Chapter 1

Celeste pov

“I, Wulfric Darkfang, reject you, Celeste Veil, as my mate. May the string of fate between us be irreversibly torn.”

The pain was instant, like a flash of lightning ripping through my chest I fell with a cry, my wolf was also whimpering within me.

Rejection from an alpha blood cut deeper than any dagger could ever dream of.

Tears welled up in my eyes;the cold from the night penetrated my thin clothes, the moonlight barely reaching us through the branches above our heads.

But enough got past to slash across his perfect features, his brooding cold eyes that no longer held any warmth for me.

“Wulfric, please reconsider…” I said, still on my knees, clutching my chest, “... The moon goddess must have a reason why she chose us to be together, can't you just give us a chance?”

He came forward, eyes laced with disgust.

“Celeste, wake up. I'm an alpha blood, and you…well you are my parents charity case. They took you in because your own parents didn't want you. Now, if your own flesh and blood could reject you, why would I want you?”

His words broke me, until this moment he had been the kindest person I knew. He was so soft and gentle with me that he had been in my heart ever since we were little, growing up together with him when the Alpha of Darkfang took me in as his ward after finding me by the border of the pack, abandoned and wailing my lungs out.

I grew up with not only Wulfric but his twin brother Ragnar too.

But he was the one I always felt closer to.

I knew I loved him before I even knew the meaning of the word.

And now, after ignoring me for weeks, he was going to toss me off like this.

“Wulfric please!”

I knew I was being pathetic, but for this man, I wouldn't care.

I reached up to clutch his shirt, sobbing so hard that my whole body shook.

“Tell me the truth…was there not a time, just for one single second, that you cared about me? All this time, have you just been pretending? Do I really mean nothing to you?”

His eyes flashed with something I couldn't read for a moment, and I don't know if it was just my imagination or delusion, but he seemed to soften in that brief moment. Then he was as hard and cold as ice in the next.

He peeled me off of his shirt like I was infected and sighed, raking his hair backwards.

“I'm leaving Darkfang, Celeste,” he said with a tone of finality, “... Nothing is going to change my mind. The sooner you swallow that, the better it will be for you,”

He walked past me, leaving me in the middle of the woods as the wind blew and whipped against my skin, carrying my hair over my face, but I remained perfectly still, like a statue plant in every place.

He didn't look back.

Not once.

Here I was, feeling like the ground beneath my feet was falling apart, and he had to reject me as if I was nothing more than a piece of gum stuck under his shoe.

My heart quaked. My wolf, Nixie, begged me to go after him.

“Celeste, we can't let our mate go like that! He is supposed to be ours forever! Don't just keep standing there, chaseafter him, beg him until he accepts us! There's no way he's not in pain too!”

“Enough Nixie!” I fumed at my wolf, “can’t you see? Your intuition was wrong! He doesn't want us! Not one bit…he didn't even care for me as a person. Didn't you hear when he called us a charity case?”

The tears were not running down generously, and I didn't bother to stop them or wipe them off. The salty bitterness reached my mouth, and more came pouring down.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get better, then came the rain.

Soaking through my clothes and running through my body, but even then, I didn't move. The shock of the rejection held me firmly in place, the howls of my wolf tormenting me within my mind.

I need this to end.

I can't take it anymore.

In that impulsive moment when Nixie was completely beyond reason, I started heading towards the nearby Lake, it was a place of many memories between me and Wulfric.

After a hot day we would come here as kids, swimming and having fun. Ragnar usually came when we were more or less a trio.

Suddenly those memories felt like a lifetime ago when we were nothing but just pups playing in the water.

I reached the lake. By then, the rain had intensified so much that it felt like watery bullets were hitting my skin, but I was unperturbed, I started walking into the lake until I left the most shallow part and allowed the water to swallow me.

They said rejection hurts, but nobody told me that it would rob away my will to live.

Suddenly, nothing held any purpose, any reason. I wasn't even thinking straight, my mind blurred by the pain,and just as my lungs began to burn, the unexpected happened.

I saw him, I could recognize his silhouette anywhere, he jumped into the water, rushing for me until he reached me, and then his lips came for mine. Suddenly, my lungs were burning a little less. Enough to carry me up to the surface again.

Not caring that I was drenched, I kissed him.

“I knew you would come back, I just knew that…oh Wulfric–”

He gently pulled me away.

“Celeste…”

His voice was enough, I pulled back and took a look at his sharp yet slightly rounder features.

“Ragner?” I said my voice trembled more because of the emotion than the cold.

He nodded.

“It's me, Celeste…”

I sniffed, rain now drizzling over us; “He rejected me Ranger, he said I was a charity case…am I that unlovable? Why doesn't anyone want me Ragner? Why?!”

He held me as and stroked my hair as I just hoped the whole world would collapse cause mine already did.