Page 3 of Fated to the Alpha Warrior (The Wolf’s Forbidden Mate #1)
Aurora
“No, get off me!”
I scream and scream, throwing my weight around, trying to dislodge their grasping hands, but it’s useless. The ropes tying my arms and legs together are tight enough to cut off circulation.
“Please, I’m begging you—don’t do this to me!”
I try to stay on my feet, but the intensity of the storm throws me to the ground.
My knees connect first, and I whimper in pain.
It’s too dark for me to see much of the stony rock cliff they’ve dragged me to, but even my weak shifter senses know that the water below the cliff’s edge is too far away to be gentle.
“Please…”
All I see around me are hard faces and steely eyes. The shifters who brought me here, tied me up and pushed me to the edge, aren’t in the mood for mercy. One particular ice-blue gaze catches my attention, the lack of emotion in those depths like a dagger through the heart.
Kieran. My mate. My protector, once upon a time.
“Stop.” His voice is deep and commanding, rougher than it was when we grew up side-by-side. Shouldering through the crowd, he motions for those holding me to let go. “Not like this.”
Panting, I push up to my knees, wincing as my raw skin hits the rough ground. My shifter healing isn’t as fast as the others—no doubt part of the Pack Onyx curse that caused him to reject me.
But at least he knows that I don’t deserve to die.
“Kieran. Please.” Panting, I hold my tied hands up to him, my wet hair whipping around my head. “If you let me go, I promise that I’ll never darken your door again. I’ll go far, far away from Pack Jade, so far… so far it’ll be like we were never bonded.”
He stares at me. Lightning strikes in the distance, reflected in the black of his pupils, which are surrounded by a ring of the lightest blue. My breath catches as I wait for his answer.
“No. If you die, I may still get another mate.” A sneer twists his lips, his face suddenly unkind and cruel, like his father’s. “You don’t deserve my mercy. I only stopped them because I wanted to do it myself.”
Then he lifts his leg, presses the heel of his boot to my chest, and kicks me so hard that the air leaves my lungs in a rush. I stumble back, my tied arms flying, desperately trying to find purchase.
Empty air opens up beneath me.
I catch my breath and scream ? —
Just before I hit the dark waves below, and the angry water swallows me whole.
Seconds later, I wake up in my bed, drenched in sweat.
Darkness swathes my windows, even though the blinds are pulled up and the curtains thrown open in a move my best friend Dana calls “some psychopath shit.” She sleeps strictly in the darkest bedroom, so dark even her shifter’s eyes can’t see her own hand in front of her face.
But I need to know when the sun rises. I need to be able to look out the window every morning and see that I’m still here. Surrounded by the lush, green valley, thick forest, and distant mountains of Pack Jade land, deep in the Pacific Northwest of North America.
Home. Or some version of it. Throwing my covers off, I peel myself out of bed and take off my sweat-soaked pajamas. I flip on the fan so the air cools my overheated skin.
The nightmares only come a few times a month now.
When they do, it’s some variation on the same theme.
Sometimes Gran is there, or my old friends from school.
Once or twice Dana has played a part, as have the pack elders and Alpha Cade.
They always have choice things to say about the fact that I’m twenty-three and still can’t shift.
Because I never fall back asleep after the dream, I settle cross-legged on my rug and play my meditation playlist on my phone.
It’s a series of soothing mindfulness talks given by calm, neutral voices against rain and classical music backgrounds.
Some of the themes of the episodes are easy to get through: gratitude, love, friendship and focusing on the five senses.
Others are more difficult, like trying to wish my enemies well.
I don’t try to play the episode on forgiveness.
That one is too far out of reach. Instead I navigate to the meditation on gratitude for friends and family.
As the sound of rain and a woman’s voice pipes through my earbuds, my mind wanders effortlessly back to that night in the woods after everything changed for me.
Sticks and rocks press into my shoulders and back, making sleep impossible. I toss and turn, trying to make a pillow out of my crossed arms, but the pain is too much. It feels like someone has reached inside my chest and pulled out parts of all my vital organs.
Him, him, him. The mate bond yearns for Kieran.
It screams for his nearness, his comfort, his soothing touch and ache.
If I thought there were any way it might work, I would go to him, throw myself down on my knees and beg for his mercy.
