MasukArya’s POV
My legs went limp like cooked noodles. Slowly I pushed the door with trembling fingers.
“Jake?” I called out weakly. Putting one leg before the other, I made my way into the living area of the room. Dirty plates, wine glasses, and clothes lay everywhere like scattered leaves. Then I saw it.
A red lace thong draped on the chair. My heart sank to my stomach. My wolf whimpered. My mate was already with another woman. I peered through the small opening in the door.
“Oh, my Jake... it's... so good” the female moaned. A tear fell past my eyes and I did nothing to stop it. Just as I was about to turn around, my eyes caught sight of something or rather someone. It was that brunette hair.
“Do not stop,” she moaned.
And that voice, why does it sound so familiar? That's because… because it's Anastasia. I burst into the room like a broken dam, causing them to turn swiftly towards me. My heart broke when I saw that it was indeed Anastasia.
I looked from my shaking hands to the sneer on Jake's face and the cocky grin on my sister's face. Searing pain pulsed through my heart and I choked back on my tears. They had no single look of remorse in their eyes.
“J….J…Jake” I stammered and blinked. Tears dropped from my eyes.
“Hello Arya,” This was the moment he left Anastasia and came down from the bed. He was naked and clearly not shy. My eyes moved to Anastasia, who was covered under the duvet, I could clearly see the smirk on her face.
She raised her hand and said to me, “Hey sis”
She was having sex with my friend! She knew Jake and I were close. We've been close for a couple of years.
“You witch!” I yelled. In a rage, I matched towards her and pulled her by the hair.
“Come down here and fight me, you Slut!” I yelled as I pulled her hair more aggressively.
Before I could land on her cheek the slap I had prepared for her, I felt a strong pull by the waist. I was roughly thrown to the other side of the room, causing my back to hit the wall and I fell with a thud.
“Arghhh!” I groaned as I tried to stand up. More tears rolled down my cheeks, and my hands, and feet remained on the floor only for me to raise my head to see Jake standing in front of me.
“This will be my last warning to you” he began, “This should be the last time you would ever, in your miserable life, touch Anastasia, my Luna, and mate ever again!”
I shivered, my hands formed a fist, and it was like I couldn't feel my legs anymore. My wolf whimpered in pain and I heard my ear ring in pain. His mate?
“Jake, I'm your friend I—”
“Shut the fuck up!” He yelled before adding, “I am Alpha Jake. Say it right!”
I sniffed as more tears kept falling. I just could not believe it. Why does this have to happen to me? Just when the moon goddess has given me an assurance that Jake was my mate at last? And why wasn't Jake feeling it too? Like I was…?
I struggled to stand on my two feet as I whispered,
“Jake” I swallowed as I wiped my eyes.” it's me... I'm… I'm your mate”
“I do not care” he turned his face away and my heart broke into tiny fragments
“Remember how we stayed up all night talking about how Anastasia had been mean to me….ho…how could you get in bed with her,” my heart constricted. It wasn't just him sleeping with a lady but he was sleeping with my sister. My enemy.
“Don't you get it, Arya? Jake doesn't like you. He never liked you?” Anastasia asked with a smirk. She was now standing beside Jake, her head high, her chin raised like the Luna of the pack. Like the mate to the Alpha.
Immediately I matched towards her in rage and gave her a resounding slap. The second I slapped her, Jake pulled me by my left arm and turned me around. He slapped me.
“Arghh!” I cried as my hand flew to my aching cheek.
“I have warned you. Let me remind you that we have absolutely nothing together. Do you think I'm your mate? Fine, I'll reject you right now so you get it clear"
“No, no Jake—” I cried and fell to my knees
“I, Jake Lucas, the Alpha King's only son and the leader of this pack, rejects you, Arya Lincoln, as my future Luna and mate”
I froze with wide eyes as I looked at him in shock. My wolf whimpered and for the first time suddenly went out. Like she shut herself so that I could no longer feel her. I staggered, using a chair for support.
I felt like a failure, in fact, my life has been a failure. Right from birth, I have always felt not good enough. I am an omega in terms of the strength of a werewolf. Yes, I was born of two Alphas, so I am the anomaly in the werewolf system. My mum was the side chick. She died while birthing me. I live with my step mum and dad and step sister.
My life is pretty much a Cinderella story, except my father is alive and part of the reason why I suffer. He's never talked against what his wife had done to me. Rather they blame me and demean me, making me feel less of myself by always comparing me to my step sister, Anastasia. And every time I heard from people and family that Anastasia was the perfect one, I hated myself. Thereby sinking deeper into my shell and wanting to disappear. I lived in the shadow of my sister, as a Lincoln.
I fell to the ground and wailed.
The pain was unbearable.
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







