Aries

Might want to hear the song above before reading.

“Mate,” he said, his lips dangerously close to my ears. Ethan’s fingers splayed on my back as he tried to pull me closer. “Mine.”

From the pheromones that released from every pore of his skin, I knew he was hanging by a thin thread. His mating scent was a drug that I could not resist. This scent was made to entice me, to make sure that I was nothing but a moaning mess around him. It was a scent that only I could have control over. Not anybody. Not even his marked female.

“Ethan!” Harper shrilled.

As much as I could not see her seething face, I could hear the fury in her voice. I could not bring my eyes to see anyone or anything other than the Alpha before me. I closed my eyes and brought my limp arms around him.

The chanting in my head was nothing more than a soft whisper of claim when I rested my face on his chest. I was complete. At that moment, someone could have shot me and I would have died with a smile on my face.

Then, my mate was snatched away from me. Cold, lithe fingers grabbed his arms and he was pulled away. Harper stood before us and a deluge was nothing compared to the wrath she had.

“How dare you!” she cried, pulling my mate towards her.

Ethan blinked and stumbled behind. Perhaps the touch of his chosen female was just enough to make him come out of the effects of the bond.

As he took a step back towards Harper, a piece of my heart fell. The pressure I had felt in my mind shattered. The enhanced gifts it gave me lingered while its voice just shattered.

My throat felt heavy as though a huge rock was placed upon it. With each second he looked at me and then at Harper, it was pure agony.

My legs shook beneath me and I did not know how I was holding up. My breaths became ragged and my heart no longer beat in a rhythm.

“Ethan!” Alpha Charles called, climbing down the dais and stood next to his son. “What is the meaning of this?”

Even though Ethan was the alpha, Alpha Charles held some authority over him through his age. At his father’s question, Ethan snarled lowly.

“Lyra is mine,” he said quietly. “My mate.”

Alpha Violet who stood behind her mate gasped and looked up as if to thank the moon. A prayer left her lips as she clasped her fingers together.

Dad wore a proud smile while mom gritted her teeth. Dad was a beta and he was happy that one of his blood was his Alpha’s mate, while it was my mom’s pride that was on the line. Even if her alpha was her daughter’s mate, he had chosen, marked another female before he met me. Mom would not forget this until her last breath.

Rhaze pursed her lips and had a neutral face. Her position as my sister and Ethan’s delta was tearing her apart. The fight she had with herself was visible to me by her rigid stance.

Cain, on the other hand, muttered something to a shifter I have never seen in my life something.

“Your mate?” Harper shrieked. “You chose me!”

Ethan closed his eyes and groaned. A noise that sent another bolt of shiver down my spine.

“Alpha Ethan,” mom said in a collected tone. “Tonight’s the Mating Moon.”

I was aware of everyone’s eyes on me. Mating Moon was the full moon night that came in rainy season. The night when the Alpha Naming ceremony took place and of course, the Crowning of Alpha female.

Whoever Ethan chose to mate tonight would be the alpha female of this pack.

If he chose me, the mark on Harper’s neck would vanish and she would be forced to return to her pack.

But if he chose her, I would suffer from the betrayal of the bond and the torture of heat.

Heat. A painful experience from what I have heard. Not only did the female’s temperature rose high enough to kill the female but also did their sexual desires. The need to mate thrummed in the blood of the female who went through heat. Though it would not guarantee a pup, the chances of conception - provided the female mated with her mate, were high during this period. Perhaps, this was one of the instances where the animal nature of the shifters was seen.

A female went into heat only if she met her mate. Unmated females did not have to go through that.

Rarely did a female make it without mating during her heat. When heat struck and if her mate was not nearby, just to survive I have seen females mating with males who were not their mates.

“Ethan, you must choose now,” Alpha Charles said in a grim voice. His blue eyes met mine and sent a sense of reassuring. “There’s only thirty minutes to nine o’clock. The Courting phase of the night to begin.”

I licked my lips and saw Alpha Violet glaring at her son. Cain was still talking with the new shifter, who might have come from Harper’s pack.

Ethan cleared his throat. “I-I choose...”

“Choose wisely son,” Alpha Violet warned.

