Chapter 5: Never

KADEN FROST’s POV

I feel her even before I see her.

Mate.

And the moment she steps into view, the world around me melts away. She is beautiful beyond comparison.

She is five-six at most and wears a silken white dress that clings onto her curvaceous body like a second skin. Her auburn hair tumbled down past her shoulders and rests just slightly above her bosom and her rose-red lips part into a tiny ‘O’ when our eyes meet, hers of brilliant green hues and mine as dark as the abyss.

For a moment, recognition skirts across her face before confusion takes over.

“Liliana, bow down to Alpha King of the great Ancient Springs pack,” the ageing Alpha of Lock Wood pack commands from the side of the throne.

My eyebrow arches high.

Liliana Ross… Poor Landon is still searching everywhere for his beloved Rose.

So this is the woman who abandoned my asshole half-brother in his sleep, and the infamous heiress of the Azure pack who fell from grace. What a deceptive woman.

But as deceptive as she is, she is Landon’s mate, as she is mine.

A growl erupts from my throat, a surprising reaction. I am usually able to keep my cool and it is happy women who fawn over me, not the other way around.

But somehow, in her presence, I struggle to contain myself. Her presence alone is driving me mad and the sight of her looking so flustered and confused is giving me intimate ideas that are totally inappropriate right now.

The ageing Alpha must have heard my growl and mistaken it for anger for he quickly orders sternly,” Liliana! The Alpha King is in your presence! Where are your manners?”

“Y-yes, grandfather,” she answers, her soft and feminine like a siren’s song and I find my fingers curling into a ball so hard that my knuckles turn white.

She looks nervous and takes a few timid steps forward only to trip over her dress. Hmph, the same old trick I get from every she-wolf who wants to bed me.

Still, I am in front of her in an instant and without realizing it, I find myself offering a hand to steady her.

“Need a hand?” I ask.

Fear flashes before her eyes but she takes my hand anyway. Her scent is amazing, wild and sweet. I take in every detail of her porcelain skin and fight back the urge to pull her into a kiss.

Believe it or not, I had come to this ceremony just to get a glimpse of the woman who had abandoned her fated mate and turned Landon’s life upside down. Abandoning the mate bond is a big deal and I wanted to see for myself just what kind of woman she was, how special she was.

I heard that Liliana Ross was supposedly betrothed to Aden Miller, the boring-looking guy with an even more boring personality. A wooden plank would be more interesting to him.

But for some reason, when I finally arrived, she had been denounced as heiress of Azure and is no longer betrothed to Aden Miller.

Odd how she did not immediately announce me, the Alpha King of the North as her mate in the presence of everyone. It would have been an excellent opportunity for her to change her fate.

I know for a fact she feels the mate bond. I pull her closer to observe her in the eyes, I can see a clear sense of guilt and unease in her green hues.

I have a suspicion.

I tell her my name, and I see no surprise in her eyes.

Hmm, just as I thought. She is unaware of my foolish cousin’s name. Even better, she must be mistaking me for him.

Landon and I do look like twins after all.

I force a smirk and quickly let go of her. “That eager to dance with me, are you? Unfortunately, now is not the time.”

One more second of touching her and I will lose control of myself. I need to distance myself away from her and collect my thoughts.

I purposely walk past her, avoiding any further eye contact and head over to talk to the elders from the council. Anything to get her out of my head.

But as I mingle, whispers begin to pour out of the guests' lips and into my ears. Whispers that put Liliana Ross in a bad light, whispers that paint her as a whore who cheated on her fiancé with a rogue and then later disowned by her own father.

My ears burn from listening to all this and it angers me that my mate is such a harlot. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. So I try to focus on Landon instead.

That arrogant jerk got what he deserves, to think that he got abandoned by a harlot. Hah! He’ll never live this down.

But deep down. I realize what this means. Azure’s pack whore, Liliana Ross will also abandon me as her mate.

I shake my head in disgust.

