Chapter 2

Jaden 

1 year Later.

 I drummed my pen on the hardwood desk, counting the minutes as I avidly waited for my beta Hunter Attree and my gamma Paxton Ash to return; confirming that my plans were finally completed. This had been a project I had been looking forward to for the last year. The Luna games. 

It would be a series of trials to show the world that fate was in our hands. I had selected 6 women who I believed could be my luna. Including my fated mate. She, like everyone else, would have to compete to be by my side. Just because she was destined for me meant fuck all. She would have zero advantages. The timing was perfect as not only had I found my fated mate, but I was certain that another she wolf in my pack had too.

I lit my cigarette smoking in the shadowy room of my father’s office … my office as I swivelled the leather chair to face the window; the wheels scraping against the hardwood floors. I had never cared for the mate bond. Even less so since last year.

My parents weren’t fated mates. They chose each other and when my father learnt she was pregnant with me; he was going to claim her as his chosen mate. But fate stepped in before that could happen and he met the woman he would mark and make his luna. Leaving my mother and I out in the cold.

It destroyed my mother. She had begged him to do the right thing to support us. He finally agreed setting her up in a house. If you can call in that - a creaky wooden drafty shack in the woods off grid to look after her and I. Whilst he then casually settled down with his other woman and began his happy, perfect family with them. Much to my father’s disappointment, I turned out to be his only son. He had two daughters - twins he knew he would have to make one of them his heir instead of me. To add insult to my mother, he brought one of his daughters to come live with us. Apparently, even his ‘perfect’ family wasn’t good enough for him. My mother still loved him, so she agreed.

I could only see how he wished to rub our nose in his perfect family. I hated that little brat. She had taken so much from me. My mother hated her more. She looked like my father with those same sharp green eyes and dark, wavy hair. Had I had known exactly what her fate would be … I would have protected her, but I found out only when it was too late.

From the beginning, my father instilled in me his expectations to be fierce and cruel like the alpha he was. Show no weakness. Show no mercy. If I was to take over his pack and become the alpha I had been born to be. I needed to prove myself in his eyes and everyone else’s. He made me a rogue, casting us aside as if we meant nothing to him. I learnt no one would ever mean anything to me. Even my mother rotted becoming frail and weak, dying of a broken heart for a man who never cared about her. I would not suffer the same fate.

He told me the mate bond is a curse, a weakness. That if I ever met my fated mate, I should reject her without even blinking. He described the mate bond like a noose around his neck that one day it would finally kill you. I vowed I would never be weak like my father. In time I thanked him for making me a rogue. It made me who I am today. I dragged myself up from the dirt banded my own pack of rogues before becoming alpha to one of the largest packs in the country. I do as I please, not bound by rules and traditions that mean nothing to me.

At age fifteen, my father visited us one unusually balmy summer. He saw the potential in me and offered me a deal. He had enemies. If I could protect him by eliminating them, he would acknowledge me and my men to become part of his pack and make me his alpha. He would supply us with all the equipment and anything we needed.

Naturally, I jumped at the chance. As I grew older, stronger, more powerful, I could see it in my father’s eyes. There was a part of him that feared me. He was right too. I was a savage created by a monster with only one goal in mind. Domination over all the packs. It was my destiny and, like in a game of chess, I only needed one last piece to do so. My queen and luna.

 I took another puff on my smokes, the paper singeing as I spun in my chair back towards my desk. Victory was with in my grasp. So close I could almost taste it. But like always, when I focus on my goals, only one face comes to mind: a hunting vision of what could have been. Someone I would have done anything for. She truly saw who I was and until that night, I really thought there was nothing that would have her walk away from me. The memory still leaves a sour taste in my mouth after all this time.

It was baffling how she could ignore me over night like that, ever since I joined the Bluemoon pack. She was the one who chased me, pursued me. She demanded she came with me to her best friend’s luna ceremony. Tease me when she would walk her dog outside my house while wearing nothing but a slip. I’d even find her waiting in my office, looking like the devil she was. There was an unwavering determination in her eyes that would ensure she got what she wanted, but even with that fire, fate intervened and tore her away from me just like everything else. I pushed the memory out of my mind. It belonged to the past. There’s no going back.

I had a plan and if my plan worked; I was certain I would get everything I ever wanted. There were three rounds to these luna games I had created. This was my time to prove to the other alphas out there that our destiny wasn’t in the hands of the gods, it was ours. We make our own fate.

I needed a badass queen by my side, ready to assist me in achieving my goals. No matter if she was in human or wolf form, she had to be ready to fight. She had to handle other women trying to snatch her man with diplomacy. Confidence, wit, beauty, and being good in bed - those were the must-have qualities. I wanted someone from a respected family who’s popular with the other packs. It would solidify my status as an alpha no longer seen as a rogue. Lastly, I needed her to be ambitious to help me reach my goal and give me heirs.

I snuffed my cigarette out on the sole of my doc martins as a rapped knock sounded on the door. “Enter,” I commanded as Hunter and Paxton came in. They were my two closest friends, the few I trusted. We had all grown up together as rogues. As soon as I became alpha, I made them my beta and gamma. Hunter is four years younger than me at 18, but he is a hell of a fighter and a scrappy bastard. Paxton is older than both of us at 30. He is astute always giving me the best advice regardless if I want to hear it. I trust these men completely. Each of them knows how harsh and cruel this life can be. We were going to change that. In a matter of days, the world would change for the better.

“It’s ready, Jaden, you’re going to want to see this,” Hunter tells me in his gruff voice. The guy looks like a lumberjack with his plaid shirts and boots. Paxton is clean cut in comparison. I stop spinning my chair to turn to face them. “Let’s go see it then!” I demand.