Chapter 5 #2
“I am not mating until I graduate,” I obstinately remind him, “as is tradition for Dire wolves.” Something sharp snares inside my chest at the thought of waiting that long to claim my mate, but I push it down as deep as I can.
My true mate will understand that I need to wait, and she will happily accept my promise and submit to me until then.
It will be difficult sharing a bed without sinking my teeth into her flesh, but I’ve gone this long without succumbing to my baser instincts.
How much harder can it be to wait a few more years?
My father takes a calming breath. “You will take a mate when I tell you to and not a full moon later.”
What a fucking hypocrite!
“Dire wolves graduate first in their class from Heartsflame Academy,” I mock, sneering as I quote one of our pack’s decrees, “or they do not deserve the title of Alpha.” I scoff.
“I can’t take a mate before I graduate or I’m expelled from Heartsflame.
Or are you disowning me? Did you suddenly sire another heir I know nothing about? ”
“There is still time,” my father warns. “If you do not prove adequate.”
I roll my eyes. Here we go again. “Then let me fucking graduate, and I’ll snatch your title from you, Dad.”
The only way I’m rewriting this asshole’s plans for my life is by claiming his power, and the only way to do that is to become worthy of being his heir. The irony rankles like wild rot burrowing inside my flesh.
Recalling my claws, I rake my fingers through my hair. The insistent urge to flee and find my mate is a constant pressure inside my chest, the discomfort mounting with each passing second. I have to find her. I have to know that she’s okay—and away from that other fucking wolf.
His wildness will ruin her.
“I need to get her away from him,” I mutter, already devising a plan to separate them.
If he was accepted into the academy without her, that should be a good enough start.
I can keep her safe in Dire pack territory.
When he gets himself expelled—because how could he not—and tries to find her her, I’ll kill him for ever daring to think he can claim my mate as his.
“You stupid boy,” my father growls. “It’s not the male that’s the problem. It’s her.” He crinkles his nose. “Don’t tell me that you’re so blinded by her pheromones that you couldn’t scent her properly?”
“Scent what? That she’s mine?” I roll my eyes. “You’ll say anything to keep us apart.”
“You did not recognize her in the courtyard.” He pauses as though that fact should hold more meaning than it does.
I shake my head in disbelief of what I’m hearing.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that my mate and I simply hadn’t met before today.
I could have missed her while visiting the other packs.
Maybe she was out with a scouting party when I arrived.
At the pack-wide feast that same evening, her group could have been delayed for any number of reasons, thus denying our meeting.
My mood darkens as I suspect the more likely reason for our delayed union—the wild wolf. In his desperate pursuit for his own mate, he stole mine.
Exasperation drips from my father’s tongue.
“Her eyes glow, Alistair. Constantly. I was watching her the entire time.” Tapping his temple, he frowns.
“Now, think. What is the one known cause of a wolf being unable to shift back? For their eyes to glow—and their scent to reek of the wilds?” He crinkles his nose.
“Even you aren’t so naive as to put our pack in that kind of danger. ”
I clench my jaw so hard that it aches. What he’s implying is enough to kill her on the spot. “That’s impossible.” A male wolf being wild is an uncommon but known phenomenon. There are only a few alive today. A female wolf, however. . .
There’s only one.
A weight crushes my chest. I can scarcely breathe. My wolf rages inside, as belligerent and stubborn as I am terrified. Nausea grips me, and I clutch my stomach. “You’re lying. You don’t want me to bond with her, so you’re saying whatever you can to stop us.”
Pity would normally soften a man, but with my father, it sharpens his tongue.
Fire burns in his eyes as he finally reveals the truth that damns my fate.
“That wild bitch is responsible for your brother’s death!
She is as wild as the man that runs by her side, and she will destroy everything we Dire wolves have built over the past millennia.
I will not have my son—my only living son—condemn his fate to a tainted, murderous fiend that will ruin us all! ”
My mind races. I mentally cycle through the reports of my brother Viserys’s death.
There was a note about aggression and clear signs of a struggle before he died.
He met a violent end for what should have been a peaceful journey.
