Missed my mate

Athena POV

I felt something crawl on my bare hands. It went down my wrist and into my palms. I squeezed hard against it, crushing the poor insect in my palms.

I had just woken from a blackout, but the big bad thing here was the fact that I could feel my eyes but I could not see. I moved my hands and realized they were free.

I raised them to my face and yanked off the blindfold on my face, and just then, it struck me that I was in a terrible space, a deep one, but not too deep for me to see the sky. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the foul smell in the space, and throwing them off in the next minute.

Yes, I am in a nasty place, a dried well down the ranch, where cow dung were dumped before they got transferred to the gardens of the estate where they are most needed for vegetation’s sake.

I gasped for fresh air. There was barely good air to breathe in the well, and my legs didn’t seem firm. They were shaky and weak like a stone was laid on them all the while I was curled up in the well.

But how did I get here?

I searched my mind to catch a glimpse of how I ended up in a well, but all I could remember was how I stepped out into the dark, heading for the east mountain, for just two things, to get my wolf and to meet my mate.

That’s the only thing I live for!

I dropped the crushed insect I didn’t take time to look at, and shrugged to my feet. The well wasn’t a deep one, so, on my feet, my hands could get to the top of it.

I gripped hard and lifted myself against the wall, but my fingers lost grip and I fell back to the well.

“Shit!” I winced painfully.

My hands were on dry dung! Had fallen to the side of the well where there was dry dung. I let out a long sigh and sprung to my feet the second time.

“How did I fucken get here?” I posed, and knowing fully well that answers wouldn’t come, I ripped up against the top of the well and this time, I did not fail.

It was difficult but I managed to lift my body out of the well. The cool breeze of the ranch braced my skin, nearly half of my body was bare, even my chest, because my gown was torn, and I smell like a pig fart.

“The mountain?” I uttered like a lost fellow and turned east. The red moon hasn’t gone off. The ritual must still be on, and my mate must be waiting to meet me.

I ran out of the ranch, and up the hillway, but before I could get to my destination, I saw the moon fall.

“No!” I yelled, my eyes wide in shock, and my voice thinning down as much as it had risen to my head. “No!” I felt it, warm tears dripping past my eyelids and crawling down my cheeks.

I ran up the mountain, but it was cold and without a trace of life. I looked around in utter silence but I saw nothing but scattered footprints on the floor of the mountain.

Yes, a lot of people were here earlier, and they must have all gotten their wolf. My mate, too, must be among them, and he must have left without finding another mate.

I clutched on both knees and wept. The wailing of the night breeze braced my skin and caressed every ounce of me, but the red moon did not pop back to turn me.

**************

Back to the mansion after a long walk, I saw them, the four princes of Alpha Asher, dazzling under the light of the hallway, in their pretty night suits and fine boots.

Wonder what they were up for, and how I looked in their sight? I looked nothing but stupid like a piece of trash drawn out of the riverside and tossed into the mansion.

I had tied the gown on the mountain so my breast wouldn’t fall out to the glare of young men who might bump into me on my way home, but here, the four princes could not take their eyes off me.

One, the gown was a see-through piece, and two, I was dirty and smelly, but the filth was not a big deal. The big deal was the fact that I missed my wolf and my mate.

I am enslaved. Not fit to belong, or to attend any important event in our pack.

“Look who we have here,” said the first one. He’s the sassiest of them all. I hate him with passion, and I have always wished I could get my wolf to meet my mate and flee from the mansion for good.

“How was the journey up the hill?” came the fourth. He’s the meanest of them all. His eyes were so beautiful, but his aura was the one you wouldn’t wish for.

The second raised his brows without words, and they burst into laughter, a barbaric one at that.

The third prince walked up to me in the long hallway. The hall itself was just right adjacent to the hallway. I could swerve into it without thinking twice, but I wanted something, to discipline these sons of a…

“Did you meet what you’ve been dreaming of, and did you become like us?” the third one asked as he closed in. I waited silently and patiently for him to come into close range, and as soon as he closed in, I looked him in the face to distract him.

He fell for my grin, and boom! I kicked him below the belt.

“Go…sh!”

“Fuck you!” I swerved into the living hall and ran up the stairs.

“Get…her!”