The Feral Lycan King's Halfblood Mate

Chapter 1

Tanya’s POV

For as long as I've lived, I have always been the family's shame. The disgrace and embarrassment. The daughter constantly reminded of how useless she was and how she had no future. No matter how small I tried to make myself, no matter how quietly I moved through the pack grounds, I was always seen, not as Tanya, but as a stain that refused to fade.

For nineteen years, I have been made aware of this all my life. Nineteen long, suffocating years of knowing I did not belong. The only years that ever felt different were the three I lived with my father, Elder Beta Zorun’s only brother, the man I watched get murdered for sleeping with a human.

I still remember the day they dragged him into the square. I still remember how he searched for me in the crowd, how his eyes softened when they found mine, as if he was apologizing for a sin that was never mine to bear. And then the blade fell. Just like that. His blood soaking into the earth of the Raki Horde Pack as though the ground itself was eager to swallow the proof of his disgrace.

Humans were cursed and rarely seen near the Raki Horde Pack. It was a sacrilege. Werewolves, and especially those from our pack, valued only true bloodlines. Purity was pride. Purity was power. And those who were halfbloods or mixed bloods were ostracized, bullied and treated as abominations that should have never drawn breath.

That was the reason why I, a half blood born by the human woman whom my late father took me from, have always been looked down upon. I was the living evidence of his betrayal. The reminder of forbidden love. The mistake that survived when he did not.

“What are you still doing here, Tanya? Leave! I’m not going to waste my breath asking Tovar not to get mated to Zhuri. If you weren’t a shame to our clan, this wouldn’t have happened!”

Elder Beta Zorun snapped, his voice booming across the courtyard. It was the same voice he used whenever he scolded me, whenever he ordered my punishment, whenever he reminded me that I lived under his roof not as family, but as charity.

After he had commanded the soldiers to behead my father, his only brother, he had pleaded with the council to let him raise me. I had been foolish enough to think it was mercy. Foolish enough to think I had escaped the death that awaited me for being half-blood.

Only to discover that he had taken me in as the clan’s slave.

I scrubbed floors until my knuckles cracked. I carried water until my shoulders burned. I endured insults like they were part of my daily meals. And when I turned twelve and did not awaken my wolf, his viciousness towards me only doubled. A half-blood without a wolf was worse than useless. I became the pack’s quiet joke, the failed experiment, the barren ground that could produce nothing.

And now his daughter was about to get mated to my mate tonight and he found nothing wrong with it.

“Zhuri just lost her mate six months ago, father,” I forced out, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it. “Why should she still have her eyes out for someone else’s mate? Why should—”

The slap landed across my cheek before I could finish.

The force of it sent my head snapping to the side, my ears ringing. Zhuri’s mother stood before me, her eyes filled with disgust as if I had dared to speak above my station.

“Tovar and Zhuri have been lovers since childhood!” she snapped. “He was only forced to get mated to you because the moon cursed him by making him your fated mate! He gave you conditions! Give him an heir in three years and get marked by him as the Fang Mother of the pack! But a barren dried land like you couldn’t!”

Her words cut deeper than her hand.

“Why shouldn’t he become mates with Zhuri, whom his heart beats for, when she is worthy of being his mate?”

Worthy.

The word echoed painfully in my chest.

“I always told you not to bring this bastard into our home, Zorun!” she spat, turning to my uncle as though I were not standing right there.

Bastard. Half-blood. Barren. Shame.

The Raki Horde Pack was known to be the custodians of tradition. Laws older than memory. Rituals carved into stone. The Moon Goddess above all.

Three years ago, on my nineteenth birthday, I had discovered that the Alpha’s son, the man yet to be crowned the Fang Father, was my fated mate.

Tovar.

It had been bizarre news. Unbelievable. The lowest-ranked girl in the pack tied by fate to the heir of the most powerful bloodline. For a fleeting, dangerous moment, I had considered it my salvation. I had thought the mate bond was the Moon Goddess’s apology to me. I had thought it was my chance to rise from the bottom of the pack.

I had secretly loved Tovar for years. From afar and in silence. I had imagined that through our bond, other halfbloods like me would finally be recognized. That I would no longer be the clan’s shame but its Luna. That I would be accepted.

But my hopes were immediately crushed when he rejected me before everyone.

Before the elders and warriors. Before the pack.

His rejection had felt like claws ripping through my chest.

The elders, unwilling to go against tradition and defy the Moon Goddess who had declared us fated mates, had forced him to get mated to me. A union demanded by fate, not love.

He made it clear from the very beginning.

Three years.

