The Mate Who KIlled Her Family

Chapter 1 

ELENA 

The first thing I felt was the burning.

It started in my left wrist, hot and sharp, like someone had pressed a coal against my skin and held it there. I groaned and tried to pull my arm to my chest, but my body was heavy. My head felt full of smjoke.

Smoke.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling above me was made of dark wood beams. Not the low, cracked ceiling of my bedroom at home. This one was high and smooth, and a small iron lamp hung from it on a chain. Gray morning light came in from somewhere to my right.

I was lying in a bed. A big bed. The sheets were soft and white and smelled like pine ansd cedar and something else I couldn't name. Something warm. Something that made my stomach twist.

This was not my bed.

I sat up too fast. The room spun, and I grabbed the blanket to stop myself from falling back. My heart was pounding. I looked down at myself. I was wearing a long cotton shirt that wasn't mine. It was too big and hung off one shoulder. My legs were bare under the blanket.

The burning in my wrist flared again, and I finally looked at it.

There was a mark on my skin.

It was silver. It shone softly, like moonlight on water, curling around the inside of my wrist in a shape I had only ever seen drawn in old books. A crescent moon, with thin lines spreading out from it like roots.

I stared at it. My mouth went dry.

A mate mark.

That was impossible. Mate marks were for wolves. Wolves found their mates, and the bond burned itself into their skin. Everyone in Willowbrook knew that. My mother told me the stories when I was a child, sitting by the fire with her sewing in her lap. The wolves have their magic, Elena, she would say. We have our herbs and our hands. We don't mix.

I was human. I had always been human. I should not have a mark.

I rubbed at it with my thumb, hard, like it was ink that would wash away. It didn't. It only burned hotter.

"Stop that. You'll hurt yourself."

The voice was deep and low and came from the right side of the room.

I froze.

Slowly, I turned my head.

A man stood by the window. The gray light was behind him, so for a second I could only see his shape. Tall. Broad shoulders. Arms crossed over his chest. Then he moved one step forward, and the light caught his face.

Dark hair, cut short. A sharp jaw with a shadow of stubble. A thin, pale scar running through his left eyebrow. And his eyes. Gold, like a wolf's. Watching me the way a hunter watches a deer.

I knew that face.

Everyone in the valley knew that face. It was painted on the warning posts at the edge of the woods. Mothers used his name to scare children into coming home before dark.

Kade. Alpha of the Blackthorn pack.

And just like that, the smoke in my head cleared, and I remembered.

Fire. Orange light in the windows. The church bell ringing and ringing and then stopping. Wolves in the streets, huge and dark, their eyes shining. People running. People screaming. And my mother's voice, louder than all of it, screaming my name.

The Blackthorn pack had come to Willowbrook. And they had burned it to the ground.

His wolves. His orders.

And now I was in his room. In his bed. Wearing his mark.

I screamed.

I didn't plan it. It just tore out of me. I threw the blanket off and jumped out of the bed. My legs were weak, and I stumbled, but I didn't stop. I saw a door on the far side of the room and ran for it.

"Elena, wait—"

He knew my name. He knew my name.

I ran faster. Five steps. Six. My hand reached for the door handle.

Then the pain hit.

It came from inside my chest, right under my heart, like a hook had been buried there and someone had yanked the rope. The breath left my body. My knees gave out, and I fell hard onto the wooden floor. My fingers were inches from the door.

I tried to crawl. The pain got worse. It squeezed my chest until black spots danced in front of my eyes. I gasped and clawed at the floor.

Footsteps crossed the room behind me. Heavy. Unhurried.

The moment he got closer, the pain eased. Just a little. Just enough for me to breathe.

I understood then, and it made me want to be sick.

The bond. The bond didn't want me to leave him.

"Don't," he said quietly. He was standing right behind me now. "It will only hurt worse the farther you go. Your body isn't used to it yet."

I pushed myself up onto my hands and turned to face him. I pressed my back against the door. My whole body was shaking.

"Stay away from me," I said. My voice came out rough and broken.

He stopped. He didn't come closer. He just looked down at me with those gold eyes, and his face gave away nothing.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

I laughed. It was an ugly sound. "You burned my home."

Something moved in his face. Just for a second. Then it was gone.

"Sit down before you pass out," he said.

"Go to hell."

Before he could answer, someone knocked on the door behind me. I jumped and scrambled away from it, crawling sideways until I hit the wall.

"Come in, Hilda," Kade said.

The door opened. An old woman walked in, carrying a wooden tray with a teapot, a bowl of porridge, bread, and a small plate of cut apples. She was short and round, with white hair pulled back into a tight bun and a face full of deep lines. She wore a brown apron covered in green stains. Herb stains. I knew them well. My mother's aprons always looked like that.

She looked at me sitting on the floor, then at Kade, and sighed.

"Up already," she said. "And already running, I see. Well. That's what the young ones always do first."

She set the tray on a small table near the bed and came over to me. I pressed myself harder against the wall.

"Easy, child," she said. "I'm the pack healer. My name is Hilda. I've been looking after you for two days."

"Two days?" I whispered.

"Two days." She crouched down in front of me with a small grunt, her knees cracking. She took my left hand before I could pull away and turned it over to look at the mark. "Good. It's settling nicely. The burning will stop in a day or so."

I snatched my hand back. "Take it off."

She gave me a look that was almost kind. "It doesn't come off, dear. That's not how a mate bond works."

"Then how did it get there?" My voice was rising. "I'm human. Humans don't get marks. Someone did this to me. He did this to me."

I pointed at Kade. He didn't move.