal in others. And the way the trail just ended. As if the “bear” just vanished into thin air. There weren’t any footprints, nothing. How did they even get to the woods in the first place? It just didn’t make any sense. Maybe it was the mystery and unclarity of their death that made it still haunt me. Or maybe it was because I lost the two most important people in my life and after they left my world collapsed. I shook my head, blinking against the tiredness I was feeling. Running the only 24-hour animal clinic in Blackthorn wasn’t as easy as I had first thought it would be. But I did it for them. It was their passion, I just wanted to make them proud. And that meant persevering. Even though it left little room for sleep. As I drove towards the Blackthorn Ridge hills where my house was I spotted a dark shape slumped on the side of the road, half submerged in water. At first I wanted to ignore it, but everything within me screamed for me to go to it. Like some driving force or something, so I did just that. I parked my truck and came down holding my flash light firmly. The rain soaked me almost immediately, My heart was pounding in my chest as I slowly made my way to the figure. What was I doing? My thoughts didn’t stop me from getting closer to the figure and as I stood just inches away from it my eyes widened in shock. “Oh God”. I whispered under my breath as I stared at the massive naked man, covered in blood and mud lying almost dead in front of me. I wanted to turn back, get in my truck and speed off. My brain told me to leave, to run as fast as I could. This was how people disappeared, good samaritans who stopped to help the wrong stranger. But my heart said no. For some reason I was drawn to him. My eyes wandered and rested on the large gashes across his chest and his side. They were deep and ragged. It should’ve been fatal yet he was still alive, well barely alive. But that kind of tear would render someone lifeless. And as I watched closely the unimaginable happened. The gashes started pulling together and covering up bit by bit. They were healing. His flesh was literally knitting itself shut right in front of me. Then my veterinarian instincts kicked in. I couldn’t just leave him here, not like this. Cursing under breath I hooked my arms under his shoulders and heaved, he was unbelievably heavy, as if he was made of solid muscle and bone unlike a normal human. First the wounds now this? Was I helping out an alien? Or those metahumans that I used to see in movies I managed to drag him back to my truck despite almost slipping in the mud and the rain drenching me. By the time I got to the driver's seat I was covered in mud and his blood. I drove to the cabin next to my house. Just like my house, the cabin was isolated with a mini clinic by its side, just how I liked it. I got inside and flickered every light in the kitchen of the cabin. I cleared the table and spread out clean towels. I went back to the truck to get him, he was still unconscious. I dragged him up and laid him down on the table carefully, noting the sheer size of him. I grabbed my medical kit and started cleaning out the gashes. The wounds were worse up close and in the light but they were closing. Slowly and impossibly. No human could heal themselves like this. I stood there in utter disbelief and stared at him. “What exactly are you?”. I reached out my other hand to try and touch his face when his eyes suddenly snapped open. They were… gold. Not amber or hazel, they were pure gold that glowed faintly in the dim light. My eyes widened in shock. A low, guttural growl emerged from his chest, vibrating through the table. His eyes wandered around, it looked like he was trying to make sense of his surroundings, then they rested on me, cold and menacing. I felt my blood run cold and every hair on my body stood. “You should have left me to die”