To give him an heir within three years and earn his mark and get crowned as the Fang Mother of the pack.

To prove I was not useless nor barren.

Tonight marked the end of those three years.

And I had failed.

Three years.

Three years of sleeping in his chambers yet never in his heart. Three years of being touched without being claimed. Three years of whispers trailing behind me like a curse.

I have been barren ever since, with not even news of a miscarriage or an attempted child removal by his enemies. Nothing. No blood to mourn. No child to bury. Not even a rumor to defend myself with.

Just emptiness.

“I took the Lunawryn herb, father. Before tonight, I’ll be able to awaken my wolf. Perhaps it is the reason I am unable to get pregnant with his alpha pups given my omega body. Just give me another chance and help me plead with the prince to give me more time. Once the herb forces my wolf’s awakening, I wouldn’t disappoint him anymore, please.”

The words spilled out of me in a rush as I walked toward my father and held his hand. My fingers clung to him desperately, like I was still the little girl who had once believed family meant protection. Tears burned behind my eyes, threatening to fall, but I forced them back. Crying in front of him had never earned me mercy but ridicule.

I didn’t bother with his mate who stood behind him, nor did I care that she wanted her daughter mated to the prince instead of me. After all, she had always been the expected choice. Everyone had expected Zhuri to be fated to Tovar since childhood. She was the Beta’s daughter. It was tradition. Beta daughters became mated to Alpha sons. That was how bloodlines remained strong and predictable.

My case had been different.

An anomaly.

And it had made rumors spread through the pack like wildfire.

“Don’t you understand it, Tanya?” Father began as he shrugged my hand off forcefully.

The rejection stung more than the slap earlier. His face rippled with disgust, as if the mere idea of my touch contaminated him. As if I were something filthy he had accidentally brushed against.

“Tovar is going to be crowned the Fang Father tonight when he gets mated to Zhuri. Does that not tell you anything?”

I paused as his words settled heavily into my chest.

An Alpha prince and heir cannot be crowned Fang Father unless he already has his own heir and from his mate.

Did that mean…?

“No, that’s impossible,” I muttered, more to myself than to him. As though denial could shield me from the truth clawing at my mind. As though saying it aloud could undo whatever betrayal I was beginning to understand.

“You’re a barren halfblood, Tanya. Elder Beta Zorun should have allowed you to get beheaded alongside your father years ago! I regret ever allowing him bring you in.”

Mother’s words were colder than winter as she turned to walk away, her robes sweeping behind her as though she were done entertaining a stray.

Father seemed lost in thought for a moment after what she had said, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. Regret? Doubt? Calculation? I would never know. He soon snapped out of his reverie and followed her without another word, leaving me standing alone in the courtyard like discarded waste.

At times, I wondered why she hated me so much.

It wasn’t as if I was her mate’s bastard daughter with a mistress. Children like that were treated with cruelty and a certain possessive resentment.

I was only her mate’s brother’s daughter.

Yet she hated me far more than I could ever explain.

“Tanya.”

A voice called from behind me, pulling me from my haze.

It was Sulli — my best friend — who had come with me. The only one who still stood beside me when the rest of the pack turned their backs. I fought back the tears threatening to betray me as I turned toward the door to follow her out.

I had no time to waste.

It was almost evening, and I needed to get to Tovar, to stop the mating ceremony he was preparing.

“Did you really take the herb, Tanya?”

Sulli’s question made me pause mid-step. My throat tightened. I thought of lying. I thought of brushing it aside. But she had already heard me admitting to it earlier.

There was no point pretending.

“You know it’s dangerous. Even if you awaken your wolf, she may go feral from the drug’s effect. You may live as a rogue for the rest of your life, Tanya.”

Her voice carried both fear and reprimand. She knew the stories. Wolves forced awake unnaturally were unstable and violent.

Some were hunted down like animals before they could hurt others. Some disappeared into the forests, never to be seen again.

Still, I said nothing.

What was there to say?

I would rather risk becoming a feral rogue than remain what I was now — a barren halfblood discarded by fate.

I held back my tears as I stepped out of the Beta’s compound, the evening air biting against my skin. The sky was darkening, just as my time was running out.

I was doing this to save the man I loved.

And love was not something I expected Sulli to understand.

Her own union had been forced upon her by her parents, who sold her to the Gamma as a mate in order to cover their debts. She had never spoken of love without bitterness. Never spoken of mates without resentment.

But I… I had loved Tovar long before the Moon Goddess bound us.

And even now, when he was about to stand beside another woman and claim her before the entire pack, my heart still beat for him.

Even if it was beating itself to death.