CHAPTER 3: Cold Water

Freya's POV

My legs moved mechanically, one stumbling step after another while two uniformed soldiers flanked me on either side.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, dripping off my chin and splattering against the simple blue dress I had worn for the festival. The same dress Kaelen had called beautiful just hours ago.

What a joke.

My stomach turned at the memory of his lips on mine, warm and sure, whispering promises that meant nothing. I had believed every word. I had been such a fool.

A guard jerked my arm hard enough to make me stumble.

"Watch where you're going," he growled.

I blinked, suddenly aware that I had drifted toward the trees. 

The path we walked on was narrow, bordered by dense forest on both sides. I hadn't even noticed. My mind had been so lost in replaying the nightmare of the ceremony that everything else had faded away.

"Where are you taking me?" My voice came out scratchy and weak.

Neither guard answered. They just kept walking grimly.

"Please." I tried to pull free but the guard's grip only tightened. "What's happening? Where's Alpha Kaelen?"

That earned me a glance from the man on my left and his eyes held something that looked almost like pity before it vanished behind a wall of professional coldness.

"Beta Rowan will explain," he said.

Beta Rowan. So Kaelen's right-hand man was behind this... not Kaelen himself. He couldn't even face me long enough to tell me what was happening. He had let his soldiers drag me away like I was nothing.

The thought made my wolf stir inside me in a low whine of pain echoing through our bond. The rejection had hit her hard... I could feel her cowering in the corner of my mind, shivering and confused, unable to understand why our mate had turned on us.

'He's not our mate,' I told her firmly, though part of me still screamed that it wasn't true. 'He chose someone else. He never really chose us.'

The path opened up into a small clearing where a black car waited with engines idling. Two more soldiers stood beside it and Beta Rowan himself leaned against the hood, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He looked tired, his dark hair disheveled and his jaw shadowed with stubble.

"Freya." He straightened as I approached and for a moment something flickered across his face... regret maybe or discomfort. "You need to calm down."

"Calm down?" The words came out of me higher and shrillier than I intended. "Where's Kaelen? Why isn't he here?"

Rowan's jaw tightened. 

"Alpha Kaelen has other obligations."

"Obligations?" I scoffed. "His obligations include humiliating me in front of the whole pack and then sending his dogs to fetch me like I'm a stray?"

The soldiers exchanged glances. One of them shifted his weight with his hand resting casually on the pistol at his hip. The gesture made my stomach clench with sudden fear.

"Are you going to kill me?" The question came out before I could stop it.

Rowan's eyes widened almost imperceptibly. 

"What? No. Of course not."

"Then what are you doing? Where are you taking me?"

He hesitated for a long moment and a dozen horrible scenarios played out in my head. 

Maybe Selene had demanded my execution... maybe the elders wanted me gone... maybe Kaelen had finally grown tired of the omega who was too weak to be useful and had decided to make the problem disappear.

"You're being relocated," Rowan said finally.

"Relocated?" The word tasted like ash in my mouth. "He's banishing me?"

"Not banishing." Rowan's voice softened almost imperceptibly. "The situation is... complicated. You don't understand everything that's at stake."

"Then explain it to me!" I stepped toward him, emboldened by desperation. "I loved him for three years. I gave him everything. I..." I stopped, my hand instinctively moving to my stomach.

The pregnancy... I hadn't told anyone yet. I had been planning to tell Kaelen after the mating ceremony when we were alone and he could hold me and celebrate with me. I had imagined his face so many times... shock then wonder then joy.

But there would be no joy now.. there would be no ceremony, no future and no family. There was only this; soldiers, a car and an uncertain fate in a pack I had never even heard of.

"Freya?" Rowan watched the way my hand rested on my midsection. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

I shook my head quickly. 

"No. Nothing. Just..." I swallowed hard. "Just take me wherever you're taking me. It doesn't matter anymore."

Something in Rowan's expression suggested he didn't believe me but he didn't push. Instead, he nodded to the guards.

"Get her in the car. We need to move before dawn."

They practically lifted me into the back seat.

Maybe Kaelen had planned this whole thing from the beginning, keeping me as his secret lover while preparing to cast me aside the moment something better came along.

The door slammed shut and I was alone in the back seat. Two more cars pulled up behind us... first one, then another both filled with soldiers. I caught glimpses of uniforms, weapons and grim faces.

Seems like overkill for one omega who can't even shift.

The convoy lurched into motion. Through the tinted window, I watched the familiar landmarks of Shadowbrook pass by.

The tears started again sliding down my cheeks as the landscape grew darker and more unfamiliar. 

We were leaving the pack territory now entering the deep wilderness that separated us from the rest of the world. Trees closed in on both sides of the road, their branches forming a twisted ceiling that blocked out the moonlight while my wolf whimpered inside me… her pain echoing through our bond. 

