Chapter 10

Ziron slowly turns to look at me.

Mate. I hadn’t told him that. I hadn’t wanted to believe it myself. But I can’t do damage control with him right now.

So, I step towards her.

“Let me get this straight,” I say, my voice trembling with fury. “You slaughter my pack. You burn my home. You hunt me through the woods intending to kill me.”

She doesn’t deny it. I continue.

“And now I’m supposed to what? Swoon? Fall into your arms? Because fate decided we’d be cute together?”

A muscle ticks in her jaw.

“I do not expect forgiveness.”

“Good,” I snap. “You’re not getting it.”

The wolves behind her bristle at my tone. They growl low in their throats, offering nonverbally to rip me to pieces.

Cadence lifts her hand slightly, keeping them in check.

Her voice drops even lower.

“This bond is not something either of us can ignore.”

“Watch me,” I reply, crossing my arms over my chest.

My wolf whines inside me, distressed and protesting.

She’s ours.

She killed our family! I argued with myself firmly. She’s our mate… I don’t care!

Out loud, I say, “You think because some tradition, I’m just going to forget the smell of my mother’s burning skin?”

Cadence’s face goes pale beneath the moonlight.

“I would undo this night if I could,” she says.

“But you can’t. They’re gone.” My voice breaks as it fully hits me. My home was gone.  My family is gone. And now I’m at her mercy.

There’s silence for a moment as I try not to cry. Then she speaks, her voice softer.

“I have killed many. I have done worse than burn villages. I will not lie to you.”

Her honesty feels like salt in a wound.

“But I have never…” She hesitates.

Never what? I don’t ask. She finishes anyway.

“I have never regretted a battle until now.”

My chest tightens.

“You regret it because it inconvenienced you,” I say coldly. “Because you accidentally torched your soulmate’s clan.”

Her eyes flash.

“I regret it because I felt your pain when I found you.”

I freeze.

“What?”

“The bond,” she says. “It works both ways. When I stepped into this clearing and saw you kneeling in ash,” Cadence continues, voice strained now, “I felt grief that was not mine. It nearly brought me to my knees.”

She looks away, her eyes dropping for the first time.

“I did not understand why until I looked at you.”

Ziron watches her warily. He can see I’m being swayed by her words and puts a hand on my arm.

“That doesn’t change what you did,” he says, addressing her, reminding me.

“No,” she agrees. “It does not.”

She looks back at me.

“But it changes what I will do.”

I hug my arms tightly over my chest.

“And what’s that?”

She straightens to her full, intimidating height.

“I will not harm you.”

“How generous.”

Her eyes harden slightly.

“And no one in my pack will either.”

One of the wolves behind her growls softly. She doesn’t even turn.

“Try,” she says calmly. The growl dies instantly.

Power. Absolute and terrifying.

And attractive, my wolf adds, most unhelpfully.

She looks at Ziron then. He’s standing beside me, still processing the fact that this scary Alpha is my fated.

“He is under your protection?”

I hesitate, but only for a second.

“Yes.”

“Then he is under mine.”

Ziron looks like he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or something else entirely.

“Why?” I demand. “Why not just reject the bond? Kill me anyway. You were ready to.”

Something flashes in her eyes. Something almost wounded.

“I have waited my entire life for my mate,” she says quietly. “As a female Alpha, many believed I would never have one. That the Moon Goddess would not ‘bless’ someone like me.”

Her lip curls faintly at the word bless.

“I accepted that. I built my power without it.”

Her gaze softens again.

“But I will not throw away the one thing fate has given me.”

“You already did,” I whisper.

That one hits.

She steps closer again, slowly, cautiously, like approaching a wounded animal.

“I cannot undo the past,” she says. “But I can offer you a future.”

“With you? In the pack that murdered my family?” I demand.

“Yes.”

I grind my teeth. The audacity. The certainty. It makes my blood boil.

“You are insane.”

“Possibly.” I hate that she admits it so quickly.

Her eyes search mine for answers, for hope but I harden my face. Her eyes harden too and she decides to play a card I didn’t know she had.

“But you are wolfless.”

The word hurts. I stiffen visibly, so does Ziron.  

“You don’t know that,” I call her bluff.

“I do.”

My breath catches.

She steps even closer now. Close enough that I can feel the heat of her skin.

“When we bonded,” she murmurs, “I felt it.”

Felt what?

I don’t have to say it out loud. It’s like she can hear it.

“The missing half of you.”

My throat tightens.

Ziron sucks in a sharp breath beside me.

Cadence lifts her hand slowly, giving me every chance to pull away.

I don’t.

Her fingers hover just over my chest.

“You are not broken,” she says softly. “You are divided.”

My wolf surges forward so violently, my heart leaps, and I gasp. Cadence’s eyes flare silver. She’s feeling drawn to me too. We’re magnetic.

“If you accept the bond,” she whispers, “your wolf will awaken fully.”

What? That wasn’t true. Was it? Could our bond do that? Would my wolf finally be released, letting me shift, if I accepted her as my mate?

Ziron stares at me. He doesn’t believe Cadence. That is clear. I shouldn’t believe her either. But…

“She’s lying,” he says quickly. “She has to be.”

Cadence’s gaze never wavers.

“I would not lie about this. Not to you.”

My heart pounds. It’s rushing in my ears.

All my life. All the shame. All the whispers.

Wolfless. Useless. Broken.

I could fix it. I could fix me.

“You’re saying…” My voice shakes. “If I bind myself to you… I get my wolf?”

“I am saying,” she corrects gently, “that you were never meant to awaken alone.”

The forest is silent again.

My parents are dead because of her.

My pack is ash.

But she’s offering me the one thing I’ve wanted since I was a child.

My wolf presses against me, desperate.

She’s ours.

I look up at Cadence. I have tears in my eyes, I don’t bother to hide them.

“You don’t get to burn my world down and then be my miracle,” I say, my voice cracking.

The guarded expression she was wearing finally breaks. I see loneliness, almost desperation in her eyes.

“I know,” she says, her voice as broken as mine.

And for the first time, the terrifying Alpha of Moonblood looks… afraid.

Not of war.

Not of death.

Of me. Walking away.