Page 9 of Fated to the Alpha Warrior (The Wolf’s Forbidden Mate #1)
Kieran
My mind wanders as I methodically pack my bags, the supplies I need coming to hand easily: several changes of outfit since I’ll be shifting quite a bit, a few credit cards, a small cell phone, and of course, the contact information for every pack with madness.
My father has already sent a trio of warriors to Pack Amethyst—that was something he did almost as soon as he gave up on hunting down and killing Pax—but the rest are going to be up to me.
And Aurora.
It hurts to think of her. Like a chill to the system, almost as if a ghost is passing through me. Seeing her today, realizing up close how much she’s changed, how many years have passed, I felt an unfamiliar hollowness empty me out.
My wolf nearly raged out of me at the sight of her. It was all I could do to sit there and not react, and I knew she’d be coming. I basically had to empty my mind out completely and focus all my energy on not reacting just to survive the damned meeting.
Zipping up the pack, I stare around at my spartan room.
I’ve tried to make it feel like a home over the years, but everything just feels…
wrong. So I recently gave away all my decor: the vintage pinup posters, old shifter relics, hunting trophies and framed canvas abstract art prints. Now, the white walls are mocking me.
They remind me of how not-sparse Aurora’s bedroom was growing up. The one and only time I saw it was during a group project we had in middle school. There were four of us: me, a girl named Sarah, and Benny, the class clown. We all took turns hosting, up until it was Aurora’s turn.
I’d jumped in to offer my place again, but she cut me off before I could. “We’ll just go to Gran’s,” she said, shrugging. “That’s where I spend most of my time, anyway, since the orphanage sucks.”
There was nothing I could say to that—she was right. And when we got to her bedroom at Carrie’s house, all I could do was marvel at how much life there was inside.
Rocks she had collected from the riverbanks and polished smooth.
Woven tapestries picked up from the artist down the road, all of them depicting wolves in various states of hunting and fighting.
Knick knacks, odds and ends, pieces of artwork she’d made, ceramics and stuffed animals and Halloween decorations.
All of it different, none of it matching, but somehow it just fit.
I’ve never been able to do that like she could.
Picking up my light pack, which is designed to stay with me when I shift into my wolf, I strap it diagonally across my body and head toward my father’s house next door.
The whole time, I think of her and that scent that haunts me: lilac and honey, sweet and feminine at the same time.
I feel the pain in my chest before I see her, the sharpness of it like a shock to my system.
It’s been six months, and the reminder of what I did, the choice I made, sends me reeling all over again.
But I grit my teeth and bear it, reminding myself why I did it—why it had to be done.
Because I know in the end I’d do it all over again without hesitation.
It isn’t until I round the corner of the secondhand store that I see her.
She’s standing in front of a rack of used T-shirts, her hands hovering over the hangers, staring up into the distance with a frown.
I’m sure she feels it too: that knife to the chest, carving things out like a Jack-O-Lantern getting cut up in time for Halloween.
All I want to do is to go to her, explain myself, tell her everything. But nothing I can say will really work. I can’t justify my choices, and the truth is, I’ll never choose her. Because I don’t want her to be my mate.
This is how it has to be, I remind myself, turning around and walking away. This is for the best. If it hurts me, well, that’s better than the alternative.
Better than being tied to Aurora Blackburn.
That was the first time that I nearly ran into her after that fateful day, but it wasn’t the last. There were others before yesterday in the outskirts.
At my cousin’s birthday party, knowing she was just a few houses down.
Hearing her laugh from half a mile away and shifting into my wolf, forcing him to run away, his howl of anguish echoing for miles.
Each time, I had to talk myself out of approaching her. Now I don’t even have to do that much. The truth is, when I saw her today, despite all the pain, I was glad that I rejected our bond.
Because she still hasn’t shifted. She’s still an outcast, barely a member of the pack, incapable of being my mate. So nothing has changed.
I walk into my father’s house without knocking, using the side door that comes out onto the driveway. It’s a modest home, at least for an alpha—my father has never really cared much for what he views as “keeping up with the Joneses.”
Instead, he owns as much acreage as possible, some of it here on pack lands, most of it elsewhere. His most favored warriors go with him twice a year to hunt on that land in wolf form. He’s never invited me.
