Chapter 5
Alistair
Most wolves dream of finding their true mates.
It becomes an obsession as time passes, the ache inside one’s chest growing stronger and stronger with each passing moon.
It’s why some wolves choose to mate prematurely, binding their souls to one that’s good enough, rather than wait for fate’s decree.
Wandering through life imperfectly bound is better than dying alone.
They convince themselves that this is a happy outcome; that any mate is better than none.
It’s a bittersweet lie that shifter packs have swallowed for centuries to keep their numbers up and their people happy enough.
In reality, a shifter’s full strength is only accessible through a fated bond, not a false one.
Denying one’s true mate for the convenience of another is one of the greatest sins of shifterkind—it damns not only the mated shifter but the entire pack as a whole.
Packs are weakened when their members forego waiting for their fated.
Desperation for a mate has become rampant as more and more shifters struggle to find their fated. It’s why the enrollment numbers at Heartsflame remain steady despite the overall decline in population.
All magical races agree: true mates and fated bonds are necessary for survival.
And I’ve finally found mine.
My senses narrow to the point where my soul ends and hers begins.
I draw in a breath and ache for what I’ve never known.
My fingers curl into fists and I slam them against the invisible barrier separating us.
Biting wind is locked behind the wall of magic, but I can hear the ice tumble against it, see the steam rising off her skin and the magnetic glow of her eyes, feel her presence like my own heartbeat, its thrum an intoxicating pull at my senses.
She is a temptation I never wanted—and worse, one I suddenly can’t imagine living without.
Closing my eyes, I try to block her out, willing my body—heart—soul to calm the fuck down.
Because the woman standing in front of me is already tied to another.
The moment I caught her scent, I could smell his all over her. Even now, it’s driving me fucking insane to know that he’s touched her. The familiarity between them—his naked fucking body on top of hers—is a threat to my very existence.
I won’t take another mate while my fated lives. I can’t.
My emotions churn like ocean waves amidst a deadly storm, cold as ice one moment and roaring like an inferno the next. The sins stacked against my mate grow rapidly as my mind reels.
How dare she choose another wolf over me.
How dare she not wait for me to find her.
How dare she not look for me herself.
Gnashing my teeth, I open my eyes and meet her wide-eyed stare, like she can sense me through the magical barrier just as strongly as I can sense her.
If she knows that I’m here, why isn’t she seeking me out?
Seconds tick by in agony as snow swirls around her, and she doesn’t move. Darkness descends upon the icy plateau. Maybe she’s frozen in shock. Or maybe—
A snarl catches in my throat.
Maybe she’s already bonded with the wild wolf.
That would explain why his scent is so strongly twined with hers but not why they are seeking entrance to the academy. Besides, bonded shifters no longer tempt unmated ones with their scent, so the fact that her scent is driving me wild proves that they aren’t bonded.
A growl rumbles in my chest as I reminisce over her scent.
It’s pure fucking temptation. Made for me, a voice in my head stubbornly argues.
Lavender and honey, spice and sex, damp earth and frosted stars, moonlight kisses and sun-drunk afternoons, each taste swirling together in an endless tumble of what could be.
She is everything and nothing all at once, a promise hanging from a precipice if I could just reach out and claim her as mine.
Yet she entered the trials with another wolf by her side.
My blood boils at the offense. Why enroll at Heartsflame Academy if she already found a mate? Is she bored with him and seeking a better match? Or has she come to flaunt their union and torment me with it?
If her partner were from a reputable pack, I could understand her decision to mate prematurely.
Climb the social ladder with whomever you believe is the most attainable does happen, and regularly.
Shifters unable to find their true mates—or unwilling to wait—often choose another.
It’s still an abhorrent practice, but an understandable one.
Were that the case here, I could try to understand.
We would find a way to break her current bond in favor of sealing a fated bond with me.
But the shifter whose scent is intimately intwined with hers isn’t from another pack—he isn’t from a pack at all. His scent is as unmistakable as it is damning.
Wild.
A wild fucking wolf has claimed my mate.
I watch her closely now that she’s alone.
