I could barely recognise the man that reflected back at me in the mirror. His skin was paler, hair a knotted mess and his cool grey eyes were lifeless.

The sight of this man made me sick. I repulsed myself. I had intentionally ruined something so pure, I had ruined us.

I could see she hated me in her eyes but it didn't matter because her hate was no worse than what I felt for myself.

I was scum, the lowest of the low! I had ruined us all because I couldn't get over one tiny inconsequential thing. Age.

She was too young. It had been a valid reason until it had become my justification. At first I hadn't pursued her because of that age difference, she had been a little girl when I met her. So innocent and pure, I hadn't wanted to taint that. I had wanted to let her grow but somewhere along the way that want for her to flourish had been placed in the back burner. It had disintegrated like the dying leaves come autumn. The moment I had begun putting females before her we never stood a chance.

My ego had expanded and with that I had lost sight. I had lost my vision and her self harm had brought me back into focus. For a short while it had just been me and her. I hadn't needed anyone else. Then I remembered her age. Gods why did I meet her so young. The image of the doe eyed Vanya who sat by her tree was the image I always saw when I looked at her. The image of youthful innocence.

I felt perverted every time I looked at her and so I perverted the bond. All the while something inside of me became damaged, became twisted. I was sick. My being was wrong.

If I looked into the dark abyss that was my soul, all I would see was black. Because only someone so evil, so cruel to the core could taint something so beautiful. Only someone so evil could crush a butterfly.

That was what I had been doing, I had been crushing her and the moment that reality set in I knew I had to let her go. So I spewed half felt truths and let her absorb my lies. Pushing her away had been the best thing that could have happened to her because now she smiled.

Even when there had been no females between us she had never smiled like that for me. She was better without me. She deserved to be with a male who could make her smile not bring forward endless tears.

I was a parasite.

I sucked her dry and swarmed her life in nothing but darkness. I was the moth so drawn to darkness whereas she was the butterfly.

Even when darkness surrounded her, beckoned her with a crooked finger and a deceitful smile, Vanya pushed it away. She accepted the light! A girl whose life had only known hardship, found the light.

How could I compare to that? How could I deserve someone like her when all I had ever suffered in my youth was cool disdain and heated words. How could my neglect compare to her loss? It didn't, yet look at the female she became compared to me.

A male that was nothing more than a dank cesspool.

Liquid trickled down my face but I refused to wipe them. I would wallow in my pain because it was self inflicted. I had done this to us when all she had wanted was love.

Love.

LOVE.

My fists rained down on every surface in my spacious bathroom at that word. All she had wanted was my love. For me to see her worth and I couldn't even do that. Flesh tore and deep crimson red gushed from my skin but I couldn't stop. I wrecked that bathroom. Smashing through glass, porcelain and my own flesh.

I bled red all over my pristine white counters. The pain soothed the constant ache that was at the centre of my being. The blood eased me.

"What the fuck have you done Carson? You are bleeding!"

I hadn't heard that voice in ages and even before then he hadn't really been about. It would be now that my beloved brother would make a reappearance.

"It's nothing" I waved him away, blood flickering in his direction at the move.

"Nothing? Look what you have done to yourself! Look!" He gripped my face and made me look.

I saw rivers of red, pools of crimson all along my skin. He was aghast, face twisted in disgust which was ironic because that was how we normally looked at him amongst the family.

He was the rogue child of the litter, always a wonder causing havoc amongst us. Never settling and never at ease.

"What is wrong with you" he spat, face molten with anger.

"I'm fine." I reassured him, my eyes rolling at his whining.

"Fine?" He screeched, arms waving as he motioned to the room around us. I had done a number on this room. The porcelain did not glow any longer.

"Who even are you?" His voice rising higher and higher as he tried to step to me.

I wasn't the weak little male I had been. I was more than the little boy he knew me to be, I wouldn't be walked all over by him anymore.

"The little brother I knew was never this volatile!"

