Chapter 7: His Mate

Skye’s POV

I still couldn’t believe it.

Damian is my mate.

I am his mate.

Even now, hours after the bond snapped into place like a cruel joke from the Moon Goddess herself, the words felt like smoke in my mouth—too unreal, too impossible to shape into truth. It sounded like a lie every time I whispered it to myself, like some fever dream dreamt up by a desperate girl who’d spent too many nights wondering what it would feel like to matter.

I sat curled in the farthest corner of my room, knees pulled to my chest, fingers tangled in the sleeves of my oversized hoodie. My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. My wolf wouldn’t stop pacing. And my thoughts—goddess, they were spiraling like a storm with no end in sight.

Because how could he be mine?

The same Damian who never spared me more than a passing glance during training. He was always at the front, commanding attention with his brutal strength, his sharp eyes, his perfectly controlled movements. Every trainee watched him and idolized him while I lingered in the shadows, bruised and ignored, just another weakling omega no one wanted to spar with.

The same Damian who let people overlook me.

I was invisible to most of the pack, and he had never once stopped it. Not when they pushed past me in the dining hall, not when they snickered behind my back, not even when I was knocked down during combat drills and left to get up on my own.

He had seen it. I know he had. He was the Alpha’s son. He saw everything. He chose to ignore it.

And now… he was mine? Or worse… I was his?

The bond felt heavy in my chest, like a chain I hadn’t asked for. My wolf whimpered every time I tried to push the thought away. She wanted him. She ached for him. But me? I didn’t even know how to feel. Confused. Angry. Ashamed for wanting someone who had never once made me feel like I belonged.

The Moon Goddess must be cruel. Twisted, even. She waited until I finally felt strong and felt free to tie me to the one person who had always reminded me of my place. Out of every male in the pack and every soul in this world—why him?

He looked at me like I was a problem. Like the very idea of being tied to me offended him. And maybe it did. I was an orphaned omega, pack charity. I had no rank, no name worth mentioning. Nothing to offer an Alpha but my blood and my bond.

He didn’t say anything that night. He didn’t have to.

His silence was enough.

I stumbled back to my cabin after the run, pretending I hadn’t felt it. Pretending that the pull inside me wasn’t screaming to be closer to him. That my body hadn’t burned with the need to touch him, to belong to him.

It was humiliating.

Because I’d dreamed of having a mate like anyone else. Someone who saw me. Who chose me—not because of rank, or strength, or duty but because of who I was. Someone who would wipe away the years of being overlooked and whispered about and laughed at.

I was curled in the farthest corner of my room, knees drawn tight to my chest, sleeves of my hoodie stretched over my hands. The fabric still smelled like old soap and pine—the only comfort I had left as my heart threatened to crack open inside my ribs. My wolf, Lyra, wouldn’t stop pacing. She pushed against my skin like she wanted out again, like she still hadn’t accepted that the run was over.

But for me, the storm hadn’t ended. It had just begun.

How could he be mine?

Damian Wolfe. The Alpha's son. The future of the pack. The same boy who walked through the world like it owed him something and somehow always gave it. I remembered him standing by the fire, gold Alpha mark glowing under his collar, laughter spilling from his mouth like power itself. The whole world tilted around him, and he didn’t even notice.

He was everything I wasn’t.

And he had never noticed me.

He never spared me more than a glance during training. Never offered a hand when I was knocked down. Never told the others to stop when they whispered omega mutt behind my back. He stood there while they shoved past me in the dining hall, looked the other way when I limped off the sparring mat, bloody and humiliated. He had eyes like a hawk—sharp, all-seeing. I know he saw it.

He just didn’t care.

“And now… I was his?” I mumbled softly and bit my lower lip to stop myself from thinking the impossible.

I wanted to scream. To cry. To demand answers from a Moon Goddess I wasn’t sure even listened. Because if Damian was my mate, then what did that mean for me? Would he reject me? Would he claim me out of obligation? Or worse, would he mark me and keep me hidden away—his dirty little secret the pack wasn’t allowed to talk about?

No. I couldn’t live like that.

I couldn’t survive being bound to someone who made me feel like nothing.

A knock sounded at the door, sharp and purposeful. My wolf stirred, immediately alert. I didn’t have to ask who it was. I could feel him just outside. His presence pressed against the bond like a pressure in my ribs.

Damian. I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

Another knock. “Skye,” his voice came through, low and rough. Just hearing it made my stomach twist into anxious knots. “Open the door.”

I stayed silent. Maybe if I ignored him, he’d go away. Maybe if I pretended none of this was real, the bond would dissolve and I could go back to being invisible.

But I knew better.

“Skye,” he said again, softer this time.

"Please."