The Moon Goddess has a twisted sense of humour; Landon and I, along with our little half-brother were born to share the same mate and this is how it has been in our family for generations.

But unlike our ancestors who willingly shared their mate, the idea of sharing the same mate with Landon angers me to no end.

I hate him. Sometimes, I wish he was never born. But he was, 5 years before I came into this world.

You see, in a cruel twist of fate, my mother was mated to my father and his brothers. And despite the fact that my father looks exactly like Landon’s father because they are twins, mother loved Landon’s father more and when she left us to settle down in Landon’s father’s pack, my father became devastated.

I guess it might be because mother met Landon’s father first, but I was blamed for this. Father believed that if I had been more likeable as a child, then mother would have stayed.

Determined to restore his pride, my old man pounded into my head from young the idea of claiming my mate before Landon. And it’s no shocker that my father came to me yesterday with CCTV footage to tell me that Landon had already found our mate.

“See this video? He found her already. But she abandoned him,” he had said with a gleeful smile. “And now is your chance to claim her once and for all.”

I don’t like playing games this way. I don’t waste my time with women who don’t spark my interest. They have to be interesting enough to make me want to play with them.

But this Liliana surprises me. She woman is the first woman to ever reject Landon. No woman in their right mind has done that before.

I remember how desperate Landon was when we met up a few days back at his palace. “I cannot find her,” he had said, shaking his head as he twirled the wine glass in his hand.

“That ‘Rose’ abandoned you in your sleep, and you’re still mulling over her?” My cheek twitches at the thought, at the absurdity of Landon, the Alpha King of the South being so lovesick over some woman he had just met.

“She is my mate. Our mate. And I will find her and make her mine,” he replied, putting down his glass and looked at me, his voice deadly. He knew I would not dare challenge him.

No matter how good I was, Landon would always overshadow me. He was always faster, brighter, smarter and more ruthless. It had always been like this ever since I was born.

I shrug, levelling a look back at Landon. “Whatever you say, cousin.”

I would never be as foolish as Landon. He may be loyal to this so-called mate of ours but darn right if I was going to be tied down to one woman. I looked over to our cousin, Evander whose eyes were glued to his laptop screen.

The sight of him being so engrossed in his work brought a smile to my face.

“Not drinking, Professor?” I asked jokingly, knowing very well that he never drank.

“You know I don’t drink, Kaden,” Evander replied with a soft smile before looking back down at his screen, his deep-set grey eyes trained on a diagram of a double helix DNA model.

Differing from the tense relationship I have with Landon, Evander gets along well with both of us. He too shares the same mate with us, but Landon won’t ever see him as a rival. Evander was practically a priest and I simply cannot imagine him falling for a woman.

Unlike Landon. I scowled and crossed my arms, swearing that I would never end up like him.

The howling of my wolf, Lucifer brings me back from my reverie and I find my eyes landing on Liliana Ross once again.

I have always been fond of the fairer sex, never once hesitating to engage in a little fun with them. But none have ever made me feel like Liliana has before. This woman is an enigma, she keeps avoiding me like a plague even when she knows I am her mate.

At present, Aden Miller and his new fiancé are making out in the corner of the hall and I have to roll my eyes at them. I do not understand how Alpha Antonio would denounce his own daughter for the slut who is currently kissing Aden Miller.

I see Liliana now. She bites the bottom of her red lips with her blunt white teeth and her striking eyes avoid everyone’s stares. This woman is holding her head up high despite all their accusations. And as much as I hate it, I feel her pain. I feel every single emotion that gnaws at her, that is eating her away. And this feeling terrifies me.

I had sworn never to be like my father but I fear that with every second of having Liliana in my presence, I will end up like him. I will end up losing my mind, my heart and soul because of this woman.

‘We need her, Kaden,’ my wolf says, his voice grave. ‘You know it deep down in your heart. She completes us.’

Damnit shake my head and push the line of thought out of my head because it is headed to nowhere good. My wolf will have to deal with it, because whether he likes it or not. I will not submit to this mate bond.

Never.