My head shot up at his words, eyes wide as I looked at the deranged male in front of me. What did he know? What did Ryan ever know except for what he wanted to believe.

"Stop pretending like you actually ever knew me, Ryan!" I pushed away from the sink, stepping into his space.

His eyes widened at the size of me. I was bigger than him now. My shoulders were wide and my chest even bigger. I wasn't the weak little brother he used to overlook. I was a man now.

"You were never around, always plotting, plotting in your corner." I spat, pushing him away from me.

"You fucked up this family with your hatred and you left me alone!" I growled as I pushed him again.

He couldn't come here and judge me when he was the worst of all my father's children!

"Don't put that on me!" He thundered, pushing me back into the sink.

"No? Dad stopped giving a fuck because his oldest son became a psychotic cunt. And Khan became an egotistical asshole because his older brother wasn't there to keep him in check."

"And you?" tears lined his eyes. No man liked to hear the pain they had caused their family.

"Me? I was nobody. I wasn't worth shit to this family until I made myself a name."

He was the root to it all. Our father stopped caring the moment his oldest son made his intentions clear. By the time I was born the rivalry was too deeply formed and I was given no time.

My mother tried to overcompensate for what my father wouldn't give to me but it was worsened by the fact I was some weak little blip. I had been an embarrassment to the family name. I had to make something of myself and in the process I had ruined it all.

"This name got me my family but it has lost me my fucking mate!" My fist punched against the wall, my hands cut up more than the brick but I didn't care.

"I made a choice a long time ago and everyday I live with that."

My words were sombre, this was my reality.

If I believed the words of every book I had ever read, then I would believe that every man wrote his story and though it was not carved in stone, it was our choices that decided its outcome. I had made my choice and I was going to live through it even if it killed me.

"It is never too late to change," he tried to placate me but he didn't understand how far I had already gone.

"Don't feed me that fairy tale bullshit. I'm happy this way." My hand ran through my hair, blood mingling with my curly unruly strands.

"She's happy now."

And she was, she smiled. Gods she smiled. I couldn't be the male to take that away from her. I couldn't do it.

"Who that little female, Anya or something. Her?" He sneered.

"You think she's really happy. That's a facade."

I didn't want to hear his words; my mind was already made up. It had been made up for the past few years. She was better off without me. It was too late.

"She's surrounding herself in happiness hoping that one day her being will be full."

His hazel eyes were so earnest, dark skin flushed with frustration. My brother actually cared.

"She will never be truly happy because the what ifs will always fill her mind."

"Put her mind to rest!" He spoke the truth but he didn't understand how far I had already taken this. There was no turning back.

"And say what? I love you! Please forgive me for trying to set you free from my poison."

I had tainted what we had, there would be no way we could be together without her remembering that. And me? I couldn't get over her age. Society didn't want us together and I agreed, she was too young.

No woman should be tied down that young just because of some bond. I wanted to tie her to me but I couldn't. I still had too many things I needed to fix to deserve her and by that time I would probably never be worthy of her.

If I couldn't deserve her now, then I never would. And if her age was a problem now then it always would be.

The issues piled up in my mind but that bond had me writhing in pain, it coiled and cried for her. I couldn't tie her to me though. Not this version I had become, it was so distorted that I couldn't recognise me. Where did I go wrong?

"Who am I to ask that from her when she is finally finding herself!"

Who was I to demand so much from her when I had only caused her pain.

"At what expense Carson?" His fists rained down on my sink, shattering porcelain as his blood mingled with mine.

"She's finding herself while you loose yourself?" He was livid.

"And who gave you the right to decide for her. She's a grown woman."

"Just about," I spat... 17 was nothing compared to my age. I was 70 for crying out loud. I was old enough to be her grandfather or her great grandfather if we were young breeders.

"Is that what it is? She's too young for you." His voice incredulous as he stared at me in shock.

"Or is it that society says you aren't old enough to be mated even though they pressure us to find a mate?" He was getting louder, his anger climbing as he paced inside the bathroom.

