Vyra

I take a chance at begging.

The Alpha was not his father, and he seemed more level-headed than others in Clan Umbra. I hold myself as I take a step towards him. The Alpha takes a deep breath, his nose wrinkling at my closeness.

I do not apologize, "I know that this fight will not happen. Battling me will bring you great shame, even greater than our placement as mates already has. Just let me go. In however long, Lunae will choose you as the rightful Alpha. I will be able to live in peace until she sacrifices me, and you will not have to worry about anyone taking your place. I will never come back."

"No." The Alpha laughed in my face. A true laugh, one as rich as wine and chilling as the winter outside. It was beautiful and terrifying, and it was going to make me lose my mind.

Crazy bastard.

I was wrong. He did not want to kill me, not quite yet.

I want to fall to my knees. Instead, I hold my palms open to him in surrender, my eyes wide and frantic as I beg him for mercy. "Kill me now. I see now that my life should have ended when I was a child, and all I have been doing is living on borrowed time. I cannot fight you. It will be a bloodbath. I will be ripped apart."

The man takes in a deep breath, shaking his head as if he had no power. His blackberry locks glint under the candlelight, "I can't do that."

Yes, he can. He is the Alpha. Anything he says goes. He is the only person that can make exceptions and bend the rules.

"Why? Please, Alpha-" I stop myself, using his given name instead. "Seren, it does not have to be this way. I promise I have never thought of retaliation. I just wanted to be left alone, in peace. Simple and content. Please don't do this."

The man shivered despite the heat of the flame, revolted by his name on my tongue. I ignored how strange it was to say his name out loud. The tension heightens between us, a wall built slowly up from the ground. Seren addressed me, frustration creeping into his tone, "Your father was once the pack Alpha. You have been blessed by the moon, by our Goddess Lunae. You can shift. It does not matter if you reject it, you have no choice. There cannot be two blessed by the moon, not for long."

My entire life I could not shift, not until now. The opponents chosen by the moon fight in their wolf form, using the techniques they learned before they could walk. I was at a complete disadvantage, and the fight would be used to violate me and the memory of my Clan.

"Fighting a pitiful creature like me is beneath you. You could not possibly want this." I laughed nervously while on the verge of tears, twisting my hands that were slick with sweat. The fur began to slip off my shoulders, exposing some of my skin and the tattered material of my plain ceremonial dress.

The Alpha lifted his head, his lips pressed into a line as he denied me, "You have no idea what I want."

"What if it was you?" My words spill out, desperate and against my better judgment. I can't stop them, not as I am within an inch of losing my sanity.

The man takes a step forward, too close. He is menacing as he prowls, starting to circle me. I hold my breath, the intoxicating scent of him making my thoughts tangle together. "Say that again?" He asked carefully, giving me a chance to reconsider my words.

I must have gone crazy because I told the Alpha, my blood-born enemy, everything I was thinking. A death sentence, as I am well below his title. As the last of Clan Lunae, a frown could be warped into an act of heresy.

"I have been a thorn in your side since my birth. An omen of disaster for your crown as Alpha." My eyes meet his own, and for once I am not afraid. My body shakes and my heart threatens to pound out of my chest, but I will speak my mind, if not for the last time. "I am a living reminder of who came before Clan Umbra won leadership over the entire pack. Every single Clan leader advised me to be executed, and your father went against them."

I do not lift my head, even when he freezes in front of me. No longer circling me like a vulture.

"You wanted me out of the way, to fix your father's mistake and eliminate any possible threats to your dynasty. You just needed an excuse to get rid of me entirely. So, you forced the Priestess to use witchcraft, to fake the mating ritual. That already would have been possible grounds for my exile, as beings from two different Clans can't be fated together. I am not sure how you got me to receive the blessing of Lunae and change," I correct myself, "Shift. But I am sure you could explain it to me?"

Stark silence forces me to look up after several moments. I expect his claws to be unfurled, and I angle my neck willingly. But the Alpha keeps his hands anchored underneath his biceps. I try not to cower as he scowls at me, having all the authority to be offended by my theories.

His usual velvet tone scrapes my ears with the venom he spits at me, "One, I would not pretend to have you as my Fated Mate. Not even for a moment. Two, considering you being able to shift is a huge fucking problem, I would never in my right mind try to bring it out of you." His expression changed as he saw me wilt under his tone.

The man laughed darkly, the deep lilting sound making my face heat further, "You went from being unable to speak without using my title, to hurling insane accusations at me and committing treason?"

"Fuck." I grabbed at the end of my snow-colored hair. "I am sorry." The words tumble out of me with a strangled gasp, my underserved politeness by default. I am not sorry at all for him, I am sorry for myself. "This is really happening, isn't it?" I ask out loud, wondering if the gods will answer me. "Why? Why did this have to happen?"