As the final glow of sunlight fades from the sky, she stares into the distance—directly into my soul—and screams so loud, so furiously, that my bones rattle.
My next breath is a drag of air so dense that it weighs me down.
The trials are over, and she’s still standing.
Despite the fact that she is my fated mate, she wasn’t accepted into the academy.
We’ll be separated until I graduate.
Tension infects every muscle in my body.
I have to see her. Know her. What’s her name?
Which pack is she from? How hasn’t she been identified as my mate before now?
I’ve visited every single shifter pack in existence.
If she was there, I would have known. I would have felt her presence like my own heartbeat. Until now, I thought she didn’t exist.
Clearly, I was mistaken.
My fingertips sharpen into claws as I think of the wild wolf. Is he the reason my mate and I hadn’t met sooner? Has he been keeping her from me? Bedding her as a lover, masking her scent, painting false promises of a future together?
My mind races as heavy footsteps sound behind me.
I already know who it is and don’t bother turning around.
“What’s her name?” I ask. Someone teleports my mate from the simulation, and the icy mountainside fades away along with the body of the deceased wolf.
I don’t spare him a single thought, consumed only by thoughts of her.
Beautiful strands of ebony fall past her shoulders. The golden glow of her eyes matches mine, of course, but the freckles dusting her cheeks are all her own. Pouty lips, full-bodied figure, legs for days—and a fiery temper I can sense from a distance.
All mine.
She doesn’t appear beside me despite the trials being over.
My skin prickles from the knowledge that she’s standing among the rejects—or worse, with the wild wolf.
I grind my teeth as the scope of possibilities for my future narrows to a razor-sharp point, either side as damning as the other.
I didn’t anticipate finding my fated mate, and truthfully, I didn’t want to until I graduated.
Yet here we are. She’s been tossed into my lap like an offering from the gods themselves.
I’d be a fool to look the other way.
“You will not mate with her,” my father declares, pushing power into his voice until the suggestion turns into an Alpha Order. It radiates down my spine like the poison that it is: a death sentence.
Though an average shifter can take another mate than their fated, alpha bonds are too powerful.
That’s why any alpha presiding over a pack must have a fated bond—a true mate is the only one capable of handling that level of power exchange.
None of my forefathers bearing the title of Alpha Dire have ever mated with someone other than their fated.
It doesn’t happen, because it results in the death of the pack alpha and their mate.
That lesson has been drilled into me since the day I was born.
I draw on every ounce of my power and push against my father’s order. It flares hot, raking down my back like sharp coals, but doesn’t dissipate. “You can’t make that demand.” I grit my teeth and meet my alpha’s eyes—a honey brown that matches my own—and refuse to back down.
“She is not your true mate.” My father attempts to turn the lie into an alpha’s command, like he has the power to change fate.
The second Alpha Order, the lie, doesn’t stick and rolls off my back like tepid water. That’s proof enough that she’s my fated. “Like hell, she isn’t!” My vision sharpens as my eyes shift, spurred on by the threat to my life—and my mate’s. “You’ll kill me if you keep us apart. You’ll kill us both.”
“She is not your true mate!” my father repeats, his muscles tensing so tightly that I hear the seams of his suit jacket pull loose. Being so close to shifting shows how much power he’s utilizing to speak such bold lies. “You will not die if you take another, and you will.”
Breathing becomes laborious. “What did you just say?”
“Take another,” he growls through clenched teeth. “I don’t care who—but you will not mate that female.”
“That female is mine.”
His nostrils flare and his eyes flash a similar shade of gold as mine, though colder.
“She is tainted, Alistair, and I will not have my son bonded to such filth! She is an evil that will corrupt whichever pack is foolish enough to accept her—which will be none, let alone my own. You will not mate her.” He bares his fangs, exuding as much alpha influence as he can without shifting.
Others within our pack would be forced to submit, but as his son and sole heir, I stand my ground better with each passing day.
It’s only a matter of time before my strength surpasses his, then I will be the one making demands.
“Choose another,” he growls, “or I will choose for you.”