“You stupid boy,” my father growls. “It’s not the male that’s the problem. It’sher.” 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 revealsthe truth that damns my fate. “That wildbitchis 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 bestsummer wine. Viserys would have liked that: the revelry, the reunion . . . the fuckingtitleof 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,withinme. “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 orbmimicking 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.