“You sent him on that mission.” I search my father’s eyes for what he isn’t telling me.
“He went to Roane Valley in search of a lost girl. A young wolf shifter who strayed from her pack.”
It can’t have been my mate. She would have been young then. A teenager. Too inexperienced to kill a seasoned fighter, let alone an alpha growing into his strength. There were rumors that he’d been outmatched, but that sounded as ridiculous then as it does now.
. . . unless the wolf Viserys fought was stronger than they appeared—or worse, wild. But for a lone female wolf to take him out?
I don’t believe it.
My father, an alpha still grieving the loss of his first heir, places his hand on my shoulder to steady me. “You cannot mate with her, Alistair.” His words are as solemn as the air, suddenly devoid of warmth and barely thrumming with magic. “I forbid it.”
As my father waits for my acquiescence, I drown in memories of my fallen brother.
Scouts had searched for Viserys long before Alpha Dire and his second son left pack territory to do the same, the former grimly resolute in their task while the latter hoped to bring his older brother home.
Bloodied and bruised, perhaps, but alive and well enough to cheer over a case of the pack’s best summer wine.
Viserys would have liked that: the revelry, the reunion .
. . the fucking title of Alpha waiting for him when he returned home.
It was his last mission before our father was supposed to relinquish his title. Now, the burden of being named the next reigning Alpha belongs to me.
I wish Viserys were still here.
He would clap me on the back and congratulate me for finding my true mate.
We’d celebrate the entire trip home. I’d introduce my mate to our family, our friends, our way of life.
We’d kiss under the stars and run as wolves at each sunrise, basking in each other’s warmth every waking moment until we finally complete our bond at the height of a summer moon, as is tradition among Dire wolves.
My heart breaks anew, its calloused scars cracking at the seams.
Just like the endless days I stared at the gates awaiting my brother’s miraculous return from the dead, this new reality slips over my shoulders like a second skin, the Dire pack crown as heavy on my head today as it was the day my brother never came home.
The throne was never meant for me, but that woman—my true mate—is.
No one will convince me that she’s anything but mine.
I feel it in my bones, that she belongs beside me, beneath me, within me.
“Fated mates” is more than an expression; she is as much a part of me as I am of her.
Our souls are bound. It’s an ancient magic no one fully understands on account of how rare true mate pairs are.
I tremble as another question whispers through my mind.
Could the person tied to my soul have killed my only brother?
The shadows in the arena lift and slowly replace the darkened haze with an ethereal, dim glow.
The magical orb mimicking the sun hangs low on the horizon, its blackened center bleeding out like wine and dripping shadows onto the earth.
Dozens of academy entrants stand as silhouettes across a field of decay, its fumes wafting from cracks in the earth and fetid pools of rot.
My heart races as I look for my mate, seeing no sign of her until a solitary figure jumps onto a rocky ledge and bares their fangs at the gathering dark dripping from the sky.
Her eyes glow the most brilliant shade of gold I’ve ever seen, their irises forming perfect diamonds as she whips her head around to stare directly at me.
A thread wraps around my heart and tugs, nearly making me stumble. Though she cannot see me through the magical barrier keeping us apart, she can sense me. Cold relief washes over me.
She is my fated, but at what cost?
I tear my attention away for the barest second to question my father.
“What is this? The trials are over.” I’ve witnessed numerous trials since coming of age, and none have ever born a second round.
The unlucky unchosen ready themselves for what is to come.
My gaze locks onto my mate, looking as wild as my father claims. Claws sharp.
Fangs extended. Eyes glowing a radiant gold as her wolf senses take over.
She is as beautiful as she is deadly. . . and she’s all mine.
Wicked satisfaction rolls down my spine. Someone as strong as her will make a perfect mate for an alpha. Fate can’t be wrong about us. It can’t.
“Your trials are over,” my alpha clarifies, scowling at my mate as she crouches like an animal preparing to strike. “But there are many still awaiting judgement.”
As creatures materialize from the shadows, each one as monstrous as the last, the hairs on my neck rise. “You can’t be serious.”