He looked at me and then at his chosen mate. The bond between Ethan and Harper sparked and the one between us flailed like a newborn cast in a sea. Would he even give me a chance?

Ethan’s blue eyes met mine. My heart stopped and I wondered why was I even breathing. Seeing the hardness in those eyes that showed me it could house hatred and disappointment well, I knew his decision. Knew it before he could even utter it.

“Harper,” he whispered. “I choose Harper.”

As if that was not rejection enough. My heart thrashed inside the cage of bones. What did he see in her that he failed to see in me? Was it because she had a wolf who could sing with his under the moon? Or was it because she had alpha blood in her that would strengthen his pups?

Whatever it was, the bond thrashed between us. It demanded me to fight for him. For us.

I had no control over the tears that flowed freely from my eyes. Pain racked through my body and crumbled to my knees.

Harper’s eyes gleamed and she hugged Ethan from behind. “He is mine,” she snarled. “Stay away from him.”

I could not bear to look at anyone. Pain... no, something worse than pain wrecked me. I did not know its origin nor did I care. All I knew was Ethan’s touch could send the pain away.

I looked at him again. “I am your mate,” I rasped. “Your true mate. You would not even give me a chance?”

His face hardened and his beautiful eyes were colder than ice. “I choose Harper. I don’t want to be dictated by mere mate bond. If not for the bond, I would not even care whether you lived or you died.”

This was rejection at its highest form. He was not only rejecting me as his mate but also as a pack member. Was it because I never shifted? Was it because I had only one skin?

But then, even the humans who lived in this continent felt the mate bond, cherished it. Even they knew it was not advisable to disregard a mate bond.

I whimpered and chanced a glance at others. Rhaze was the synonym for wrath and fury. She was shifting in and out of her skin, stopping her shift halfway. She knew what would happen if she attacked the alpha.

I would not even receive the mercy of being alive. Ethan would kill me before making me watch Rhaze die in the most painful way.

Mom was no better than her eldest daughter. One could clearly see where Rhaze got her temper from. Gamma Lyanne was restraining mom.

Dad was still in a shock which even Alpha Charles shared. They expected Ethan to choose me. What would they do to their alpha?

Alpha Violet, on the other hand, stared at her son with disappointment. Her disbelief and her resentment of his choice echoed on her face.

My friends, Reece and Aurelia were holding Mike back. The twins and Livvia were opening showing their disrespect towards Ethan. Sam, Andrew and Brent wore similar anger of my sister on their sleeves.

Cain, the one I thought who would stand by me always, now stood behind his new Luna. I could even forgive Ethan’s rejection. But as long as I lived, I would never forget his betrayal.

“Ethan.” The pressure that made itself known seconds before I found Ethan was my mate, made me plead again. “Ethan. Please.”

“He is not yours,” Harper sneered, her nails digging in his skin, marking him as hers in a subtle way. “He is mine, human. Find someone suitable for yourself. You think you and Ethan are compatible?”

I whimpered and focused my eyes on my mate. Would he allow her to talk like that?

“Lyra with someone else?” Ethan growled at Harper. “No. She is my mate no matter what. No one is allowed to touch her apart from me.”

What was he going with this? He could choose a mate and live happily while I had to rot in his shadows?

“And Harper, I promised you my title and that our pups will be the next Alpha to this pack,” he said, smiling at her. “I never promised I would not keep anyone as my mistress. Being with your true mate is said to be the pleasure of purest form. Why should I turn away from such a pleasure?”

Everything happened at once Ethan finished speaking. The pressure in my head that was whimpering, now growled. Whatever it was, it wanted the blood of the low life alpha before us. It no longer acknowledged Ethan as a gift given by the Moon.

Rhaze shifted completely and was about to pounce on Ethan. She was stopped by Livvia who whispered something in her ears to which my sister snarled something.

Mom and dad were surrounded by shifters who did not belong to this pack. Aurelia had to knock her brother unconscious so that he would not do anything serious.

Harper’s face blanched. “Ethan?”

“What did you say, Ethan?” Alpha Violet shouted. “If you wanted Harper, then choose her and be happy. Why are you taking Lyra’s chance of finding someone who she loves? Who are you to do that? Who gave you the authority?”

