Chapter 8: The mate mark burned

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*Chapter 8: The Mate Mark Burned*

The training room was empty. That’s what I thought.

I had come to grab my dagger before curfew. The last thing I expected was Alpha Kieran Blackwood leaning against the weapons rack, arms crossed, watching me like I was prey.

“Lost, omega?” His voice was low. Rough. Like gravel and sin.

I froze. “I’m not an omega. And this is my pack too, Alpha.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Your sister was an omega. The weak one I rejected in front of the entire pack. And now you come sneaking around my territory at night?”

My sister. Luna Mae. The girl he humiliated and threw out three months ago. 

The girl whose name he spat on like she was nothing.

I lifted my chin. “I’m not her.”

“No,” he stepped closer. “You’re not.”

He smelled like pine and storm clouds and power. It made my knees weak and my wolf whine. That was impossible. I wasn’t even supposed to have a wolf yet.

Kieran’s eyes dropped to my neck. To the bare skin where a mate mark would go. 

“They say you look just like her,” he murmured. “Same eyes. Same defiance.”

“Don’t compare me to her.”

“Why not? She begged me. On her knees.” His fangs flashed. “Will you?”

Rage boiled in my chest. “I’d rather die.”

Something in his expression snapped.

In one second he had me pinned against the cold stone wall. One hand around my throat, not squeezing, just holding. The other fisted in my hair. 

“You don’t get to talk to me like that, little girl.”

My heart was hammering. Fear. Anger. And something worse. 

Heat.

It started low in my stomach and spread. Because his body was pressed to mine and his scent was drowning me and my wolf... my wolf was _purring_.

“No,” I whispered. “No, this can’t—”

“Can’t what?” His lips brushed my ear. “Can’t want me? Can’t need me? The moon goddess doesn’t care what we want, omega.”

“I’m NOT—”

His fangs sank into my neck.

Pain. Fire. Ecstasy. 

It was like being struck by lightning and set on fire at the same time. My back arched off the wall and a sound tore out of me that I didn’t recognize.

The mark burned. Not silver like a true mate bond. Black. Like a brand. Like a curse.

Kieran growled against my skin, drinking me in. When he pulled back, his eyes were glowing gold and his lips were stained with my blood.

He stared at the mark on my neck. His jaw clenched.

“This is wrong,” he said, voice shaking. “You’re her sister. The moon is playing a joke.”

I touched my neck. It throbbed. The skin was raised, black, shaped like a claw. His mark. On me.

“You did this,” I choked out. Tears burned my eyes. “You bit me.”

“I reject you,” he said suddenly. The words cut deeper than the bite. “I, Alpha Kieran Blackwood, reject you as my mate.”

The rejection hit me like a physical blow. My knees buckled.

But the mark didn’t fade.

It pulsed. Hotter. Darker.

Kieran stared at it, horrified. “It’s not going away.”

“Because you can’t reject a bond the moon already made,” I whispered, realization hitting me. “Even if you don’t want it.”

His eyes met mine and for the first time, I saw fear in the Alpha’s face.

“Tomorrow morning the entire pack will see this,” he said. “They’ll know I marked the rejected omega’s sister.”

Scandal. War. Humiliation. 

All because of one bite.

Kieran turned and walked away, leaving me bleeding and marked and bound to the man who hated my sister.

The moon goddess had a sick sense of humor.

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