“These are desperate times, Alistair.” Alpha Dire feigns boredom, as though sentencing more of the world’s unmated to their deaths is little more than a chore.
“My mate is in there!” I slam my palms against the invisible barrier separating us.
My fangs extend as my agitation grows. The wilds look nothing like the bleak terrain before us.
Noxious gas clouds choke a few participants before they have a chance to fight back, and their lifeless bodies drop to the earth.
It’s a cruel display that serves no purpose other than to scare the weak-willed into giving up.
A few do just that, falling to their knees and shouting for mercy and miracles.
It’s as though there are no gods to hear them. Nothing changes, and no one is removed from the arena.
My father remains silent as the more determined candidates begin to act.
Some of them sling spells while others shift into whichever creature lay dormant within.
A half dozen wolves emerge among a litany of predators and prey alike, but the only shifter I care about remains in her human form, stubbornly clinging to the parts of herself that are most vulnerable.
“Shift,” I command, the order tinted with urgency.
She can’t hear me, none of them can, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
I bang my fist against the barrier. “Shift, goddammit! What are you waiting for?” Screams rend the air as people attack oncoming shadows as well as each other, their baser instincts taking over once logic and reason vanish with the light.
More than one weaker candidate falls quickly.
Those with stronger bloodlines or physical training excel in combat immediately, a few of them disappearing as they’re teleported out of the arena and admitted into the academy.
One by one, the numbers dwindle. My mate refuses to shift despite the odds stacked against her, fighting with a ferocity unlike any I’ve ever seen.
She tears through a tiger twice her size in seconds, using her agility to her advantage as she strikes strategically, aims for weak points, and cuts them down.
It’s chaos. Carnage. Clever.
Beasts emerge from shadow and strike down a merfolk, then disappear into thin air.
They materialize in front of two more people and slaughter them both, their ebony claws raking through tender flesh, before choosing my mate as their next target.
The moment she plunges her claws into their necks, they immediately dissipate into smoke, wasting her energy and fucking with her balance.
She stands still for far too long, scanning the area as she waits for another ambush.
It’s nothing but illusions and magic, yet it’s killing people in droves.
What does anyone have to gain from this level of bloodshed?
Sensing my frustration, my father clicks his tongue in disapproval.
“Think, Alistair. What is the purpose of Heartsflame? Should we coddle the weak and allow unworthy mates into our ranks? Weaken our packs with their bloodlines?” His gaze hardens as he surveys the battlefield.
“Those who cannot survive do not deserve a mate they won’t be able to protect. ”
I clench my jaw. None of this is fair. These dangers don’t exist in the wilds. The judges are forcing people to fight against an adversary that’s designed to punish their weaknesses, not test their strengths. “Put me back in,” I demand.
Alpha Dire scoffs. “Absolutely not.”
I close the distance between us and grab him, my claws easily shredding our family crest stitched into his shirt.
The scent of blood fills my nose as I puncture his skin.
“Put. Me. In,” I snarl, my eyes shifting to bright gold as my wolf threatens the man putting my mate in danger.
He could save her with a snap of his fingers, yet he does nothing.
Anger rises like a tide and nearly pulls me under.
The reigning Alpha of the Dire wolf pack curls his lip. “You forget your place, pup.” Plucking my hand from his shirt, he throws me aside as easily as rain falls from the sky, then turns his glare on my mate. “She is nothing.” His gaze burns with righteous fury. “You are everything.”
Swallowing a roar, I seethe in silence. Attacking my father is futile and could earn me punishment.
But standing here watching my mate fight alone drives me wild.
I pace in a narrow line as my mate—a woman I don’t know but suddenly crave more than anything—fights without me.
Blood drips from a cut on her forehead as she narrowly dodges an attack from a shadow beast. She isn’t healing like a shifter normally would.
Is it another trick of the trials? Or is this a repercussion of living in the wilds for so long that she’s tainted by it—changed because of it—and belonging more to the rotting wilds than she is to her own self?
As I watch my wild mate fight for her life, I find myself praying for an answer. A resolution. A sign that lets me know I’m on the right path—and not walking a road to damnation.
And just like every time before, my prayers are left unanswered.