EMILY

"Why did our wolves never recognize each other as mates until now?" Reece inquired, his serious gaze on me.

"I don't know," I replied, idly playing with the small stone I had picked in the cell.

Since we arrived at his pack, he had the others thrown in different cells but had personally thrown us in a different cell. So it was just Reece and I in this cell.

"But mates are meant to recognize each other,"

I sighed defeatedly, "I do know of that. But why we could not recognize each other? I don't know,"

Silence folded in on us. We were drawn into our respective world of thoughts. I wondered what life had left for me, what my future would be like. I had lost the only home I ever knew, lost the only family I had, even though they had hated me when they were alive.

"I'm sorry,"

His tone was low and defeated.

"For what?" I asked, my brows furrowed.

"Your father and your brother, Julian,"

I sighed. An indistinguishable mixture of feelings swamped me, my eyes stung and my head pounded. I tried to swallow the tears but they fell before I could even stop them.

"It's okay," I say in a quivering voice.

"It's not okay, Emily. It's okay to grieve,"

Since our hands were no longer bound, he moved closer to me and held my hand, squeezing in comfort. I dropped my head on his shoulder and bawled my eyes out.

The thing was; I did not know how to react to their deaths. I was sad that I was never going to see them again. Also, I was angry over how they'd treated me badly while I held on hope that they'd someday change and begin to treat me as a member of the family rather than an annoying stranger, they had died.

They died without love for me in their hearts. They died still remaining who they were to me. I did not know if I should mourn them or be angry and disappointed.

"I don't know if I'm grieving or just plain angry," I finally told him when my sobs had died down a bit, enabling me to talk.

"What do you mean?"

"Unlike you, I am not sure which to do." I sniffled and wiped my cheeks. "You know how they were with me. How they both treated me like a stranger than family. Maybe I never was to them. I accepted and cared for them still, hoping that someday they'll finally regard me as a Langston. But..." I broke down again and sobbed louder.

The werewolf who was ordered to guard our cell gave me a strange, irritating look. I paid him no mind. Reece did not either.

"But they died without ever loving you,"

Reece completed for me, totally getting my point. This was why he was my best friend. He knew everything about me. Understood my feelings better than my own family.

"Am I a bad person for not fully grieving as I should? I mean, they were family, regardless,"

"How you feel is entirely normal. Anyone in your shoes will feel the same. They never treated you as a Langston which I always say was a very cruel thing to do. Don't blame yourself, Emily,"

"Okay, I guess I needed to hear somebody say it,"

"I'm glad I'm that person," he nudged me, in an attempt to cheer me up.

I passed him a teary smile of gratitude, "I'm sorry about yours too. You were close to him,"

He gave a small sombre nod. "Yes, I was,"

"I'm sorry,"

"It's okay. You didn't kill him. Our mate did,"

The last sentence came out dripping with venom, especially when he mentioned mate.

"I wonder how the Moon Goddess could fate us to such a despicable werewolf?"

"I don't know too. I mean the guy's evil," Reece's vein popped from his neck, showing how enraged he was. It was my turn to squeeze his hand to calm him down.

"It's okay, Reece. Let's just think of our future and what would likely happen to it,"

That was a very heavy thought that I could not decipher at the moment and I saw from his expression that he was also skeptical about the future. We were imprisoned by our mate who was the worst Alpha in the history of Alphas. So young, yet so mean. So handsome, and yet so vile!

"What is your wolf saying about our mate, Reece?" I resumed, placing my head on his shoulder, our hands still clasped.

"He is angry but he thinks he's attractive,"

"Ilaya thinks so too,"

He chuckled, "How much more can our wolves betray us?"

I spread my lips in a smile. "They're shameless!"

"Having a cuddle session without your mate?"

There he was, his presence overwhelming the cell, even when he was not yet in it. My wolf reacted to the strong pull of the mate bond, and so did Reece's wolf from the way he was staring at the Alpha.

How did he get here without giving away the sound of his footsteps? And how did he act so aloof and distant while Reece and I almost drooled at his presence? Was he not feeling the pull of the mate bond as we did?

"Do you have no regard for an Alpha?"

That shiver that came from hearing the dark tone coursed through me again and instantly brought me to my knees.

"Alpha!"

"Alpha!"

Reece had joined me too. Was this how the mate bond worked?

"You may rise, my mates!"

There was the taunting again as if he was mocking us for being mated to him. As though we were not worth being his mates.

He opened the cell and came in as soon as we rose. He strode towards us, slow and somewhat threatening. I gulped, unsure of what to expect. Ilaya was doing a mad prancing in my head as his scent filled my nostrils. He was close, so close!

"Do you want to know why you both never felt the mate bond until I came into the picture?"

How did he even know about what Reece and I had discussed? Has he been here the whole time?

He raised both mine and Reece's chins, staring intently at both our faces. I was hot all over from his touch on my skin. There was nothing sensual about it but I tingled all over.

This mate bond was stupid.

