Bittersweet Werewolf の短編小説 &BiasRegret小説

Alpha Kaelan, my fated mate, despised me. He blamed me for the death of his childhood sweetheart, Lila. He hated our fated bond. He hated my power. He hated that the Elders forced him to mark me. He hated that our mating drove Lila to her death. So for twenty years, we were trapped in a cage of hatred, each wishing the other would drop dead. Until the day I was poisoned and dying. The moment I felt the poison, I knew. Kaelan did this. My wolf howled, fighting to keep me alive until he came home. I killed him with a silver dagger. But then, as he lay dying, I heard him whisper to his second-in-command. "Don't you dare kill her. The antidote I got from the witch… give it to Selene. And she can never know it was from me..." "And... you have to find out... who's been poisoning her all this time." After he died, a searing pain tore through my chest. Tears streamed down my face. I refused the antidote. I wanted this whole mistake to end. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back before he marked me. I took a deal with the Supernatural Council and left the continent behind. This time, I rejected our bond. I would give him and his precious Lila the happy ending they deserved.

The day before the final round of Beta selection, I was poisoned with wolfsbane and locked inside my burning house. The fire spread too fast, and my weakened state prevented me from shifting. My wolf, Emma, screamed in my mind, but I couldn't escape. I clawed at the door as the flames seared my skin. When I was rescued, my body was covered in burns, my skin raw and torn. Outside the operating room, I heard my mother sobbing, repeating, “It’s my fault... I locked the door by accident... I never meant to...” Alpha David, my mate, called for every healer to restore me, but his cold words to my mother were chilling: “If Serina wasn’t so vain and selfish, I wouldn’t have had to do this. Becky was fragile, struggling with depression, yet Serina flaunted her success in front of her. This is what Serina owes her.” David’s actions were meant to pave the way for Becky to become Beta, but I was the one who suffered. He claimed to be treating me well, but destroying my health and future didn’t feel like care. I pressed my hand to my bandaged chest, the numbness spreading. Emma growled inside me, weakened by the wolfsbane. I no longer wanted the love of the mother who betrayed me or the mate who was supposed to protect me. I wanted nothing from them anymore.

During a battle with a rival pack, my Alpha mate, Damien, burst into my private healing sanctuary. He was carrying Lyra, a Beta warrior who had supposedly taken a poisoned blade for him. The next day, under the watchful eye of the Moon Goddess, Damien was forced by the pack elders to apologize. He explained that bringing an outsider into my sanctuary was a desperate act in a moment of crisis. After all, Lyra had saved his life. But that night, in the bed we once shared, Lyra stabbed herself with a dagger laced with wolfsbane and framed me for the attack. He chose to believe her. The rejection ceremony ripped my wolf from my soul. I was cast out—a powerless exile, left for dead in a storm, to be torn to shreds by rogues. But what Damien never knew was that the ancient curse afflicting him could only be healed by me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the beginning: the moment Damien carried that woman in, demanding I save her.

I was Alpha Kade's secret mate for four years. The night he marked me, in the throes of passion, he gazed into my eyes for a long, long time. "You know, Anya," he'd said, his voice husky, "what I love most about you are your beautiful eyes." To protect his claim to the Alpha title, I agreed to remain by his side, posing as a Beta warrior. That is, until I watched him publicly wrap his arm around my half-sister's waist, beaming with pride. It was only when the whispers grew louder, when everyone murmured that the beautiful she-wolf the Alpha brought home had my eyes, that the devastating truth finally hit me. It was never me he loved. I confronted Kade, demanding an explanation. His face was a mask of contempt. "An explanation?" "What did you think this was? It was a temporary mark, nothing more. I've only ever seen you as a sister." I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I simply opened a mind-link to my childhood friend. "I accept the invitation to become Head Warrior of the Silver Crest Pack." Later, when Kade discovered I had caught the eye of his greatest rival, he went absolutely insane.

On my 28th birthday, Carl Thorne asked me to meet him at the Moon Goddess statue. He specifically told me to wear a wedding dress and said he was finally going to keep his promise and mark me. But when I arrived in my wedding dress, its train trailing behind me, he turned to the crowd and laughed. "See? I don't even have to mark her. One word from me, and she'll come running. I win. The hunting grounds are mine." Then he raised an eyebrow at me. "Vera, I was only joking. The pack still sees you as their Luna, mark or no mark." When I remained silent, Carl grinned. "If you're so desperate to be marked, why not pick someone here?" The crowd burst out laughing. Everyone knew I was Carl's fated mate, that I was hopelessly in love with him and would never choose another. But when I took my new husband's hand and completed the marking ceremony, Carl went white and froze where he stood.

My alpha mate Damien had no idea that I'd been secretly in love with him for seven years. The day his first love Sofia ran away from their mating ceremony, I put on the wedding dress and took Luna's place without hesitation. Despite everyone's dissuasion, I insisted on mating to the devastated man. After mating, he was incredibly caring and thoughtful, remembering every anniversary. I thought he'd finally fallen in love with me. Until the day his first love returned, all my illusions were shattered. When the rogue wolves attacked, he left me behind without hesitation to save Sofia: "She's not as strong as you. She needs me." This time, I didn't stop him. I simply severed our mate bond and leave our Pack. But why was this Alpha, who deeply loved Sofia, frantically searching the world for me?