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‎ From the way Peter was grinning beside me, I could tell I had gotten myself into something I would regret. After all, he had wanted me to catch Alpha Kaelen's attention. Even better for him now, I was Alpha Kaelen's mate."Mate."The word echoed in my mind, twisting my stomach. My heart pounded wildly as my wolf leapt up and started to pace once again, trying to claw her way out of me and reach for him like a wild beast.Not quite sure why I was making the first move, I took a step forward. The music had long stopped, and everyone was staring at what was happening in front of them. I didn't miss the air of discontentment from a lot of people at the fact that he was mated to a person like me, but it didn't register immediately.This could be my way out, I thought. I could be taken away from my father, taken out of the situation I was in. I could leave here tonight with my mate, and all of my problems with my father would be put behind me.Alpha Kaelen finally got over his shock and moved toward me with intent. People instinctively parted the way for him as all eyes turned to me as he finally reached me."You're my mate," I said quietly, knowing fully well that he knew that. I didn't know whether to smile or not.Alpha Kaelen's gaze never wavered past my face. He towered over me with an unreadable expression. My body trembled, but it wasn't in fear. The mate bond tugged harder at me, and I could tell from how he winced that he felt it too.Before I could open my mouth and say something else, his next words stopped me in my tracks."What an utter disgrace."It wasn't just the words that struck me across the face like a slap. It was the way he said it so coldly and so cruelly, like were not standing in the midst of all these people. I held my breath in surprise."You're on omega, aren't you?" He figured it out.The heat that had just been spreading across my chest was doused and put out by his words. Murmurs started to ripple through the crowd.He looked at me from my head to my feet, disgust pooling at his face."You don't even have to tell me you're an omega before I find out. You carry it in you. Your posture, your scent. You smell like complete weakness."I flinched. Each word sounded even more painful than the whips that Peter had dealt me earlier."I had expected that the Moon Goddess would have more sense than to do this to me," he muttered more to himself than to anyone else. "But I guess not."As if to make things worse, his eyes landed on Peter whose smile had completely faded from his face."And you," he said. "You were my father's beta before you went against his orders and betrayed him in the process. How am I supposed to be mated to your daughter with such history?"I was frozen. My feet were rooted to the floor, even with how badly I wanted to turn around and run out of there. It felt like my heart had been open, and Alpha Kaelen had wasted no time to crush it."I, Alpha Kaelen Spear of Crimson Wood Pack, reject you as my mate."Gasps filled the air in the hall, followed by silence as they all stared at me.I waited there with my breath held for the bond between us to snap as I had been told it would if someone was rejected. I had heard it was supposed to feel like a wire breaking in your chest and a gaping hole there.But nothing came.There was no snap. There was no emptiness. There was only the sharp, echoing silence in the hall and nothing more, leaving me even more confused than anything else."What..." I trailed off, looking over at Alpha Kaelen to see if he felt it too. If the bond was still there for him. But before I could get a good look at his face, he was turning around and walking away without giving me a second glance."That's so embarrassing for her," I heard someone whisper in a low, cruel tone. It was followed by laughter from whoever the person was talking to."I can't believe she thought he would accept her, knowing the history between her father and his father," someone else said.Soon, all I could hear was how foolish I was to expect anything from Alpha Kaelen. How hopeless I was.I was laughed at, pointed at, and they all had no sympathy for me. Not even in the slightest."I can't do this," I said as I turned to Peter, who was glaring at me as if he was only seconds away from having my head in his arms."What can't you do?" He asked, daring me to say what I was saying. "You can still fix this. You can convince him to take you in. Tell him you won't be weak forever. You'll train."He didn't care. He didn't care about me. I knew that a long time, but being faced with the reality of it was too much. All my father cared about was me getting him what he wanted. He didn't care that the man he wanted me to catch the attention of was my mate and had just rejected me.My legs finally moved, and I bolted. It was something I was sure I would regret, but I didn't care at the moment. All I wanted was to get out of there and be able to breathe.I just ran through the patrol guards and through the woods. Branches scratched at my arms, but I barely paid them any mind. I stumbled a couple of times, but I never fell. I couldn't afford to fall. Not now. Not after the fall I had just taken in front of that crowd.I reached home when the moon was at the peak of its glow, making a mockery of me. I stumbled through the front door and collapsed onto the cold wooden floor of the living room."Why?" I cried out, not sure if I was asking the Moon Goddess, my father, or Kaelen. "Why would you do something so cruel? Why me?! Why does it have to be me?!""He was my mate. And he just...rejected me," I rambled as I tried to come to come to terms with what had just happened and the burning humiliation I would have to carry on my shoulders now.Worst of all, the bond was still there. It was buzzing in my chest like a constant reminder of my failure. It was telling me that I wasn't free from this. Not even in the slightest.The door flew open, rattling its frame and almost coming off its hinges from how much force was used. I jumped to my feet as Peter stormed into the living room, his eyes gleaming with unadulterated fury."I was trying to tell you what to do so that you could salvage the damage you caused, but you ran out on me. How dare you?"He stepped toward me so menacingly, and his last threat toward me caused me to swallow the lump in my throat.My father was going to kill me.    