Feet leaving bloody prints as he marched up and down before abruptly stopping to face me.

"What? What is it?" When I gave no reply he continued pestering.

"What reason could you possibly have?"

There was no valid reason to justify what I had done to my mate but I would try explain it to my brother.

"It's none of it and all of it. I just-"

My hands fell to my neck as I gripped it tightly, trying to find the courage to speak what had never been spoken.

"For a long time I didn't see her as anything but this little cute girl but she wanted more. I couldn't do that because she was a baby."

My hand moved to my face as I rubbed at my stubble. She had been so pure but there had been this darkness that surrounded her.

"And I could see that she wasn't- she wasn't right inside."

"She was hurting but her obsession with our possible future was hurting her more." I began pacing, my feet taking up the place that my brother had been walking in.

"So I tried to stay away but it was hard and I was depressed."

"I drank to get numb and I was around a lot of females, a lot. I didn't sleep with them but they filled my ego and other things."

I had become an egotistical asshole. I had been worse than Khan.

"And then she turned 15." My eyes shuttered closed at the sight of Vanya when she was 15. A deep sigh leaving my mouth as I envisioned her.

"Gods that was a hard year because she was so grown but she wasn't"

She had grown over night. Body swelling like the woman she had promised to be for over year. Her body was finally catching up and my mind only became a darker place to be. The things I had wanted to do to her.

"And then she hurt herself to please me and I just knew-" my voice cracked at the sight of my female, burnt and crying in her sleep. She called for me even though my perception of beauty had killed her self-esteem.

"I was fucking ruining her." I polluted her mind.

"There's a reason they don't encourage us to be around young mates, it's because it fucks with the psyche." It ruined the soul.

"So I stepped back and before I knew it I was fucking those females now. They were giving me a lot more than just their attention and I was addicted. It was this new high."

Gods I had been drifting in clouds and clouds of pussy. All kinds and sometimes more than one at a time. It hadn't eased the pain but it had taken me to a place where I could forget. I could forget for as long as my orgasm lasted and then I was back to square one. Lusting after a young girl like a pervert, distorting her mind with my obsession.

"It just, it all became so fucked up. She hated me and loved me and I didn't want her to settle for that."

"But by then I had become the last born son of Nathaniel Manasseh! I had finally lived up to the title."

That fucking title that hanged over our heads like a curse. We were descendants of an important man and we had to be the best. I had to be the best. I had to be strong.

"I finally fitted in." And with it only came more grief.

My sob story was over. Now it was Ryan's turn to speak and he had a lot to say.

"That's not you Carson! You never cared for that shit. You were always the spiritual child, the intelligent one." The tide of his words washing over me.

"How could you allow yourself to become this!"

He looked so disappointed in me, oh how the roles had reversed.

"Why not, I finally have worth now," I had finally become a man that was accepted by society. I was more than just the weak son. I was more, but I was so much less.

"Are you stupid?" He growled.

"Do you think Khan actually got his worth from becoming a Regional Alpha?" He was back to pacing now, though every few seconds he sent me a glare over his shoulder.

"No, his worth came the moment he got his mate to trust him. To finally love him!"

His words hit the intended mark but he continued talking, ignorant to the wounds he left behind.

"Our mates give us our worth and you are ruining that."

My heart hurt, his words had been the truest I had heard in a long while.

"Do you know how long I have wanted to find my mate, so I could be worthy to someone."

His voice cracked as his eyes darkened. Taking him back to the destructive male he had been for most of his life. It was a heavy burden to carry.

"You don't give that up Carson. Not for anyone, not for anything! Do you hear me."

His fist thumped on my chest, forcing his words into my heart but it was too late.

"It's too late!" I was sobbing now because my brother's words had come too late.

I wanted to go after my female but I had ruined it. My hands were tied and I had done the unthinkable. I was hysterical, inconsolable because I knew once I told him he would know that there was no going back.

"It's too late."