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Arya’s POV
I hung my head like a dying flower as hot tears threatened to spill from my eyes. Then I raised my eyes up to the ceiling for a moment and exhaled.
Today is the coming of age and mate-checking ceremony in the East High Pack. It was meant to be beautiful and romantic like Valentine's Day, as humans call it but it wasn't for me. Well, the thing is everyone in my class had a partner to dance with, except me. But do you know what hurts the most? Watching the boy I had been crushing on since sophomore year twirl my best friend across the dance floor.
Her eyes sparkled as she wore a silly grin while he had a cocky smile on his face. Jealousy shot straight through my heart as I wondered if I'd ever be more than just the girl in the background. Then the tears came again. Unable to resist this time, I raced to the bathroom.
“Omg!” a girl glared at me. “Watch where you are going!”
“Sorry sorry” I shuffled through the crowd and dashed away from the scene. My face was covered in humiliation. As soon as I was alone in the bathroom, I bawled my eyes out. After a few minutes of crying, I reached for the toilet paper behind me and dabbed the tears from my eyes. I know I shouldn't be jealous of Fifi, my best friend, but then, the heart wants what it wants. Suddenly the door to the bathroom swung open.
“Get in here loser”
The next thing I knew the bathroom was swarming with people. I rolled my eyes. Bullies.
“What do you think you were doing? Dancing with Eric?” a voice filled with anger said.
“N…nothing…. he asked me to dance with him” the fearful voice replied. My blood went cold. It was Fifi they were bullying.
“Did you see her?” another girl giggled.
“She thinks she's beautiful.” She burst into laughter. “That was an eyesore”
“I'd warned Eric to try cheating on me with people with class”
I recognized that voice. It was Olivia, the leader of the cheerleading squad.
“Then to think about the other loser of a best friend she has,”
“That one is ugly too.” Then they cackled like witches. Anger bubbled in my chest. I knew I had to do something. I could be everything but I was not a coward. I slammed the door to the stall open.
They gasped but hissed on seeing me.
“Well if it isn't the president of the loser nation,” Olivia said and they burst into laughter.
“Leave her alone” I began.
“Or what?’ Olivia sneered. My eyes quickly darted around. I needed to do something, anything.
The girls began to laugh. “Shut up Arya you are nobody,” one of them said and they laughed again.
I stared at them, breathing through my mouth. I needed a comeback.
“See who is talking? You think I don't know you were the group loser, Olivia made you eat your lunch from the toilet seat” she gasped. These things I know were just rumors but from her reaction, I think it was the truth.
“And you” I turned to the other girl. “Beneath all this makeup is that huge gap between your teeth like a rabbit hole and your acne face, I saw your face last year during the rain, and you are so ugly you could make the perfect scarecrow”
Her eyes widened and she clasped a hand over her mouth. Immediately she bolted out of the bathroom, then followed by the previous girl.
Olivia glared at me. “You Arya! It's not yet over” and she walked out of the bathroom. I hugged my best friend and she sobbed on my neck.
“He asked me to dance with him,” she said in between sniffles. I nodded and wiped her tears.
“It's okay, you did nothing wrong,” I said cupping her face” Come on let's go out there.”
She nodded, smiling, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure” I smiled back. Fifi had a call and went to the side to answer it.
“Settle down everyone. I'll begin” I looked up to see the werewolf matchmaker. She was in charge of telling us who was our mate.
The air was filled with anxiety as young werewolves listened with rapt attention. The hall was ghost quiet and there was a fixed look of concentration in their eyes. I stared down at my hands, and back at the crowd. I felt nothing. Looking down at my feet, I held my bag tighter, my feet facing the door. What was the use of hoping? I'll be mated to an omega anyway and life will be pretty miserable.
Suddenly, I felt an intense urge to look up, and when I did, I froze. Everybody was staring at me, some smiling.
Someone leaned into me.
“The matchmaker called your name, your mate is Alpha Jake”
My eyes were the exact size of watermelons. “What!”
“…. Arya Lincoln, you are mated to the Alpha, Jake Lucas….” she said again. A deafening applause was heard around me and my lips spread into a slow grin.
Some group of girls ran up to me. “Come on, go tell him!”
“Should I? Can I? “I asked with my eyes wide.
“Yes!” they chorused.
Immediately I sprinted out of the hall as the applause continued. Straight to the palace. I couldn't believe it. Jake and I were old friends. I always visited the palace those times. He was an illegitimate child like me but he was made Alpha when Luna died after not bearing children. I couldn't believe it. I also had a crush on him but I let it go because he was way out of my league.
I sneaked into the palace, making my way to Jake's room. I couldn't believe my dream had finally come true. Maybe my life wasn't going to be shitty after all.
I had felt the pull, Jake's wolf must have sensed it too as Camilla, and my wolf did. I was feeling all giddy as I tiptoed to Jake's room. There wasn't really any reason to sneak around, but it was exciting to do.
When I reached Jake's room, I began to hear certain sounds that caused me to furrow my brows. My heart raced and I had sweat dripped down my palms. There was only one answer to this and I hoped it wasn't it.
