Chapter 2 – The Sixth Mistake

Elira

There was no use in running. Not this time.

I sat quietly on the edge of the bed, his blood drying in the crooks of my elbows and the hollow of my throat. Outside, the wind stirred the frost. Inside, the bond was already unraveling—its final thread snapping like a pulled stitch, leaving silence in its place.

The whole pack would know soon. The moment the Alpha bond dissolved, they would feel it like a scream in their chest. And they’d come for me. They always did.

So I didn’t run. Instead, I rose from the bed, peeled his cloak from the hook by the door, and wrapped it around myself. It smelled of pine and iron and something faintly sweet beneath it—Auren’s scent, still warm. But not for long. Already, it was beginning to turn.

I washed my face in the basin, scrubbing as the water turned red. There was no rush. No need to hide. I braided my hair with steady fingers and laced up my boots.

By the time the knock came—hard, impatient—I was seated in the center of the room, hands folded in my lap like a bride awaiting ceremony.

The door flew open. The Beta entered first. His eyes swept the cabin once, then landed on me with a mixture of rage and fear. Behind him, two warriors. Then four. Then more. All silent. All staring. All waiting for someone to make the call.

The Beta’s voice was ice. “On your feet.”

I stood and nothing, they wouldn’t listen if I did speak so why bother. I let them bind my wrists without any struggle.

They dragged me out into the cold. The village was awake now—drawn by instinct or fear or morbid curiosity. Doors creaked open. Lanterns flickered. Children were pulled close to their mothers. And me?

I was walked into the center of the pack grounds and chained to the thick post where they tie up rouge wolves awaiting trial. But there would be no trial for me. 

A cuff around each wrist. Shackled low. Exposed.

No words. No defense. Just iron and frostbite and shame.

Throughout the day they passed by like I was already ash. Some spat at my feet. Others kicked dirt at my knees or muttered prayers under their breath. A few simply stared, their faces twisted with disgust or fascination.

And still I said nothing. Because I knew the truth of it. The curse would not let me die. Not yet.

I’d tried. Gods, I’d tried. A blade to the wrist. A rope around my neck. It didn’t matter the method, I always ended up saved from death. 

I've thought about whether things would be different if I explained, if I begged, if I told them what I was. They'd understand I wasn't the monster they feared. But they never listened.

One Alpha locked me in a cellar and branded his crest into my shoulder, calling it devotion. Another sent his wolves to drag me from the riverbank when I tried to drown myself before the bond could root. One burned my old clothes before the entire pack, saying I no longer needed a past.

Another whispered love while gifting me jewels—then slit his own throat in front of me when the nightmares began.

Every pack found a new way to punish me for surviving their Alpha.

Some exiled me. Others tried to bind me. One even tried to sell me-until the buyer learned I was cursed and fled in terror.

They feared me. But they wanted me, too.

No one looked me in the eye. As if that might make the curse jump. I closed my own. Counted the beats of my heart. One. Two. Three. The air shifted.

That’s when I heard it—hooves, slow and steady on frozen earth. A new scent—foreign, commanding. Then the voice.

“Steady, boys. We’re just passing through. No harm meant.” The rider said, his tone calm but unignorable. 

I didn’t lift my head. Didn’t need to. I could feel it. The shift. The curse moving beneath my skin like a snake ready to strike. The curse always sent another Alpha, and it seemed this one was right on cue.

The horse stopped. Then, “What in the Goddess’s name is this?”

I opened my eyes.

He was tall. Dark. A stranger wrapped in black and trimmed in fur, his hood half-lowered, face shadowed but unmistakably Alpha. The kind that didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard. The kind who stepped into the middle of a storm without blinking.

He looked at me—chained, filthy, half-frozen. Then at the villagers. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked, louder now. “Is this how you treat your pack members?”

The crowd shifted uneasily. No one answered. Auren’s Beta stepped forward, voice cracking with barely restrained grief. “She’s not part of this pack. Not anymore.”

“And why is that?” the stranger asked.

The Beta swallowed hard. “She… she killed our Alpha.”

The Alpha’s jaw ticked. He glanced at the ropes, then back to the Beta. “And for that, you chain her up like a beast? No trial? Just public humiliation and whatever fate the mob decides?”

“You don’t understand,” the Beta started.

“I don’t care,” the stranger snapped, eyes narrowing. “I won’t stand by and watch injustice be paraded like spectacle. That’s not the kind of Alpha I am.”

Gasps. A few murmurs.

He stepped forward, his cloak catching on the wind. “I’ll take her.”

The Beta stared at him, aghast. “She needs to pay—”

“She will,” the Alpha said, cutting him off again. “If she’s guilty, let the Moon Goddess guide her fate. But it will not be decided here, by a pack so eager to light the pyre they forgot what justice looks like.”

And then he tossed the pouch. It hit the dirt with a heavy thud, silver spilling like moonlight through frost. The silence was immediate. Even the crowd stilled.

“I’ll pay for her,” he said simply. “You can move on. Clean your conscience. Wash your hands of her and sleep at night believing you did the right thing.”

He turned his gaze back to me. Not pity. Not lust. Something else. Burden? Recognition? Or maybe the beginning of obsession.

“She’s mine now.”

The Beta hesitated. Just for a moment. Then stepped aside. And just like that, I was claimed again. Not free. Not forgiven. Just passed to another name. Another pack. Another man who thought he might survive me.

They unshackled me. My arms ached as they fell to my sides. I stood slowly, my legs numb from the cold and stillness. The stranger held out his hand.

I took it. His fingers wrapped around mine—warm, steady, sure. His nostrils flared. His eyes flashed gold.

There it was. The curse striking like a match. Another Alpha, another mistake. The sixth.

I looked at him, memorized his face, and thought:

Please. Let this one last longer than the others. But I already knew how this would end. They always thought they could save me. None ever did.