Ethan shrugged and faced his chosen mate. “I remember what I promised you.”

She gritted her teeth and sneered. “Do whatever you want with her. Just don’t come home reeking of her.”

That was it? Was that how I was to spend the rest of my life? As a mistress? A whore? I turned to the only person who was free. The one person who could save me.

But when he felt my gaze on him, Cain turned to Ethan. He had chosen his side carefully. He had chosen his loyalty to his friend over his sister.

“Alpha?” he asked, ignoring Alpha Charles’ shocking glare. “What am I to do with Lyra?”

“Cain!” Mom shouted. “How dare you!”

“Quiet down, female,” he snapped. “She is not my sister. I do not recognise her as one. She is adopted into our family, Evelyn Throne. She is neither my flesh nor blood. My beast does not acknowledge her as a part of this pack.”

“You,” she began, taking a step forward, just to be stopped by a wolf before her. Seeing the warrior, she sneered at him. “You dare send a wolf to restrain your mother?”

“Who are you?” Alpha Violet whispered to her son. “I don’t recognise raising a monster for my son.”

Ethan gave his mother a cool glare. “Nor do I realise that I had such a weak female as my mother.”

“Don’t you dare call your mother weak, pup,” Alpha Charles’ said quietly. “She is the strongest female this pack has.” He then grimaced at Harper. “Unlike your chosen who is the weakest of this pack.”

“She is fit to lead much better than mom,” Ethan replied with equal sternness. “She is-”

“Alpha Ethan,” the new shifter to who Cain had been talking intervened. “There are only five minutes for the courting phase of the night. We must begin now.”

Ethan nodded and gave Harper a smile that had me retching. Instead of vomit, only saliva and acid spewed from my mouth from the lack of food. The wolf who was restraining dad twisted his face at me.

“This is your gifted mate?” he grimaced. “I pity you, Alpha.”

Ethan wore the same disgust in his face. “Nor do I understand how this happened, Wes.” Turning to my brother, he cocked his head towards me. “Cain, throw her in the dungeons, hopefully, you will find a cell in the thirtieth floor. Chain her if you will. Even if she does not have a wolf, the bond is strong enough to stop tonight.”

“I command-” Alpha Charles began only to be cut by his son’s crude smile.

“As your Alpha, I command you now, Charles!” Ethan barked. “To stay quiet.”

Charles’ lips pursed themselves and he fell to the floor. Nothing could be down against the command of your alpha. Nothing could resist it, or break it. It was an absolute command something which no one could ever defy. And if someone did revolt, the defiance usually ended up in death.

Seeing the Nobles had named Ethan themselves as the alpha of the West, there was no one on this lands who could undo his command. Even I, his mate would be subjected to the command unless he marked me as his equal. Only then would I be able to undo his command. Until then, if he willed me to be his whore, I had no choice but to be one.

Cain stepped forward and grabbed me by my arm. He roughly lifted me up and gave a low warning growl on my resistance.

“Cain!” Rhaze seethed shifting to her human skin. “Lyra is your sister.”

“Shut up, Delta!” he snapped back and pulled me with even more force.

I screamed when his force dislocated my right shoulder. I just wanted to fall on the ground and possibly curl myself to death.

“Leave, Lyra,” Ethan commanded. “I haven’t gotten all night.”

As Cain dragged me, my friends tried to step from the line where they were held by the newly arrived shifters. Sam pushed off three wolves who tried to hold him back. What more could be expected from a warrior?

I screamed again when a wolf behind him, hit him on the back of his head and broke his leg. As much as the shifters could heal fast, they did not heal as fast as the legends say they did. It would take at least an hour for a ranked wolf to mend a broken bone.

I tugged Cain’s hand many times as he dragged me away from the clearing towards a path I always stayed clear from. A path Cain had warned me never to walk in. Behind me, the ceremony continued by Ethan’s alpha command.

The ache in my chest multiplied when the courting phase of the night began. When Ethan ran towards Harper and not me.

“Let me go, Cain!” I shrieked. “Let me go!”

He said nothing to my cries and pleas. Without an emotion on his face, he finally made it to the prisons.