I was not happy with my life before, but happiness is fleeting. Survival is all I was good for, and now that was being stolen from me. I stare at my hands, coated in the blood of my family's misdeeds, without the inability to wash them clean.

Seren looked unimpressed, his jaw twitching at my outburst, "This is so pitiful to watch, I have no choice but to believe you are innocent. Somehow, it is more disappointing than if you were a wolf in sheep's clothing this entire time." He tsked, clicking his tongue with sarcastic disapproval.

The man eyed me carefully before he uttered his proposal, "I will train you, from now until the Oak Moon next Winter. If I make a blood sacrifice to the moon goddess, she will keep us both alive in our condition until then. Then, and only then, we will fight as warriors until one of us claims the position of Alpha. Now can you stop crying?"

I wiped at my face, surprised to find it glistening. I hadn't even noticed I was crying at all. Taking a deep shuddering breath, I realize the finality in the man's tone. There was no choice, he made his decision.

"Why would you do that for me?" My voice rings with suspicion. I deserved nothing from him.

Why would he give me the skills needed to defeat him? Even with our vastly different abilities, why would the man even risk it? When he could kill me now and no one would bat an eye.

My body was angled to the door, and it was visible to the Alpha that all I wanted to do was escape. His expression hardened, amusement glittering in his eyes.

"I have something called honor, which your family so fatally lacked. I value fairness above all else and even with my help, you will still lose. With this arrangement, you will die from me killing you, instead of from embarrassment."

I say nothing, but my body begins to tremble. I see his frame poised, ready to pounce if I even try to run.

"You either accept my terms and put up a good fight. Or you are slaughtered a year from now, like the outcast you are." He slices bluntly through the air, stabbing the final silver stake through my heart.

Die an outcast or die an heir that never was. I never knew my family, but I hope their guidance lives within my veins. I trust the tug on my gut, the pulling of many threads, and I answer the Alpha hesitantly.

"I accept your offer."

"Whose offer?" he taunts me, waiting for me to bind myself to my word.

I grind my teeth together and answer as meekly as I would the Mistress. "Yours, Seren."

The Alpha smirked, and I felt regret slowly seeping into my bones. "Already you are smarter than your Clan. That survival instinct will be useful. You can head back to the settlements to get rest; our arrangement starts tomorrow."

I do not protest despite the dread already forming within me. I acted daringly enough tonight, and it was proven useless against the iron will of the Alpha. I never stood a chance.

I turn my back to the Alpha, feeling the heat of his gaze between my shoulder blades. My calves pump harder, needing to get as far from the man, as far as this feeling as possible. So I could think and process what the hell just happened.

I felt my soul clawing its way out of my skin, and all I wanted to do was sob in my hay-lined bed until the sun arose.

"Ah, one more thing before you leave." His silky voice stops me in my tracks.

I turn, clenching my jaw. The man was leaning against the stone fireplace, appearing composed.

I remained silent, vulnerable as the flame flickered across his eyes and turned them into melted metal. He opened his mouth, his tongue gliding across his lower lip as he kept me pinned with his stare, "If we finish the mating ritual, we will be officially bound, and our life forces will be entwined. That means if one of us dies, the other will as well."

"How do we finish the ritual?" I ask out of curiosity, remembering the Lycans who fell within the Pack while their mate was killed during battle.

Seren's eyes narrowed like he was trying to figure out if I was playing dumb to throw him off. When he saw that I genuinely had no idea what he was referring to, he let out an arrogant bark of laughter, "Truly, you know nothing. Consummating our relationship Vyra. Do you at least know what that means? If we sleep together-"

"Please stop." My cheeks flared a deep red at the suggestion of what could happen if the situation was different. My mind had not gone that far. I thought I would already be dead by now, and it was obvious we would have not under any circumstance completed the ritual, even without the impending battle between us. "There will be no issue there then. For either of us."

"Right," he agrees quickly, his expression unreadable. The Alpha remains unmoving, only his eyes daring to venture over my unimpressive form once more, "I just thought I should warn you before-" I see one last flash of his canines before his unmarred face turns back to stone. "Be on your way now, Vyra Lunae."

I flee the cabin, running swiftly down the steps. Away from him, away from how he caresses my true name on his tongue, a name that I had to bury along with my family. I run through the woods, towards the familiar twinkle of firelight from the Pack settlements.

My lungs burn with the chill of winter, my heart pounding within my chest. I run, hard and practically blind through my tears. I do not care when the branches claw at my face. I do not care when I fall harshly onto the frozen ground.

I lay for a while, cocooned by the snow. It soothes the inferno within me, waging war with my desolate soul. I mourn the woman that I was hours before, outcast and all.

I lift my hands to the sky, letting the light of the moon filter through my splayed, human fingers. I attempt to shift them, and to my detriment, I cannot.

I call to the moon, to the matron goddess of my Clan.

What have you done to me?