The journey seemed to last forever. Hours passed, or maybe it was only minutes... time had lost all meaning. The only constant was the motion of the car and the ache in my chest that refused to fade.

The first car suddenly burst into a fireball right in front of us. Orange flames shot up into the night sky, turning the darkness into day for one blinding moment. Our driver slammed on the brakes and I pitched forward against the seat in front of me.

"What..." I started but the words died in my throat.

Gunfire.

Voices shouting orders and the howl of wolves in the distance as chaos exploded around us, everything happening so fast that I couldn't process any of it.

"Stay in the car!" one of the soldiers in the front seat commanded but he was opening his door, preparing to move.

I didn't stay in the car. Fear had a way of making rules feel irrelevant. I cowered against the seat, hands pressed over my head and heart hammering so hard I was sure it would burst through my ribs.

Sounds of fighting filled the night... gunshots, screams and the growls of wolves in combat. 

Then silence... a silence more terrible than the noise had been.

The car door ripped open and rough hands grabbed me, hauling me out of the seat like I weighed nothing. 

I screamed, clawing at the grip but the hands only tightened painfully.

"Stop struggling," a voice commanded.

I looked up at my captor and felt the blood drain from my face. 

The man wore the same uniform as Kaelen's soldiers but his face was twisted in disgust. 

"Let me go!" I begged. "Please, I'm not who you think I am!"

"We know exactly who you are," another man said, stepping into view. 

He was older, his hair prematurely gray and his eyes hard as flint. 

"You're Freya Marlowe. Alpha Kaelen's little secret."

My stomach dropped. 

"How do you..."

"Alpha Kaelen wants you dead," he interrupted. "He sent us to tie up his loose ends. Can't have his legitimate mate finding out about his omega plaything, can we?"

"No." The word came out as a whisper. "No, that's not... he wouldn't..."

"You're right about one thing." The man's smile was a terrible thing. "He wouldn't. But his enemies would be very interested to know about you."

"The alpha made his choice," the man continued. "He chose Selene Mireaux and everything she represents. That means you have to go. No loose ends."

"Please." I fell to my knees desperately. "I'm not a threat. I won't tell anyone about anything. I'll disappear, I'll never come back, just please..."

"Get up," one of the younger soldiers growled, yanking me to my feet.

"I have money," I babbled, grasping at straws. "In my room under the floorboards. Take it. It's yours. Just let me go."

"Nobody's taking your money, omega." The punch to my stomach doubled me over and for a terrible moment I worried about the baby... the tiny life I wasn't even sure could survive the violence of this world.

More blows followed. 

I curled into myself, trying to protect my stomach, my face, any part of myself I could shield.

"Enough," the gray-haired man commanded suddenly.

The beating stopped and I slumped to the ground, gasping and tasting blood on my lips.

"Get her to the stream," he ordered. "Make it look like an accident... or a suicide. It doesn't matter. As long as she's gone."

"No," I groaned. "Please. Please don't do this."

One of the soldiers grabbed my hair and dragged me across the rough ground. I cried out, trying to fight but my body had already taken too much punishment. I was weak.. always so weak.. just like everyone had always said.

'Fight' my wolf whispered weakly. 'You have to fight.'

But how could I fight? I couldn't even shift.

They reached the stream... a dark body of water cutting through the forest cold and deep and black as the night itself.

"There are traces of the bond," the gray-haired man said thoughtfully, crouching beside me. "If these fools had raped you, Kaelen might have felt something. A disturbance in the connection. We can't risk that."

I stared at him, not comprehending.

"Stab her," he ordered. "Drop her in the water. Let the current take her. By the time anyone finds the body, there won't be anything left to link back to us."

The knife came out of its sheath with a whisper of steel.

"Wait," I pleaded. "Wait, please..."

The blade plunged into my side.

The pain was extraordinary.. a white-hot lance that drove through my flesh and into something deeper. I gasped, unable to scream, unable to do anything but feel the steel sliding between my ribs.

They dropped me.. I fell toward the water, my vision swimming, darkness creeping in at the edges of my sight.

The cold stream swallowed me whole.

Down, down, down.. the current pulled me deeper into the black spaces where light had never existed. 

I tried to swim, tried to kick but my body wouldn't obey... the blood flowing from my side painted the water red and the red faded into nothing in the darkness.

‘I'm sorry,’ I thought, though I didn't know who I was apologizing to. ‘I'm so sorry.’

My wolf was silent.. may

be she had finally given up... maybe she was already slipping away just like I was.

The last thing I saw was a bubble of air escaping my lips rising toward a surface that was impossibly far away…