The dungeon was where the savage wolves resided. Or the ones who were commonly called rogues. Rogues were rare as it was impossible for a wolf to live without a pack. Rouges usually died of insanity within a month of being one. And the ones who survived were powerful enough to rival an alpha.

The pack of West was one of the oldest pack, its alpha having a Noble as their scion. The dungeon was bound to have residents older than the oldest Noble alive for crimes unspoken.

Was he going to put me there?

My question was answered when Cain ordered the guard to open a cell on the lower thirtieth floor. Dread filled me. What awaited me there?

The lower the floors were, the more older the prisoners. The rule-breakers of the pack was thrown in the upper three floors. It was a prison. But below, that was where the true traitors and people who have done unspeakable things lived. I bet even the Alphas of this pack never went down there.

What did I do to be put down there?

The rancid stench clouded my senses the second I stepped into the dungeon. It was dark, and the tube lights worked just fine here. I knew this as I was the one who oversaw the technologies in this pack.

Most of the cells were free of living residents. Some had bones and some had rotting bodies feasted by rats and fleas. Others were clean, probably its prisoners might have lived at the time of the Warriors of the Moon.

Upon reaching the thirtieth floor below, a cell was opened. Thankfully there were no rotting bodies or bones. It was quite clean. But the cell had many neighbours. A rogue sneered at Cain and a Vampire smirked him, while a cool child-like laugh resonated from the opposite cell. Heeding to nothing, he pushed me in, chained me to the walls and locked the door.

“Cain!” I screamed when he was about to leave. “Please!”

The shifter and the vampire quietened and listened.

He finally stopped and came to the door. “What do you want?”

“Why?” I sobbed. “Please tell me why. At least for your acting, you did the past twenty years, please tell me why you put me through this agony?”

“You are never meant to be a Luna,” he whispered. “You were never my sister.”

“Then why did you act?”

“For mom and dad,” he said. “And as much as I hate her now, for Rhaze.”

“I was never your sister? Not even for a second?”

“No,” he said. “And I have said to you. I follow my alpha. Even if you were my sister, I would still follow him.”

“Not as your sister then,” I said, licking my lips. “A wolf to her beta. What would you do if a wolf came to you claiming that her mate has claimed another? Would you honour the bond or would you ask the female to leave her mate?”

Cain stayed silent. He locked the cell and shoved the keys in his pocket.

“What would you do if your mate claimed another?” I asked, my voice breaking. “What would you do if you see her with another male’s mark on her neck?”

Before I could finish, he snarled and rattled the grills of the gate and that answer was enough for me.

Nodding I turned my face away. “I no longer wish to speak with you.”

He left whispering something to the guard to which the guard looked at me and nodded.

I don’t know how long it was before the vampire in my next cell spoke. She asked, “That asshole your brother?”

Her voice was thick and accented. Seeing her silver hair and her violet iris I would guess she was from the Southern Coven.

“Was,” I croaked out.

The pain of the Mating moon was taking a toll on my body. It wrecked my body and the chains were the only thing that was preventing me from falling.

The vampire whistled and kept her silence.

“Is the beta-” the shifter began but he was silenced by my screams.

The Courting phase must have ended. The Mating phase must have begun.

My body trashed and my head spun. I was not sure whether the chains would keep me up. My wrists hung in the manacles and my head fell on their own accord but the screams never failed to leave my lips. My heart was being stabbed, my body was being burned.

He was mating with her.

That pressure that I felt earlier that night came to life again. Whatever it was, it needed Ethan’s touch as he was my mate and it also demanded his blood for treating me like an object of his possession.

For a second the pain stopped and I took a deep breath from all the screaming I have been doing.

Then everything became hot. The chains that were cool was now hot to touch. The dress on my body was uncomfortable. I would rather have it off, but my hands were chained.

I pressed my things together. My spine was paining and it never stopped until my skin was singing with heat.

Then the bond between me and Ethan began weeping. The ache, void in my heart told me he was mating with Harper. Again.

The hotness that I felt told me that my heat had begun. Tonight’s torture was just an example of what was to follow the years to come.

The next update will be on next Saturday. Leave your thoughts below!

~Quill