CHAPTER THREE

ELARA

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They were mates.

The words pressed against my chest, squeezing the breath out of me one slow inch at a time.

My best friend and my boyfriend were mates!

“What?” Tears were already building, hot and fast, blurring my vision.

“Tell me it’s a prank.” I was begging. “Please. Tell me right now that you’re joking!”

Nate broke my stare, looking down to the side.

He didn’t say it was a prank.

And his silence was the thing that broke the dam.

The Moon Goddess was at it again. The cruelest comedian in the universe, always reaching for the same punchline: Elara.

I clasped a hand over my mouth, but a loud broken sob still ripped out of me.

Nate moved first.

He crossed the distance between us in two strides and pulled me into his chest.

“Hey. Hey, look at me.” His hands came up to my face, his thumb pressing against my cheeks, wiping the tears that kept coming. “Elara. Look at me!”

I looked into his coffee brown eyes that were fierce and terrified all at once.

“I love you. Only you. Not a bond. That hasn’t changed. That’s never going to change.”

I wanted to believe him so badly my chest ached with it. He pressed his forehead against mine and he exhaled raggedly. “I’m going to fix this. Okay? I’m going to fix it right now.”

My legs felt like butter when he let go of me, the cold air that rushed into the space where his body had been felt like a preview of every cold night that was coming.

He turned to face Kirsten fully. Something in his expression hardened.

“Nate, don’t—” Kirsten started, her voice a cracked whisper, her wet eyes frantic with plea.

He didn’t let her finish.

“I, Nate Calloway of the SilverCrest Pack, reject you, Kirsten Dawn, as my mate.”

Kirsten screamed.

The sound erupted from her chest like she was being torn in half. Her knees buckled and she doubled over.

Her fingers clawed at the grass and when she lifted her face, blood was trickling from her nostril.

“Shit—shit! Shit!” Nate was on his knees beside her in a second. His hands hovered over her shoulders, like he was afraid to touch her but unable to stop himself.

I stood there frozen for half a breath. Then my legs moved on their own.

I dropped down beside her. “Kirsten? Kirsten, are you okay?” I started to reach for her.

“Don’t touch me!”

The shove came out of nowhere.

I flew backward. My back hit the grass hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs. For a second I just lay there, staring up at the sky, trying to remember how to breathe.

When I sat up, something had changed.

Nate was different. The way he was crouching over Kirsten—it wasn’t Nate anymore. His eyes had turned golden where they’d been brown.

His wolf had taken over.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry!” I couldn’t tell if that apology was for me or Kirsten as he gathered her off the ground. One arm under her knees, the other around her back, pulling her against his chest with a tenderness that made my stomach fold in on itself.

He didn’t look at me.

He carried Kirsten toward the house and I watched them disappear through the back door, looking like what they were.

Mates.

I sat in the grass. Alone.

The spot where Kirsten shoved me still ached in my chest. Not just from the impact but from the look on her face right before she did it. She’d stared at me like I was the enemy.

I was the reason Nate rejected his mate. He did it for me. And it nearly killed her.

The guilt hit so hard I almost threw up.

I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face, letting myself fall apart in the quiet dark of the club house backyard.

“Rough night?”

The voice came from my left.

I flinched and turned.

Adrian Cole.

He was leaning against the side of the house, half-hidden in shadow. A cigarette between his fingers.

He was leaning against the side of the house, half-hidden in shadow. A cigarette between his fingers. And wrapped around his other arm—coiled from his wrist up to his bicep like a living bracelet—was a small black snake.

And no, I wasn’t talking about a tattoo.

An actual snake.

Adrian held his cigarette in one hand and stroked the snake’s head with the other, his eyes cut back to mine. Mildly amused.

He’d seen everything. The rejection. My tears. All of it. He’d probably report it to the rest of his friends, most especially Ian, and together they would make jest out of my misfortune.

I wiped my face quickly, uselessly. “How long have you been standing there?”

He took a drag and let it out. “Long enough. You should go home,”

He dropped the cigarette, crushed it under his boot, and walked back inside without another word.

Yeah, I should go home.

The walk was the longest walk of my life.

I could already hear the whispers that would spread tomorrow already.

‘Did you hear? Nate’s real mate is Kirsten. The Muteblood got dumped by the Moon Goddess herself. That’s gotta be a record.’

‘He rejected Kirsten for her though. Kirsten’s wolf almost fucking died. Because of the Mute.’

I couldn’t do it.

I physically, emotionally could not stand in this pack and watch any of this play out. I couldn’t watch Nate torn between guilt and loyalty.

And what was even left for me in this pack? This was the last year of high school. Our pack and three other neighboring packs had a rule. Each final year of school was spent at the Academy. The Four Pack Academy was a place for mandatory combat training for every wolf.

Keyword: wolf.

I didn’t have one. Which meant I wouldn’t be going. I’d be here. Alone. In this pack. While Nate and Kirsten trained side by side, everyone else would move forward with their lives while I stayed behind, collecting dust like an afterthought.

No.

I wasn’t doing that. I refused.

Our quarter was dark when I got to the pack house.

This was the thing about being an orphan in a pack—nobody left the light on for you.

I walked to the mirror.

There she was. The girl the universe loved to punish. Swollen eyes. Blotchy face. Wavy brown hair coming loose from the braid I’d spent twenty minutes on before the party. Moss green eyes that Nate used to say looked like the forest floor after rain.

Used to. Past tense now.

I spotted the grass stains on the dress. His dress. The little black dress that was supposed to come off tonight in his bedroom with his hands and candlelight.

“Why me?!” I sobbed to no one in particular, peeling it off, grabbing the hem and yanking it over my head.

Underneath it was the underwear. The matching set Kirsten had forced me to buy three days ago at the nice store in town. Black lace. Delicate. She’d selected it herself and told me to imagine Nate’s face when he saw them.

When I’d still refused. She’d paid for it, saying as my best friend, it’s her duty to make my first time special.

“What a joke,”

I tore it off and pulled on a t-shirt that smelled like laundry detergent and a comfortable faded jean.

That felt about right.

I grabbed my bag from the wardrobe and started shoving things in. My clothes. Toiletries. The twenty dollars from my sock drawer. My mother’s necklace from the small box by my bed.

I zipped the bag and stood there. Staring at the room I’d slept in my whole life.

I wasn’t going to miss it, except maybe my mother’s favorite potted plant by the window.

Leaving the pack without permission was forbidden. Punishment ranged from public humiliation to months or years in the dungeon.

But tonight the whole pack was distracted. The party. The pack meeting. Everyone’s attention was somewhere else.

For once, my invisibility was an advantage.

The forest behind the packhouse was dense and dark.

Being wolfless had exactly one perk right now: no scent.

I moved through the trees as quiet as I could. Every snap of a twig under my shoe made my heart lurch. Every rustle of leaves made me freeze and count to ten before walking again.

I passed the first patrol marker. Nothing.

Second one. Still nothing.

It was almost too easy.

For the first time in eighteen years, something was going right. Who knew, maybe the goddess looked down at the wreckage of my life and felt a twinge of guilt.

I walked faster. The trees thinned ahead. If I could just make it past the eastern border—

A branch snapped behind me.

I stopped.

My spine went stiff.

I turned around.

Nothing. Just trees and the sound of my own breathing, too fast, too loud.

I swallowed and started walking again. Faster. Almost jogging.

Another snap. Louder. Closer.

Then the feeling. Heavy and unmistakable. I was being watched.

I started to turn—

“Deserting the pack, Muteblood?”

I froze.