I’m not sure I would go if he did.
“Good. You’re here.” He’s standing at his kitchen island as I walk inside, and doesn’t look up from what he’s doing to greet me. “Grab me that blade over there, I need to get this joint taken apart.”
There’s a rack of venison on his butcher block kitchen island. He’s half frozen it and is sawing through the ribs with an electric knife. Grabbing the serrated blade he’s motioning to, I lean back against the fridge and watch him quietly.
“I want you to make sure the girl doesn’t cause any trouble for us,” he says to me.
“Just because the elders insisted she go,” the tone of his voice makes it clear what he thinks about that, “doesn’t mean that you have to let it impede your investigation.
Leave her behind if you have to—just make sure it seems accidental. ”
“Elder Cahan seemed certain we’ll need a member of Pack Onyx to figure out where the madness came from,” I point out, “and she’s the only member.”
“Cahan is a fool with his nose too deep in the books. He actually suggested that I send a contingency of our best warriors to Pack Amethyst to investigate. As if I would risk them by letting them get near the source of the curse.”
That suggests that he’s willing to risk me, something I don’t point out, since I already knew as much. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that I find out what’s going on as quickly as possible. Protecting our people—protecting our pack—is my priority.”
“See that you do.” He flicks his eyes up to me, the ice blue of his gaze as familiar as the mirror, making me question as always whether I come off just as cold and unfeeling.
“If you don’t prove yourself soon, then I’ll have to find a new heir to be Pack Jade alpha after I step down.
I can’t have someone weak-willed and incapable follow in my footsteps. I won’t allow it.”
I nod sharply, swallowing the bitter words that rise in my throat in defense of myself.
I’ve done nothing but follow his orders, and in his footsteps, for as long as I can remember.
But the only thing he remembers are the mistakes and the missteps—and he makes sure that I pay for them every day of my life.
If he knew the half of it, he’d probably declare that I’m no longer his son.
“Anything else?” I ask him, shoving off the fridge and glancing at the clock. “I have to go soon to meet Aurora.”
“Just that there are ways to get a new mate. One more worthy to stand at a future alpha’s side,” he says, tossing a bit of gristle into the trash can at his side. “As always, though, I have to wonder if you’re worthy as well.”
I don’t stick around to hear more. Murmuring some empty words to him, I look up at my mother’s portrait where it hangs over the fireplace, and wordlessly say goodbye to the only parent who ever really made me feel loved.
All I have of her is the letters she wrote to me before I was even born, and those have more warmth in them than I’ve known from my family most of my life.
Do this. Do that. Be better, don’t overshadow him. But don’t be less than him either—make him look good, and remember, you’re the reason his mate is dead.
I strip my clothes off and shift into my wolf form before I head out, racing to the pack borders. My wolf is cagey and on edge, eager to see his mate again, so I take the long way. The more energy I drain from him, the better.
It isn’t until I’m at the edge of the woods that he calms down, and I’m running late.
So I look for a car, knowing Aurora will likely need to use one to keep up with me—and we’ll be shit out of luck anytime we need to head to a pack’s lands off the main roads—but I don’t see any.
Shifting near the edge of the woods, I undo my pack, pull out my first spare change of clothes, and shimmy into them.
Just as I’m about to call her, I turn toward my left and— there. A stabbing pain, just between my shoulder and my ribcage, radiating down to my abdomen. Shuddering, I grab onto the tree trunk for support, wondering if it’ll always be this way.
My wolf is whining inside me, anxious and on edge.
He shudders beneath the surface of my skin.
Taking several deep breaths, I focus on divorcing myself from these inconvenient feelings, letting the calm of still waters wash over me.
It’s an old trick I learned when I first got my wolf that helps in these moments.
Usually I know it’s worked when I look into the mirror and see a still, emotionless expression looking back at me.
By the time I’ve shoved the feelings down and the pain has faded to a dull ache, the sun has dipped below the horizon.
Walking toward the road, and the source of the pain, I squint until I realize what I’d been missing: sitting near the thick stone column that passes for a mile marker, her arms crossed over her chest and a pissed-off expression on her face, is none other than Aurora Blackburn herself.