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‎ "He rejected me," I started to explain myself to my father as he took slow and intentional steps toward me. A part of me knew it was useless, explaining myself. There was nothing I could possibly say that would stop him from doing whatever he wanted."You saw it, he didn't want anything to do with me," I added."And he said it's because you're an omega. A weak one. Which isn't exactly a lie, now, is it?" He asked me darkly.A small, rebellious part of me had the urge to snap at him and tell him he had his role to play in this as well. He was the beta who had betrayed Alpha Kaelen's father. Even if I wasn't an omega, it would have been hard for him to accept me as his mate anyway.I barely had any time to collect my thoughts when he exploded like a wildfire."You humiliated me!" He screamed like a man without flaws and faults. "You stood there and exposed your weakness without even standing up for yourself!"What was I supposed to say when my mate was attacking me with hurtful words? I was in shock."I told you to catch his attention, not disgust him!" He roared at me as his face twisted with pure hate. "Do you ever get anything right in your miserable little life?!"I did catch his attention. What disgusted him was not me exactly, but what I had been broken to become. And my father's history as well."I regret the day you were born into this world. You have always been a mistake," he spat with venom.His words didn't hurt anymore. They were simply refrains of what he had said before. There was nothing he would insult me with that I hadn't heard from him before. "I tried," I whispered weakly. My voice cracked from the slight effort. "I just...I didn't know things would end this way and-"A sharp slap across my cheek cut me off. My head jerked sideways, giving me a momentary whiplash. The sting of the slap was immediate and hot, reminding me of what kind of man I called my father."You were born wrong!" He hissed at me. "How else can a man strong enough to be a beta like me have something so cursed like you, an omega? I needed a weapon for a child. One that would carve a path for me. Why couldn't you be strong like the others?! Why did you have to shift at sixteen instead of when you turned ten like every other normal wolf out there?!"I remembered the night I had shifted clearly. Four years ago, sixteen without any hope of having a wolf after I had missed the chance to shift on my tenth birthday. It had happened so suddenly. One minute, I felt nothing. The next, my bones were shifting and turning.There was nothing I could say in response. He didn't need me to explain myself. All he wanted was for me to bleed, and I could tell."No, please!" Even then, I still couldn't fight off the urge to beg him to spare me as he grabbed my hand and dragged me down to the basement where I had been kept prisoner more than I would have liked.There was a dim light hanging from the ceiling, casting eerie shadows along the walls of the basement. Shadows that had spoken to me on lonely nights in the basement. I had been brought down here a lot as punishment.But it was different this time, and I could feel it."What... No, no, no. Please, don't do this. I admit that I made a mistake," I pleaded as he grabbed a leather I was familiar with. It was carefully threaded with silver so that only the person holding it would control where the silver touched so it wouldn't burn.Peter didn't care. He grabbed my hands and strapped them with the leather."I've had enough of you being weak," he said as he smeared something cold and dark across my chest. From the strong smell of iron emanating from it, I knew it was blood. And then he started to chant words I'd never heard before."I'm done waiting," he muttered under his breath. "If the goddess didn't bless me with a powerful child, I'll just have to make do with the one she gave me. I'll awaken something in you, Seraphina. Something even the most powerful alphas will have no other choice than to bow to."And that was how it started. Days of torture. He kept me tied up in the basement, bringing food and water only once daily before he would start his strange rituals.He would burn herbs, slice the palm of his hand, chant spells I didn't think he was supposed to even know about. Each night, there were more cuts and more symbols. My bones ached with fatigue.But I didn't cry. Not anymore. Something in me was changing, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I started to feel strange. Like something was crawling beneath my skin. I would wake up in