The bond

Kyrian was gathering camomile petals at the forest behind the pack house when the world tilted.

Not enough to make him fall.

But enough to make him stop breathing for half a second, his vision blurred.

His fingers froze at the tip of the flower as he was about to pick the petals. The soft yellow petals trembled beneath his touch. Something deep in his chest pulled tight, sharp and sudden like an invisible thread being yanked without warning.

Kyrian knew what that feeling meant.

“Mate,” He whispered

The word tasted strange in his mouth.

Kyrian swallowed and slowly straightened, his breath shallow, his heart beating too fast for a moment that should have been peaceful.

The forest was calm.

The wind barely stirred the petals. Nothing had changed except him.

The bond had awakened.

“No… please, no,” He whispered.

His legs gave out and he fell to his knees, the shears slipping from his fingers to the ground as his hands began to tremble.

Not because he didn’t believe in fate. Not because he feared it.

But because he already knew who it was. The strong pull from the bond, the energy and power emanating from it. The kind of power every pack member was familiar with, the very one that ruled them.

The Alpha of the Blackwood Pack.

“Damon Belloti.”

Kyrian had known Damon his entire life, in the distant way omegas knew alphas who ruled from high ground and stone halls. Damon Belloti the alpha of the strongest, wealthiest and most feared pack in the west “Blackwood pack”.

His strong, fearless, cold with serious anger issues, his voice alone could silence a room. His presence bent the air around him, heavy with authority. Most importantly…

He hated weakness.

“He already had a chosen mate.” Already spoken for.

Kyrian pressed a hand to his chest as the bond settled, warm and aching, like something ancient stretching awake after a long sleep. It did not hurt. That was the cruelest part.

“It felt… right.”

Tears filled his eyes, blurring the trees into shapes of green and gold. He squeezed his eyes shut,

refusing to let them fall.

Omegas were watched closely in the pack, judged for every emotion, every weakness. The lowest in the pack ranks, slaves of the pack. He learned long ago how to survive by being quiet, by being useful, by being unseen.

But fate had other plans.

Across the pack house, Damon Belloti paused mid stride.

He was in the council hall, stone walls echoing with voices, when the sensation struck him sharp, undeniable, threading straight through his core. His jaw tightened instantly. The room seemed to shrink, the air pressing against his lungs.

“Mate”

Impossible.

“An omega?”

The word left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He could tell it’s an omega but he didn’t know who exactly it was?

Damon’s eyes darkened, his instincts roaring awake as his alpha power surged before he forced it back down. The council members noticed the shift immediately. Silence fell.

“Alpha?” Elder Elijah Lopez asked carefully.

Damon said nothing.

Because he knew.

The moon did not make mistakes.

And yet it had.

Damon already had a chosen mate to rule beside him.

Hanna Lopez.

Daughter of Elder Elijah Lopez, former Delta of the pack, she’s the strongest, most cunning and clever woman in Blackwood pack.

She was everything an Omega was not.

She stood waiting beyond the council hall, her posture flawless and strong like that of a warrior, her silver white hair braided in the formal style of a ruling Luna. A woman of perfection both in beauty and strength worthy of an alpha.

Their union had been decided long ago. Not by the moon, but by politics and power to strengthen the pack. She hadn’t been crowned as the Luna yet but she was chosen to fill that position

Everyone knew Hannah would be Luna soon.

Kyrian knew there’s no way alpha Damon would pick an omega over a strong beta female to rule as Luna.

Damon closed his eyes briefly and crushed the bond down with brute will.

He would not acknowledge it.

Could not.

An Omega mate would shatter the balance holding the pack together, it would ruin everything he spent his whole life building. His reputation and his position as the strongest alpha in the west. An omega is too weak to stand beside him as his Luna.

The elders would never allow it.

His enemies would see it as his weakness and exploit it to ruin him.

Hannah would be humiliated.

War would follow.

He and his pack would be a mockery of the werewolf race.

This has never happened before.

An alpha mated to an omega.

Impossible

One Omega was not worth that cost.

Kyrian felt it immediately.

The sudden pressure. The sharp, suffocating pain as the bond recoiled, not broken, but wounded. He gasped, dropping to his knees in the dirt, fingers clawing into the soil as his vision blurred.

So that was his answer.

Not rejection spoken aloud. But rejection all the same. Kyrian laughed at himself it was exactly what he expected would happen the moment he felt the bond.

Alpha Damon would never accept an Omega as his mate, Kyrian could already picture the look on his face when he finds out his Omega mate is also a man.

Kyrian laughed bitterly at himself.

What a cruel world!.

“Why me?” he whispered into the silent forest, his voice breaking.

The moon offered no comfort.

Only the promise that this was just the beginning.