Arya's POVThree weeks passed before I finally felt like myself again. My shoulder healed slowly, the way wounds from silver sometimes did, but every day I grew a little stronger, a little steadier on my feet, until one morning I woke up and realized the ache had finally settled into something manageable instead of something that ruled my whole day.Chase had been careful with me during those weeks, more careful than I think he knew how to be with anyone. He checked on me every morning before he started his work, sat with me most evenings even when I could tell he was exhausted from everything he still had to manage after the fighting. Rebuilding trust with the packs who had helped us. Settling matters with Anastasia's family, who mourned her in their own quiet way even after everything she had done. Making sure Amanda had somewhere safe to go once she was well enough to travel.Kelsi visited often, and slowly things between us returned to the easy comfort we used to share before every
Arya's POVI woke up slowly, the way a person wakes when they have been pulled back from somewhere very far away. White walls. A soft beeping sound somewhere nearby. The smell of clean linen and something faintly medicinal underneath it. For a moment I did not know where I was, and my heart started to race before a familiar voice cut through the fog."Arya."I turned my head, and there was Chase, sitting in a chair pulled close to the bed, dark circles under his eyes, his shirt still stained with dirt and blood that was not his own. He looked like a man who had not slept in days, and something in his face when he saw my eyes open made my chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the wound in my shoulder."Chase," I said, my voice raspy and unfamiliar to my own ears.He reached for my hand, holding it carefully, like he was afraid I might break if he squeezed too hard. "You are safe," he said. "You are both safe. Chamberlin is fine. He has barely left this room since we brought y
Chase's POVAmanda's directions led us through a passage so narrow I had to turn sideways in places, my shoulders scraping against rough stone walls that had not seen daylight in years. Angus followed close behind me, and two other men trailed him, though I barely registered their presence. My whole focus had narrowed down to the sounds ahead of us, faint at first, then growing clearer with every step. Voices. A struggle. Something breaking. Every muscle in my body wanted to run, but the passage was too tight and too dark to risk it, so I forced myself to move quickly but carefully, one hand trailing along the wall to keep my balance in the near total blackness.I pushed forward faster, ignoring the pain still radiating from my side where Jake's blade had caught me earlier. That wound felt distant now, unimportant compared to what waited somewhere ahead in the dark. I kept thinking about the lock of hair sitting on that cloth back at the palace, about how many hours had passed since I
Arya's POVI did not think. I did not have time to think. The moment Anastasia raised that blade toward Chamberlin, something inside me broke loose, something I had never felt before in my entire life, not even during the full moon parties when the other wolves shifted around me and I stood there feeling like the only ordinary person in a room full of extraordinary ones. All those years of watching from the sidelines, believing I was the plain one, the weak one, the daughter who did not have anything special hiding under her skin.Heat spread through my body, starting somewhere deep in my chest and moving outward through my arms and legs until my skin felt too tight to hold whatever was happening inside me, like something long asleep had finally opened its eyes. I pushed Chamberlin behind me, my hands moving on instinct rather than thought, and I heard myself make a sound that did not belong to the woman I had always believed myself to be. Low. Fierce. Nothing like the quiet, careful
Anastacia's POVI pushed Arya and her son into a small storage room at the end of the hidden passage, bare except for a few old crates and a single lantern hanging from a hook on the wall. I lit it with shaking hands, more from the effort of dragging them this far than from any fear, though I would not have admitted that to anyone watching.Arya sat down slowly against the far wall, pulling her son onto her lap, wrapping her arms around him the way our mother used to hold me when I was small enough to still want that kind of comfort. I remembered that feeling, distant now, buried under years of being told I was not the daughter who mattered most."You do not have to do this," Arya said, watching me from across the room. "Whatever you are feeling, whatever happened between you and Jake, this is not going to fix it.""You do not know anything about what I am feeling," I snapped, pacing near the door, the blade still clutched in my hand though I had not decided yet what I actually planne
Chase's POVJake ran through a set of doors that led out onto a wide stone balcony overlooking what used to be a garden, though most of it was trampled now, crushed under the boots of men fighting somewhere below us. Smoke rose up from parts of the lodge already burning, thick and gray against the early morning sky, and for a moment neither of us moved, both catching our breath, both watching the other with the kind of focus that comes right before something ends. The sounds of the fighting below seemed to fade into the background, like the whole world had narrowed down to just the two of us standing there in the wreckage of a place that used to belong to his family.I could feel the wolf pressing against the edges of my control, closer to the surface than it had been in years. Part of me wanted to hold it back, to finish this as a man rather than as the beast people whispered about behind my back. But another part of me, the part that kept thinking about Arya chained somewhere in thi
Chase’s POVI woke up to voices arguing. I got out of bed, my little feet barely making it to the floor and I jump down. Everywhere is so dark that I can’t even see my hands or my next step. The darkness is so thick that it can be halved in two.Where is mum and dad? Where is everybody?I walked do
Chase's POVI paced my study like a manic. My hands were shaking like crazy, and my nostrils flared.If this was not an insult, I don't know what else it could be. Right under my nose, someone came in and kidnapped Arya and my son. Like how could that be possible.The frantic search had begun at
Arya's POV " Wine?" I glanced down at the glass and back at Chase. What was he planning? Was he going to make me drunk. I took in a deep breath and looked into his eyes."You are staring" he muttered as he stepped closer. This time I didn't run. For whatsoever reason, I stood my ground "I know"
Arya's POVI cried. I screamed. I begged. I sang. I slept. This was my routine. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. There was no food or water. I was getting weaker and weaker, but I held on. Today I'm quiet. So quiet, like I can hear everything. The squishy clacks of the rat feet running across the wall. The dri