the middle of the night with a burning ache in my chest, drenched in my own sweat. Worst of all, it felt like these emotions weren't mine. There was pure rage and so much loneliness.Kaelen.It had to be him. Each time I felt it, I also felt the tug of the mate bond.I felt his fury pulsing through me like fire. I felt his rage at everyone, everything, and even himself. He was clinging so tightly to control, desperately fighting the madness that clawed at his mind."Goddess," I whispered one night as I felt his hunger. It was so wide, so vast, that it didn't have a start or an end.Hunger for me.I felt his longing and his need every night, rendering me unable to sleep. The mate bond wasn't breaking, but it was evolving. It seemed to be growing.I soon started to lose track of time. The only thing that would wake me up to what was happening around me was Peter's voice. His methods were even more brutal than the last.One day, without warning, he burst into the basement in a hurry that made me panic. He moved fast as he untied my wrists. The silver burned, but I didn't scream."Go into your room now. Go put on something decent. Make sure it covers your sleeves and your wrists. Cover your bruises," he ordered me as he yanked me out of the basement and pushed me into my bedroom.With each stair I climbed, my muscles felt even more sore and my skin more raw.I picked a navy blue dress. It fit snugly across my skin, comforting me like the hug I longed for but never got. I smoothed my hair back and hurriedly put makeup on my face as I heard Peter's approaching footsteps."Well, come on!" He whispered aggressively at me as he grabbed my hand and led me out of the bedroom.My stomach twisted into knots when I smelled him. Pine and rain. Something natural and so familiar.Kaelen.I froze at the bottom of the stairs as my gaze collided with his. He stood in the center of the living room, his black coat wet from the drizzle of rain outside. His chest rose and fell like he had been running, and his eyes were so ferocious and locked onto mine, never leaving.I could tell without anyone saying anything to me. He was there for me.  

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‎ Neither Kaelen nor I said anything for a long time. His eyes roamed over me as if he was trying to figure something out. Perhaps he was internally asking himself why he was here.Peter's hand clenched tighter around my wrist as he pulled me forward."She's ready for you now," he said. I almost scoffed at how airy his voice was with such fake pride for me.Kaelen didn't respond to him. His gaze flickered over to where Peter's hand held mine, and something dangerous flashed in his eyes. It was there for only a split second, but I caught it."Let her go," he commanded my father flatly.Peter hesitated, then he dropped my wrist as if it burned him.With a tilt of his head, Kaelen gestured at me as he told me, "Come with me."As he led me out of the door, I really hoped I wouldn't have to return to the house. The rain drizzled slightly over us, but not enough for us to run for shelter.He led me through the pack grounds in silence, his hands in his pockets as if this was his pack and he owned everything in it. You would think he wasn't the alpha of another pack entirely.The air was cool and crisp, almost as if it was trying hard to slice the tension between us. Walking beside him felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, and his next words could either be a push to my death or a pull to save me."You felt it," he finally said, breaking the silence but not looking at me.I didn't need him to explain what he meant by that. All those nights of feeling what he wa feeling. Of course he knew I felt it too."I did," I replied."Everything," he said, waiting for my confirmation."Everything," I answered."And the pull?" He asked."It gets stronger every day," I confessed.He finally stopped walking, making me stop in my tracks as well. We were alone now, deep in the trees. He turned toward me as his eyes burned with something between frustration and need."I don't understand it," he growled. "The bond should have broken the first time I rejected you.""I know," I whispered in response. "But it didn't."I didn't want to have to tell him, but I hoped he would understand that this was probably the will of the goddess. She didn't want us separated. Not like this."It just got worse," he said, his voice dropping lower. "It got unbearable."I blinked back the tears that burned in my eyes. His fists clenched at his sides."I have torn my house apart. I haven't slept. I can't