All Chapters of The Mate Who KIlled Her Family: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

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

Chapter 3KADEShe didn't believe me.I saw it in her eyes the second the words left my mouth. First the shock. Then the anger rising up behind it, hot and fast, like a fire catching dry grass."Liar," she whispered.I let go of her wrists. She stumbled back from me and held her bleeding arm against her chest. Her dark hair was wild around her face. Her cheeks were wet. She was shaking so hard I could hear her teeth click.And she looked at me like I was the worst thing she had ever seen.Maybe I was."Hilda will clean that cut," I said. "Eat something. Rest.""I don't want anything from you.""I know."I picked up the little fruit knife from the floor, because I wasn't a fool, and I walked to the door. My arm stung. So did hers. I could feel it, a faint echo of her pain sitting under my own, like a second heartbeat. That was new. Two days, and I still wasn't used to it.At the door, I stopped."The farther I go, the more it will hurt you," I said without turning around. "I'll stay cl

Chapter 5KADEI took the stairs three at a time.The door to my bedroom was open. Hilda was standing in the middle of the room with a roll of clean bandages in her hands, staring at the window. The cold morning air was blowing in through a big hole in the glass. Sharp pieces stuck out from the frame like teeth, and on the biggest one, there was blood. Fresh and red and running down in a thin line."I was gone five minutes," Hilda said. Her voice was shaking. "Five minutes, Kade. I went to get bandages. She was sitting on the bed. She said she was tired."I went to the window and looked down. It was a long drop to the garden below. The rose bushes under the window were crushed flat, where she must have landed. There were drops of blood on the grass, leading toward the trees.My palm stung again. Her palm. She had cut it on the glass climbing out."She could have broken her neck," Hilda whispered."She didn't," I said. I could feel her. Somewhere out there, her heart was pounding hard

Chapter 7ELENAChapter 7ELENAHe didn't turn around.He stayed on his knees in front of my mother's grave, one hand still pressed flat against the dirt. The wind moved through the apple trees above us. A few dry leaves fell and landed on the fresh soil."Answer me," I said.My side was burning where the rogue's claws had torn into him. Into me. I held my hand over the scratches and felt warm blood seep between my fingers. I didn't care. I only cared about the man kneeling in front of me."How do you know her name?""It's on the marker," he said quietly."Don't." My voice cracked. "Don't do that. You didn't read it. You said it like you knew her. Like you were sorry."He was silent for a long time. Then he stood up slowly and turned to face me. There was blood running down his ribs, and ash on his face, and something in his gold eyes that I didn't understand. Something that looked almost like pain."She helped me once," he said. "A long time ago.""Helped you how?""That's all I can

Chapter 9ELENAKade woke me before the sun came up.He didn't knock. He just opened the door, dropped a pile of clothes on the end of my bed, and said, "Get dressed. We start now."I pulled the blanket over my head. "Start what?""Learning how not to die."I lay there under the blanket for a long moment. Then I thought of Vera's green eyes and her cold smile, and I got up.The clothes were plain. Brown trousers, a loose gray shirt, soft leather boots. They fit me well. Too well. I wondered who had measured me while I was asleep, and then decided I didn't want to know.He was waiting for me in a small yard behind the pack house. It was hidden by a tall stone wall on three sides, with old training posts in the dirt and a rack of wooden practice blades by the gate. The grass was wet with dew. The sky was just starting to turn pink."Why here?" I asked. "Why not the big yard?""Because I don't want the whole pack watching you fall on your face.""How kind.""It's not kindness." He picked