MY DESTINED MATE IS A LYCAN KING CHAPTER 2

The green flames in Astrid’s eyes were filled with rage. “You are nothing to me, Chloe. Everyone treats you as the best and me? I’m always the second best! Even the affection of my own parents is all about you!”

She spat out her words with anger. “Why are you waiting for? Just kill her!”

The rogues growled menacingly.

Bonen turned around and walked towards Astrid. He placed his arm around her waist just the way he used to do around me before. She moved against him like she was made for him.

“No... Why did you and Astrid fool me? Astrid, I’ve treated you as my sister..”

“You mean nothing to me!” she shouted once again. “Just kill her!”

The word shattered me completely.

I took another step backward. The soil crumbled under my foot.

I fell.

The rush of the wind past my ears was accompanied by the rush of the cliff up into view – an explosion of gray rock and moonlight. I fell through the air spinning, turning. From somewhere up high, I heard Astrid laughing and calling to me.

I shut my eyes.

I am sorry, sweetheart, mommy could not save us.

The light was within.

It grew from within me. It was warm and fierce and impossible. It flowed out from me in a brilliant flash of golden light, encompassing my body with a flame that did not hurt me. The wind seemed to slow. The fall eased. I felt arms which were not arms holding me.

I fell upon the shore as delicately as if the Moon Herself had laid me there.

It grew dark.

I lay upon my side in the damp sand, breathing heavily, shaking, alive.

Above me the edge of the cliffs remained empty. There were no faces. No laughs. Just the distant light of the burning pack grounds and the eternal night.

I placed both hands over the little bump of my belly. It answered me back softly, strong, stubborn, alive.

Tears followed after that. First silent, then screaming. I hugged the baby who had just saved my life and wept until my throat burned.

They had stripped me of everything.

My pack.

My home.

My mate.

My faith.

My heart.

But it wasn’t this that they had taken from me.

I got myself to sit up, blood oozing from the gashes on my arm. I was ruined, shivering, broken.

I looked up where Bonen and Astrid had been standing.

“Why didn’t you make sure I was dead?” I hissed into the void.

My voice was barely there. Fragile. But there was something else in it now… something vicious and cold and never ending.

I touched my lips to the swell of my belly.

“We’re still alive,” I told the baby. “And one day… we will make them pay for everything they’ve stolen from us.”

The river surged by, dark and unrelenting. Far away somewhere a lone wolf howled, lost and searching and wrong.

I struggled to my feet, my other hand grasping onto the salvation that would not let me die, and approached the forest shadows that belonged to no one I loved anymore.

I slipped and fell, my foot catching on the slick stones by the water’s edge.

I was pulled under without any chance for me to scream. Ice cold water hit my skin and tore me from the edge, pulling me under in the raging river. My ruined gown became a hindrance and weighed me down even more as waves splashed over my head and I flailed to stay afloat.

“No.. please…”

I was hit in the head with a stone lying just below the surface with brutal force.

White pain seared through my head and the world went spinning, my limbs becoming heavy. The golden light that had saved me from the fall flickered… and then died.

And then I felt the baby’s weak kicks against my hand as the blackness of the water dragged us both into the depths of night.

Pain was the first thing that met me.

It throbbed behind my left temple in heavy, relentless waves, like someone had driven a spike through my skull and left it there. My mouth tasted of blood and river water. Every breath scraped against raw lungs. I tried to open my eyes, but the light above me was too bright white, sterile, wrong.

This wasn’t the forest.

This wasn’t the cliff.

This wasn’t… anywhere I knew.

I forced my eyelids open. Blurry shapes slowly sharpened into focus. Pale ceiling. Metal rails on either side of the narrow bed. A clear tube taped to the back of my hand, dripping something cold into my veins. The sharp scent of antiseptic burned my nose.

Infirmary.

I was in an infirmary.

My heart slammed against my ribs. I tried to sit up, but the movement sent a fresh explosion of pain through my head. A soft whimper escaped my throat before I could stop it.

A chair scraped nearby.

“She’s awake.”

A woman’s voice calm, professional, unfamiliar. Footsteps approached. A young nurse with kind brown eyes and a clipboard appeared at my bedside. Behind her stood a tall man in a white coat, silver-streaked hair tied back, expression unreadable.

“Easy,” the nurse said gently, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve been through a lot. Don’t try to move too fast.”

I stared at her. My voice came out hoarse, cracked, almost unrecognizable. “Where… where am I?”

"You are safe," said the doctor. His voice was calm. "You have been found three days ago on the riverbank. Head injury, several cuts, hypothermia. We have been taking care of you."

Three days.

I swallowed nervously. My mind felt blank. No memories. No faces. No names. Just a scary void in the place of my past.

"Who... who am I?" The question escaped from my lips trembling.

The two of them exchanged a glance.

The nurse gave a pitying look. "That is what we hoped you would tell us."

My heart clenched. I raised my free hand to stare at it – little, pale, covered with scratch marks that are healing now. None of it felt familiar to me. I touched my face, my hair, the swelling on my cheek where the rock hit me.

"You are safe," said the doctor. His voice was calm. "You have been found three days ago on the riverbank. Head injury, several cuts, hypothermia. We have been taking care of you."

Three days.

I swallowed nervously. My mind felt blank. No memories. No faces. No names. Just a scary void in the place of my past.

"Who... who am I?" The question escaped from my lips trembling.

The two of them exchanged a glance.

The nurse gave a pitying look. "That is what we hoped you would tell us."

My heart clenched. I raised my free hand to stare at it – little, pale, covered with scratch marks that are healing now. None of it felt familiar to me. I touched my face, my hair, the swelling on my cheek where the rock hit me.

“No…” The word slipped from my lips in a breathless gasp. “I’m...I’m pregnant?”

The doctor nodded briefly. “Three months along now, and a very healthy baby, considering what you two have been through. You’ve been very fortunate.”

Fortunate.

I looked down at the tiny being growing within me, a being that I couldn’t remember having made. No face of a father. No memory of love or betrayal or anything else that would have made me arrive here. Just the stark, terrifying reality that there was someone inside me that I didn’t know who I was supposed to be to.

Hot tears stung the backs of my eyes.

“I don’t know who I am,” I breathed out, my voice breaking. “I don’t know how this could have happened.”

The nurse reached out and carefully took my hand. “It’s alright. You’re safe here. We’ll help you figure it out, one step at a time.”

But nothing felt alright.