even eat without choking on the scent of you filling my head. It's like you're everywhere. And the more I try to reject you again in my thoughts, the bond-""Got stronger," I finished it for him."Maybe it's not meant to be broken," I said, daring to step closer."Or maybe it's a curse," he said so harshly that I flinched."I can't lead with someone like you by my side," he said. "You're too weak to be a luna. You can barely even stand on your own, and your father still treats you like a child. And of course we cannot forget what your father did to mine."I turned my face away like he had just slapped me."I don't want a luna who cowers in corners when there's something hard. I don't want a luna who's okay with being abused by her father and kept in the basement. You barely even fought to get out."I snapped my head at him, shocked that he knew about it."Don't think I'm stupid, Seraphina. Of course I knew. I'm not a child. You barely cover your bruises well, and you wince in pain when you make certain movements. If you're too weak to stand up against your own father, then how can you-""That's not fair! How am I supposed to-""I need a warrior by my side," he interrupted in return.I felt my throat closing up as the truth started to hit me and I realized he wasn't here to take me to his pack like I had allowed myself to believe."So, that's it?" I asked. "You're going to reject me again?"He nodded once, and I could feel my heart breaking before he said the words."I, Alpha Kaelen of Crimson Wood Pack, reject you, Seraphina as my mate."We stood in silence as the bond didn't weaken. Instead, it surged.My heart slammed in response. As if he felt the same thing, his eyes widened and I saw his pupils dilate.He swayed forward like something unseen had yanked him toward me. I felt it as well. It was a pull, almost as if gravity had paused its work. His breath hitched and his eyes dropped to my mouth.He leaned in, so close.I felt the heat of his body and the storm in his eyes as he fought with himself internally while our lips almost brushed.He pulled back sharply, his breath ragged."This is wrong. You are wrong.""Don't leave me here. Please!" I begged as he turned around and started to walk off, but he didn't care to stop."Kaelen, please don't-""I won't be returning," he said over his shoulder, not giving me a look. "Not even if the goddess comes down to earth and begs me to."And just like that, he was gone.~When I was back at the house, Peter was waiting for me. As if he knew what had happened and could read it from my face, his face flushed with fury that made the walls around us tremble."You let it happen again!" He screamed at me, shoving me so hard that I hit the table in the middle of the living room. "You've humiliated me again!""I didn't mean to-"Like always, he didn't listen."Do you enjoy this?! You enjoy waiting me lose everything? Is this your revenge? You want power over me?! Fine. I'll give you power!"He dragged me down to the basement. The ritual circle was already drawn. The symbols were darker this time, more dangerous. There was something so wrong in the air now."I'll awaken whatever darkness sleeps in you," he said. "And you'll thank me for it."He began to chant. The silver was tighter around my wrist, burning and sizzling. The blood on my chest burned. The air thickened with pressure until I thought I'd shatter.And then something snapped."GET AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed out, and it sounded like something strange had woken up within me. The dim bulb hanging off the ceiling shattered, and I watched my father fly into the wall behind him.I pulled my arms and pulled myself free from the leather he had bound me in. I panted as I looked at the damage I had done. Peter was struggling to stand up, and I knew that was the chance I had."Seraphina!" He called after me, but I didn't listen.I was out of the basement in no time, rushing out of the house and into the woods until I was out of the pack borders and now running on uncharted and unclaimed land.I didn't know how long I ran, but I continued to go until my legs and my lungs gave out at the same time and I found myself on the ground, panting."You look like a mess."I gasped and turned around to find an unfamiliar man standing there with his hands on his waist, his head tilted as he took a good look at me.And maybe I should have stayed back. Maybe I should have run all the way to Kaelen's pack to beg him to let me stay.Because this mystery man would be the beginning of my problems.

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