"Because a triple bond needs the third person to be activated. So, without me, you both can't be mated,"

And I couldn't hate the haughty, smug expression on his face any more than I already was.

Reece

Emily was my childhood bestie. We'd done everything together, from causing mischief to playing in muddy water that had our parents grilling us and almost forbidding us from being close to each other. We had cried together, laughed together, endured bullies and bullied right back.

Pack members knew us, they said our friendship was marked in stone and sealed by fate. As youngsters, we never really understood them, only that we enjoyed each other's company and the fact that my father was the Beta of her father who was an Alpha, made things easier for us.

Emily saw me as the brother she wished for but could not get, her own brother was more or less a nightmare to her. She was treated like an outcast by her family, rather than the true daughter of an Alpha and the little sister of a future Alpha.

But I had no issue filling the gap; I was older than her anyway, so there was no trouble there.

I was lucky to have had a father who cared for my well-being, and my elder sister, who was now the wife of a Beta of another pack, did her best for me, especially in trying to fill up the role of our late mother. My family was nicer than Emily's had been and it made me proud of how she'd turned out regardless and I had sworn to never let anything or anyone hurt her.

Even now, staring in the face of the pillager of our pack, who was shockingly our mate, I was ready to make sure no harm came to her, especially not from this devil from Hades who had ruined the good life we had. I wondered why the Moon Goddess gave us this hateful person as a mate.

Ilan - my wolf - was also under the binding mate bond, and I wanted him to snap out of it.

"Ilan, get over it. Stop acting all affectionate toward this varlet," I communicated telepathically to him. I wanted to give this ruffian a piece of my mind, not drool stupidly at him but I would be helpless, unless my wolf was able to pull out of the mate bond.

It worked and Ilan growled and it resonated through me. "Let us go, you evil being!"

"Allow you to go where, my dear mate?" He sneered when referring to me as his mate.

I sneered right back. "Back where we belong," My hands soon balled into fists.

I caught Emily's pleading look; she was still under the mate bond's pull. I ignored her, Emily always wanted peace. She was too quiet and too cheerful to want confrontations. In fact, she hated conflicts. But this was our lives at stake here and I was not going to let go so easily.

He cocked his right brow, an annoying smirk formed on his lips, "You mean you want to return to the ruined and now-desolate pack land?"

"Who made it so?" I gritted my teeth, "Who came into our pack in the early hours of the morning to kill and plunder? To maim and destroy? To keep some alive as slaves, who did all that?"

He merely regarded me with indifference and it vexed me more. I wanted him to react, I wanted him to get incensed, so I could challenge him to a duel.

"Mind how you talk to an Alpha," He spoke in a tone that would normally cause chills to spread along the spine of anyone and make one go reasonably quiet but I was far from being reasonable. He was not reasonable when he trespassed our pack and left it in ruins!

"Or what? What will you do?" I challenged spitefully, "If you were so powerful, you'd not have done what you did the gutless way. You would have challenged the Alpha of my pack to a fight. You'd have declared war on us and seen us defeat you to shame!" I spat at him.

He grabbed my jaw and pressed harder. I pretended it didn't hurt, I refused to let him see my weakness. I would not let him see how much he has broken me.

"Please, let him go," Emily beseeched.

"Don't implore him, let him do his worst! This is what he does, rather than fight like the Alpha he is, he prefers the cowardly way," I said to Emily while staring defiantly at the vile man before me.

Yes, he was getting irate, just as I'd wanted. But the anger soon dissipated, and he let go of my jaw. Amusement filled his eyes instead, and I wondered what was funny.

"You think killing my people and taking the rest of us as slaves is funny? You think it is?" I growled, wishing I could tear this bastard into a million pieces and feed him to snakes!

He rested a hand on my shoulder, looking rather entertained, "I like your fierceness, mate,"

Then he rose, put his hands in his pants' front pockets and turned to walk out of the cell, much to my dismay. This wasn't how things were supposed to pan out. I wanted to fight him and send him to hell, even if I had to go down there with him!

Why was he laughing? Did he see me as a wimp or just some buffoon who provided amusement?

The nerve!

"Get back here! How dare you walk out on me like that, you clod?" I yelled, rushing towards the gate that a guard who just arrived had already locked.

Still undeterred, I shook the bars of the gate hard, my eyes filled with fury.

"Come back here! Are you deaf?"

"You, go and sit down and stop yelling. This isn't a market square!" the glowering guard warned me but I didn't care.

"Tell your coward of a leader to get back here. I'm not yet done with him. How dare he walk out on me?"

Now the guard looked amused, "Because he's Alpha, the most powerful one in existence. An entity you are destined to bow to, till you expire. If it doesn't settle well with you, that's none of our business. If you miss your dead relatives too much, there's always another option. Bite your tongue and go to hell,"

The guard flaunted the huge golden key in his hand at me, a mocking grin surfaced on his face. Then without another word, he left arrogantly.

