Chapter 3: Breaking the Bond

 

Mercy’s POV

Lily gasped. She looked at me with pure disgust. Then, before I could stop her, she turned on her heel and ran down the hall. My heart pounded in my chest.

“Please,” I begged the brothers. “She’s going to tell the Elders. They’ll make me abort my child.”

“We can’t help him,” Storm said, his tone not unkind.  

Minutes later, the elders appeared. Their faces were stern. Lily stood behind them.

“Mercy,” the lead elder said. “You need to come with us.”

Panicked, I looked at time at Filo, Storm, and Devlin. They averted their eyes as the elders grabbed me by the elbows.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, my voice cracking. “We were bound by the blood moon. Please. Don’t do this.”

The elders showed me no sympathy. They mocked me, their tones dripping with sarcasm.

“Who do you think you are?” the head elder said. “Crawling into bed with Alphas? You’re just a lowly, wolfless Omega. If the pack hears about this, they will turn on you. We must get rid of this child. No one can know.”

“The secret is safe with me,” Lily said, stepping forward. Her eyes locked onto mine. “You have done a despicable thing, Mercy.” Her glare was harsh. “But as my long-time friend, I will spare you the pack ridicule. We will abort the baby tomorrow morning. At sunrise. The pack will never know the baby belongs to one of the Alphas.”

“Lily, no…”

“They will break their bond with you. The Elders will bind them to me. That is the way it must be. I am the chosen one, Mercy. I will bear the blood-line heir. Not you.”

My stomach turned. Tomorrow morning? My hand instinctively went to my stomach.

“Please,” I managed to choke out. My eyes bristled with unsplit tears. “Don’t do this.”

“The rules are the rules,” Lily said, lifting her chin indignantly. “The baby is not claimed. It must die.”

The elders grabbed me by the elbows and hauled me out of the room. Before I left, I caught Storm’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he mouthed at me.

But it was too little, too late. The decision had been made. They were going to rip my unborn child from my womb. And there was nothing I could do about it.

The morning of the ceremony was gray and misty. Rain drizzled from the overcast sky. It was a private ceremony, presided over by Lily. She stood, her face smug. She was the epitome of beauty, a crown of roses on her head, her long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders in waves.

Beside her stood Storm, Devlin, and Filo in their ceremonial, rose red robes. Their eyes remained fixed forward. They refused to look at me.  

“Approach,” Lily told me.

Trembling, the elders brought me to her. She looked at me with disgust in her eyes. Lily was the pack goddess, the perfect Luna. Everyone wanted her to bear the royal blood-line child, the prophesized one. My pregnancy was a mistake in her eyes. A mistake that had to be rectified.

“Reject her,” Lily said. “Break the bond with her. Then we will get rid of the baby.”

My heart clutched. It wasn’t my fault I was bound to the Alpha brothers. I hadn’t chosen that. Why was I being punished for a choice I hadn’t made?

Wringing my hands, I braced myself for the physical pain of the broken bond.

“I, Filo Staver, reject you, Mercy Roans and hereby break our bond,” Filo started. I winced. A heat settled in my stomach, hot and raw.

Devlin was next. “I, Devlin Staver, reject you, Mercy Roans and hereby break our bond.”

The heat intensified, moving through my veins like blood. But it wasn’t until Storm’s words that I felt the full force of the broken bond.

“I, Storm Staver, reject you, Mercy Roans and hereby break our bond.”

White flashed across my eyes. The pain was crippling. I fell to my knees, clutching the warm dirt as I writhed in pain.

“Get up,” Lily said. The elders stepped forward. I struggled to rise to my knees but I didn’t have the strength. One of the elders grabbed my elbows and tugged me onto my feet.

I saw it then, the silver glint of the ceremonial knife. The knife they would use to…

“NO!” I hollered. Something inside of me snapped. A wave of rage washed over me, electrifying me, giving me a strength I didn’t know I had.

“Let me out, Mercy,” a voice came from within. It was a low, menacing growl.

Before I could process what was happening, my wolf pushed through. In a flurry of fur and snapping bones, I was transformed into a wolf I didn’t even know I had. My fury and heartbreak  must have awoken my wolf.

Everyone’s eyes grew wide. My wolf was lean but muscular, with silver fur that had a pink, iridescent glow. She snarled, bearing her teeth. Then she whipped her head  back and forth and crouched down on her hunches.

“That’s a…that’s a primal wolf,” the head elder said, recoiling from my wolf.

“It can’t be,” another elder said. “Primal wolves are rare. So rare, that we thought they went extinct.”

Fueled by protectiveness for the child growing inside of me, my wolf opened her mouth and let out a howl so loud it shook the nearby windows.

“Restrain her,” Storm yelled. The alphas moved towards my wolf. But it was too late. My wolf was undone with fury. She tore off, away from them, into the tree line.

My wolf raced through the forest, jumping over branches. The Alpha brothers shifted behind me, chasing us. But my wolf was fast. Too fast.

We saw the edge of the cliff a moment too late. My wolf tried to stop, but she couldn’t. We hurled off the edge of the cliff, and fell through the air.

The three massive Alpha wolves watched, perched at the cliffside. Filo’s enormous brown wolf: Devlin’s muscular black wolf: and Storm’s lean auburn wolf.

That was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.