Death might be better than this ache, which settles in my bones and radiates outward with every heavy beat of my heart.
When dawn comes, I notice that I’m hungry. It’s a distant worry. Briefly, I think of Gran, who I’m sure is worried for me. If I go to her house she’ll have food and fresh water, warmth and comfort… and pity.
She’ll also have Kieran nearby. He and Alpha Cade live not far down the road from her. And if the mate bond is telling me one thing, it’s that the closer I am to him, the more I’ll suffer. It pulls me to him with the desperation of the dying, even as it thrums that he’s the source of my pain.
Him, him, him. I can smell him in the back of my nose, can taste him between my teeth. He’s flooded my senses and I haven’t even touched him in years.
Groaning, I face away from his presence, desperately praying that this pain will fade the further I get from him and the more time passes.
If it doesn’t…
That’s a road I’ll cross alone when I come to it. Better not to let Gran worry.
So I gather what little remaining strength I have left, re-braid my damp and dirty hair, and pick my way through the forest toward the fringes of Pack Jade land.
We’re deep in uncharted territory, far from highways and interstates, in land seldom marked on human maps, if anyone is able to remember it exists.
Technically, Pack Jade lands are supposedly an old chemical waste dumping ground, right next to a landfill.
Reality is far different, but the magic that keeps us safe also keeps us from being noticed.
That means that I have to pick my way through unbeaten paths meant more for a wolf shifter’s paws than my human feet. Worse, the shoes I wore are already falling apart, and my sundress does nothing to keep me from shivering in the damp.
It would be easier to just give up. But some part of me wants to keep going, to go… somewhere. I’ve never even been to the fringes of our pack’s land, but I know people live there. Maybe I can find a place to crash while I figure out something else.
It’s that vague hope—and the fact that I can’t turn around and risk seeing Gran’s pitying face, or worse, Kieran—that keeps me going long after the blisters on my heels open up and my teeth start to chatter from the damp.
At some point, a few hours in, the rising sun shows me a distant road that looks promising. So I set off down it, focusing on the ache in my chest to orient myself, going away from the pain of the broken bond.
I’ve barely walked a few feet down the road when my left shoe falls apart. I stumble, fall to my hands and knees, and re-open the scabs on my palms. Crying out, I force myself up and hobble further down the road, only to stab my right big toe on a giant rusty nail.
Just when I’m trying to figure out if my slow-ass shifter healing will protect me from tetanus or not, I hear a car engine behind me. Turning, I take stock of an old red Ford truck, shiny and well-kept, with the driver’s arm resting on the open driver side window.
The truck pulls to a stop in front of me, and the driver—a woman with dark hair and an even, well-maintained tan—pushes her sunglasses down and frowns in my direction.
“Are you oh—wait.” She pauses, her olive-green eyes taking me in from head to toe. I can only imagine my current state: wet, dirty, bleeding, and limping, in nothing but impractical shoes and a once-beautiful yellow sundress with little blue flowers on it. “Is that… Aurora Blackburn? Seriously?”
Blinking, I hold my hand up to block the sun from my eyes and realize with a start who it is. “Dana LaFontaine?”
I hadn’t seen Dana in so many years that I’d just assumed she’d left the pack. Now she’s right here in front of me, driving a truck loaded full of what appear to be antiques—and staring at me like she’s seen a ghost.
“You look like you’ve been through some shit.
” Parking her truck, she gets out, grabbing something from the passenger seat then approaching me.
“Damn, girl, the last time I saw you we were both eight years old and knee-deep in mud out by that creek Alpha Cade said to never go to. Didn’t Grandma Carrie try to convince us it’d been cursed by witches? But we never believed her.”
“Waylaid Creek. Thanks.” The thing she grabbed was a towel, and as she hands it to me I nearly moan in appreciation of its warmth against my skin. “She told us that if we played in it…”
I trail off, wincing at the memory.
“We’d never find our mates.” Dana rolls her eyes, apparently behind enough on pack news that she has no idea what just happened to me. “She was always so dramatic. As if some old witch’s curse would make our fated mates reject us.”
Pain radiates from my breastbone with a newfound sharpness, as if the bond itself responds to my thoughts and emotions. Which will make the next however many years I live very interesting, I’m sure.