"Damn it!" I spat through clenched teeth.

Even a mere Omicron wolf looks down on me? How pleasant!

EMILY

"What is wrong with you Reece?" I admonished after rising to my feet and heading to where Reece stood with a heaving chest.

Why was he like this? He was usually not like this but recently he was getting irate over everything. His anger could get us punished or worse, killed!

"What did I do?" he barked, fury was still evident in his eyes.

"Don't play dumb. This is not our pack, Reece. You know how dangerous this Alpha is, he could get us killed," I tried to reason with him.

"What's the worst thing that could happen to us, Emily? He has already robbed us of everything. Our life, our pack, our home, our family, friends... Everything is all gone, and you want me to wear a phoney smile and act all friendly with a despicable demon like him?" He shot at me.

I understood his anger, I truly did. I knew how much we had lost, I did.

I had lost too. I lost exactly as he'd lost but I did not like the way he was going about it. He was being too aggressive and violent right now. He was not being reasonable at all, and I really needed him to be.

"We still have each other, Reece. We're here together. Going through life as we'd always done."

"So because of this reason, we should let it go, just like that? What do you think will happen to us one day? Do you desire to spend the rest of your life behind bars? Do you want to grow old as a captive? Or do you not understand the essence of freedom?"

"I do understand, I just..." I trailed off. I honestly had no reply to give at this point. He had a point, a very valid point and the more I pondered over it, I got more befuddled and scatterbrained.

I was scared too.

I did not know what to expect of my future but it was surely not this.

I let out a sigh, "I don't know Reece. You have a point, I really see it. But I just don't want you going all aggressive on him, it won't look good for us,"

"What do you want me to do then? Please don't tell me to let go and be calm, because being calm has never done anything fruitful."

"But aggression takes us nowhere," I argued.

"Are you for real? Are you seriously saying that to me, Emily? Did you see his face before he left? Did he look like someone who loves peace? Are you not understanding that this has been his scheme all along?"

"What do you mean by that?" Weary, I went back to my position and sat.

I watched him pace up and down in the cell. I could sense his anger growing with each minute that passed. I had seen Reece get angry before but never this much. It really troubled me!

"Reece, please come sit. Come sit with me." I beseeched, patting the cold space beside me.

"How can you be so calm? I mean, our lives are sailing away right before us and you just sit there as though everything is just fine and dandy?"

"What do you want me to do?" I say in vexation.

"To be with me on this and for once, I want you to get mad. This is worth being angry about. This is worth your rage, bestie. Stand up and let's fight together!"

I sighed, "And what would that change?"

He stared at me as if I'd just said something unbelievably ludicrous. I met his gaze head-on, quirking my brow; a silent dare for him to give an answer.

"Fine then, sit there. Sit and watch them oppress you. You're used to it, I guess,"

My gaze narrowed, and my chest burned. "What do you mean by that, Reece?"

"Am I lying? You've been oppressed by everyone you know. Every single person, except me. Your father treated you as more of a distant relation imposed on him, while your own brother made you question whether or not he was your kin. You allowed too many kids to bully you and all you did was stay calm and do nothing. Aside from your family that are now dead, which of those people have regretted what they did to you? Even your family did not die regretting. And you talk to me about violence not being the answer?" He seethed, hitting the cell's bars and punching the walls in fury.

Tears blurred my vision and before I could stop myself, I stood, walked to him and slapped him hard across the face. He held his left cheek, glaring heatedly at me.

"Emily, you slapped me?"

"Say that one more time to my face, Reece." I gave him a rough push, growling, "Say it. Repeat yourself, you clod!"

"This is what you do best. Cry when you're being told the truth. If you want me to say it to your face again, fine, I'll gladly oblige. You are not calm Emily. You are weak! A simpleton who lets anyone and everyone step on her,"

I let out an angry cry and hit him. I kept hitting him so hard, but he did not retaliate. He received every hit but still had on his glare. "You keep hitting me because you know I wouldn't hit back. Why don't you use the same energy on others? For example, the animal that just left? He is the real enemy, not me!"

"I hate you, Reec," I kept hitting him.

How dare he say things like that to me? Why would he insult me so? He was supposed to be my best friend. He was supposed to be on my side, not against me. He had said some pretty mean things.

I hated how he made me feel. His words were so mean and they hurt. "You should not have said those words to me, Reece. You are mean. I hate you. I'm not as strong as you or as brave. That's why I'm grateful you're here, you blockhead."

I wanted to give him one last hit when he grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. "I'm sorry, Emily, I should not have said that. It was mean... You're my best friend and you always will be. I have never said this but I envy how calm and cheerful you always are, no matter the circumstances you find yourself. That's how you were able to live with your family. And I'm glad you and I are mates,"

I nodded, accepting his apology. Reece was my best friend and the only family I had now, "I don't hate you. I love you, bestie,"

"I know you didn't mean that. And I love you too," he whispered.

He wiped my tears and planted a kiss on my forehead.