Chapter 15 – Shackled by Fate

The second morning is definitely worse than the first.

I wake with my mouth tasting like ash, I felt like my head was splitting in two, and in my mouth was the sour reminder of whiskey lingering on my breath. But that’s not what makes me groan and drag the pillow over my face. No, it’s the memory that’s resurfacing.

The way I’d spat Sasha’s name before passing out. The way Ella hadn’t said a word in reply, she just turned her back to me, her silence felt like a knife sliding between my ribs, but slowly.

I don’t need to look to even know that she’s still here, she’s still beside me. Her breathing is being steady, shallow, too controlled to be one of true sleep. She’s awake but she’s lying there trying to pretend she isn’t. She lying there with her body curled away from mine as though the space between us is a chasm.

The bond comes to life in my chest. It was a pull so deep and insistent, it that makes me want to reach out, to press my hand against the small of her back, to ask her to turn towards me even if it’s just once. She should look at me without that shuttered gaze. But I didn’t do any of that.

I shove my feelings down and grit my teeth. Fate has finally chain me to someone I didn’t wants, it twists my instinct until I can’t tell where the feeling of my heart ends and where the bonds begins.

I swing out of the bed, tug on my pants, yank a shirt over my head. My throat burns for another drink, but I force myself to instead step out the door.

The air feels sharp, cool against my skin. The pack grounds is filled with hum with their usual rhythm, there were wolves sparring, pups darting between cabins, voices are carried across in the morning mist. My father’s voice booms across the yard as he issues orders for the pack to follow.

My father, Alpha Victor sees me before I could hide from him. His grin spreads, it was spread wide and proud. “There’s my boy. How are you being treated by the Luna the Goddess chose for you?”

The question lands like a fist to the gut. My jaw tightens. I nod stiffly, the lie tasting sour in my mouth. “It’s been Fine.”

“Just Fine?” He slaps a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Son, you don’t seem to know how blessed you truly are. To be able to find your fated mate and be able to bond together, it something even stronger than blood, stronger than any duty. Your mother and I dreamed of this day for you.”

Blessed. The word scrapes raw against my nerves.

Across the yard, I catch sight of her—Ella, she is helping my mother, Mara carry baskets from the greenhouse. Her hair catches the light, glinting gold, her hands gentle as she steadies the load. She laughs softly at something my mother says, and for the briefest moment, it all feels… right.

Then she glances up, and her gaze brushes mine. She doesn’t smile at me, Neither does she frown. She just looked through me, it was as though I’m nothing more than a shadow passing by.

The bond tugs, sharp and merciless.

I rip my eyes away, muttering something about going for training, I then stalk off before my father can say more.

An hour later, Sasha finds me near the woods. I’m not surprise that she does, she always manage to find me wherever I am. She has always been someone who knows where I’ll be, it’s like some cruel echo of the bond I wish I had.

“Cole.” Her voice is silk, but her eyes burn. She steps into my path, blocking me with the kind of confidence only Sasha herself carries. “You look even worse than yesterday.”

I glare at her. “Not now.”

She ignores me, sliding closer, still her fingers brush against my arm, her perfume were wrapping around me like smoke. “You don’t have to do any of this. You shouldn’t let them trap you in a life you never desired or even wanted.”

My chest tightens. She’s the only one who says this things, the only one who openly acknowledges that I never chose any of this.

But more than she knows, the truth is messier. Because whenever Ella looks at me with those eyes full of unspoken pain, inside me something twists. Something I don’t want to give a name to.

I step back, shaking my head. “It isn’t that simple.”

“It actually is,” Sasha insists, her nails catching on my sleeve as if she could anchor me. “Publicly Reject her. Then you will be forcing your father’s hand. You and I—” Her voice drops, fierce now, urgent. “We’re meant to always be together.”

The words she spoke manages to stir up old memories, the countless nights I’d believed in her, the promises we had both whispered under moonlight. But they were all tainted now, there were soured by the very sight of Ella, sitting all alone at the edge of the celebration, by the way she tries to belong even when everyone tries to push her away.

I tear free of Sasha’s grip. “Stop it.”

Her eyes flash. “I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

Without giving her any answers, I walk away. I knew that if I had stay, I will give in to her. And that was a weakness I just couldn’t afford, especially now that my father is watching my every move, and definitely not at this time where the pack is already split between whispers.

By evening, exhaustion finally claw at me, but now than any battle I have faced, the thought of returning to thr cabin felt more heavier. But Still, I go. Like I always do.

When I step inside, the fire was lit. Ella sits by the table, her sketchbook open, her pencil gliding across the page. She doesn’t look up at me, doesn’t greet or acknowledge me. She just continue to draw, her hair falling like a curtain around her face.

I pour a drink, but this time, I pour just one. I sink into the chair across from her. The silence presses down until it cracks something inside me.

“Why do you even bother?” I mutter.

Her pencil pauses. Slowly, she lifts her eyes to mine. They’re calm, steady, but I see the flicker beneath—the exhaustion, the hurt, the stubborn refusal to allow it break her down.

“Because if I don’t,” she says softly, “then they will be nothing left?”

Her words hit me harder than any accusation she could have spoken. My throat tightens. The bond hums, pulling me toward her, urging me to apologize, to reach out, to admit that at this junction, I was the coward.

But pride burns hotter than the bond.

“You should know,” I blurt, the words bitter on my tongue, “no matter what this bond says or does, it doesn’t change the truth that I love Sasha. I always will.”

There. The blade I keep using to wedge distance between us.

Ella nods once. Just once. Then she drops her gaze back to the page, her pencil moving again, this time with a quiet precision.

What follow now was the silence but this time it felt heavier, suffocating even. And for the first time, I wish she’d scream at me, curse me, fight back. Do anything that will ease me from feeling like the villain I swore I’d never become.

I drain the glass, set it down harder than I mean to, and retreat to the bed. I lied there in the dark while I stare at the ceiling. I listened to the faint scratch of her pencil until it came to an end.

And when the cabin finally became silent, I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come so easy.

Because no matter how many times I tell myself otherwise, it isn’t Sasha’s face haunting me in the dark.

It’s hers.