All Chapters of When My Mate Chose Her, I Chose Freedom: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Two days before the festival, Kyle Grayson decided he was taking his little healer assistant to the Southern Hot Springs territory for the holiday."Serena, Lina has no family in Blackthorn Pack. What is so wrong with me taking her away for a few days?" His anger crashed over me before I was fully awake inside my own body.I stared at Kyle, then at the girl standing beside him with red-rimmed eyes and her fingers twisted in his sleeve. Lina Hart had been a low-ranking Omega when Kyle brought her back from the border. Somehow, she had gone from being a rescued stray to the one woman he protected in every room she entered.She tugged his cuff and spoke in a voice soft enough to melt butter. "Alpha Kyle, please don't talk to Serena like that. If she doesn't want me to go, I won't. I'm used to spending the Full Moon Festival alone anyway. It's fine. Really."She said it was fine, but tears were already shining in her eyes.Kyle's face darkened at once. When he looked back at me, his famili

Kyle did not leave right away.The next morning, the southern passage permit was temporarily delayed. Lina had nightmares during the night, he said. She dreamed rogues dragged her into Shadow Marsh, and her wolf spirit had become unstable.Kyle brought her back to my house.I was upstairs packing when his voice floated up from below. "Don't be afraid. I'm here. No rogue will touch you."Lina sniffled. "Will Serena hate me even more? Does she think I'm doing this on purpose to keep you here?""Let her try," Kyle said coldly. "She is spoiled. Once the ceremony is complete, she will learn what kind of restraint a Luna is supposed to have."I folded my last cloak into the suitcase.In my last life, I had spent years trying to become that so-called proper Luna. I turned myself into a joke.Kyle's scent still lingered in my room: fir, cedar, and the faint metallic edge of old battlefields. It used to make me feel safe. Now it only made the walls feel too tight.I opened the window and let th

Adrian and I were not strangers.Eight years ago, he was my senior at Northern Academy, the youngest genius in the healer program. I had been too busy trying to become Blackthorn's perfect Luna to notice him.Three years ago, I was injured at Snowridge saving Kyle. Rogues came through the snow, and I took a silver strike meant for him. When I woke two days later, the man beside my bed was not Kyle.It was Adrian.He changed my bandages and smiled when I failed to recognize him. Later, after I complained once that the healer house was cold, he sent me a silver-gray shawl. Only then did I remember the academy library, where he used to shut the window near my favorite seat by the fireplace.He remembered the things I had almost forgotten about myself: snow-mountain sunrises, moonberry cake, herb specimens pressed into old books, and full-moon nights at the observatory.Kyle remembered only Lina's fears.When I once gave Adrian the invitation to my ceremony with Kyle, he held it for a long

When Kyle returned to Blackthorn Pack, the main house was terrifyingly quiet.My room was empty.No clothes in the closet. No herb specimens on the desk. Even the white porcelain moon bell I had kept by the window for five years was gone.Worst of all, my scent had been cleaned away completely.Fir, cedar, and Kyle's scent still lingered, like an old dream no one had bothered to end. But the faint laurel and herb scent that belonged to me was gone.Kyle stood in the middle of the room and felt something hollow open in his chest.He had once thought my scent was too quiet. It did not stir his protective instincts the way Lina's soft sweetness did.Now that the quiet scent was gone, the whole room felt like a ruin.Only one envelope remained on the desk.Inside were three documents.The first dissolved Silver Vale's mate alliance with Blackthorn. The second confirmed my transfer to Frostmoon Pack under Adrian's protection. The third returned every passage mark, shared asset, and ceremoni

Kyle's last attempt to force me to turn back happened on the night of the second blizzard warning.He went to the old, closed hunting trail at Snowridge.The place where I had saved him three years ago.The place where I had almost died.Liam called me, his voice shaking with urgency. "Serena, Kyle has lost his mind. He says he is going to walk through everything he owes you at Snowridge. A blizzard is coming. Can you talk him down?"I was sorting silver-poison treatment records in Frostmoon's healer house. Adrian sat beside me, arranging herbs by color.When Liam finished, I only asked, "Is he an adult?""Of course.""Then his life is his responsibility. When I fell down that slope saving him, he called Lina first and waited half an hour before calling healers for me. Stop dressing up his self-pity with my name. He is not doing this for me. He just cannot stand being left behind."Half an hour later, Kyle called me himself.Wind poured through the speaker, carrying the sharp scrape of