“The mate bond is sacred… but it was never meant to bind you to cruelty,” she explains. “Without trust, loyalty, faithfulness, it is already broken.”
Her words cut through beliefs I’ve clung to desperately, that I must endure anything, sacrifice everything for the bond.
“I offer you one chance to return.” The silver light pulses around us. “But know this, you will not be alone.”
A choice hangs in the infinite space between us. The Goddess waits, patient as the eternal moon.
The words catch in my throat like broken glass. “I accept,” I finally whisper into the void, tears that aren’t tears streaming down a face I no longer possess. Memories of Ronan flash through me, his smile when we first met, his hands gentle on my skin, promises whispered against my neck in darkness. I would have endured his coldness, his cruelty, the other woman’s scent on his clothes. I would have swallowed my dignity like bitter medicine and called it devotion. But death has a way of clarifying what love shouldn’t be. As I surrender to the Goddess’s offer, something inside me, something that has been slowly dying for months, finally breaks free.
The silver light explodes, blinding...
I jolt upright, gasping. My thin cot creaks beneath me. Familiar peeling wallpaper. The musty scent of my old room in the pack house.
But everything iswrong.
Colors are too vibrant. Sounds crash against my eardrums, voices from three rooms away, birds outside, the skittering of mice in the walls. Scents overwhelm me, dust, fabric softener, the lingering coffee from breakfast.
You’re awake.
I freeze. The voice is inside my head, rich, feminine, wild.
“Who...“ I whisper aloud.
I am you. I have always been you. But she set me free.
My wolf. She’s finally here.
We have been given a second chance.
It crashes into me all at once, Ronan’s betrayal, the other woman, my death. But that’s months from now. I’ve been sent back.
The door crashes open. Enforcer Dorin fills the frame, his massive shoulders blocking the light from the hallway. I remember this day, eight months before I died, the day Alpha Roland summoned me.
“Get up, human,” Dorin spits. “Alpha Roland wants you.” He reaches for my arm, thick fingers wrapping around my bicep, squeezing painfully.
Something ancient rises inside me.
Heat floods my veins, molten and ancient. My vision sharpens, the world crystallizing into perfect clarity.
Don’t let him touchus like that.
“Let. Go.” My voice emerges different, deeper, layered with something that makes the air vibrate.
Dorin’s eyes widen. His hand remains, but I can feel it trembling.
“I said...“ I stand slowly, something powerful uncoiling inside me, “...let go.”
The pressure builds in my chest, radiating outward like a physical force. Dorin’s hand drops. His knees buckle. He sinks down, eyes bulging with confusion and fear.
“What the f…“
“You will never touch me like that again. Nor will you speak of this.” The words don’t feel like mine. They come from somewhere that knows exactly what it is. “Do you understand?”
He nods, throat working convulsively, unable to break eye contact.
Good. He should fear us.
I step around his kneeling form, heart thundering with exhilaration and confusion. What just happened?
