Chapter 16: Mate?

Chapter 16

Isabella pov

My father’s roar echoed behind me—a sound of pure, unbridled fury that shook the very leaves on the trees.

He had reached the clearing. He had seen Aleric’s mangled wrist and my retreating shadow.

To him, I wasn’t his daughter anymore. I was a rabid animal that needed to be put down. “Hunt her!” Alpha Silas’s voice joined the roar.

“Do not let her reach the past the pack land!” The woods became a nightmare of snapping jaws from the pack warriors.

I could hear the Tracker’s heavy breathing; he was gainin on me, his experience allowing him to predict my path.

But my body was doing things I couldn’t explain. I was faster than before, although not to the level of an alpha wolves but at least past the average.

And I could feel the air pressure change when a wolf lunged from the shadows, allowing me to duck and weave with a grace.

The North, Isabella, The voice was a low vibration in my skull, Don’t go east! The river is the line. Cross it, and their laws end but yours begin.

I ignored the words, pushing my legs until they blurred. The smell of the forest changed. The air grew so cold it hurt to breathe, but my blood felt like liquid fire.

I burst through the final line of trees and skidded to a halt. Before me was a massive, churning river of black water, the current so violent it looked like a living thing.

On the other side, the trees were white as bone, draped in silver mist. “Isabella! Stop!” My father’s voice was right behind me.

I spun around. He had shifted, back to his human form. Three massive were around him. One a charcoal-gray wolf with scars across his muzzle, Alpha Silas.

Followed by non other than that Tracker and Arleic? They formed a semi-circle around me, pinning me against the riverbank.

My father’s face was a mask of disgust. He stood there, naked and powerful, his eyes fixed on the mark on my neck—now fully exposed and pulsing with a dark light.

“So it’s was you?” he spat. “You were the one with that disgusting smell. What happened to your neck? who marked you?”

I stood on the edge of the jagged rocks, the spray from the black river soaking through my hoodie, making the fabric cling to my skin like a shroud.

The water behind me sounded like a thousand voices screaming, but the silence from the men in front of me was much louder.

“Answer me!” my father barked, taking a step forward. His knuckles were white, his wolf prowling just beneath his skin.

“Who did this to you? Which rogue? Which leech?”

“Does it matter?” I asked, my voice surprisingly steady. I looked at Aleric. Both him and his dad had turned back to their human form only that tracker was still in his wolf.

Alriec was pale but his broken arm is now healed, perks of being an alpha-blooded wolf.

“You already decided I was worthless. Why do you care who claimed the scraps you threw away?”

“You are Blackthorne blood!” Alpha Silas stepped forward, his charcoal-gray wolf eyes flashing.

“Even if you are wolfless, you do not bring the stench of the Undead into our borders. Do you even know what it was? You have brought a curse upon us, Isabella.”

“It’s not a curse,” I whispered, the mark on my neck pulsing with a sudden, protective heat. “It’s the first time I’ve ever felt strong.”

The Tracker let out a low, guttural growl. My father’s face twisted. He looked at me not as his child, but as a parasite that needed to be excised.

“If you won’t tell us who he is, it doesn’t matter. We’ll end it here. We’ll burn the mark off your corpse and toss you into the river to wash away the shame.”

“No!” Aleric shouted, stepping forward despite his injury. “Father, Beta, wait! I’m sure she didn’t mean it, she might not even know what that means on her. Her birthday is in a month of course she couldn’t had found her mate!”

Mate? I almost wanted to laugh. Is he serious? I might be the pack’s “human stray,” but I wasn’t stupid.

Mates were a gift from the Moon Goddess—a bond of souls, of warmth, of light. The thing in the woods was none of those things.

It was a cold predator who had almost killed me. I didn’t even know his name, and Aleric was talking about destiny?

No. This wasn’t a bond. This was a brand! “Silence, Aleric!” Alpha Silas commanded.

“Look at her! She stands there without her crutches, her eyes glowing with the blood of a monster, and you want to protect her? She is a traitor.”

My father shifted, his bones cracking and resetting as he began to take his wolf form. He wasn’t going to talk anymore. He was going to kill.

What would you do in a situation like this? I looked at my father as his body began the violent shift into his wolf.

He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t ask if I had been attacked or forced.

He doesn’t care, I thought, a cold realization settling in my gut that was even sharper than the wind.

He doesn’t want to know the story because the story might make me a victim. If I’m a victim, he wouldn’t even care too But if I’m a monster, he just gets to destroy me and be done with the “embarrassment” of a wolfless daughter.

To him, I wasn’t his family. I was a stain on a white rug that he was finally allowed to bleach away

A loud howl came out from alpha Silas, his eyes flashing gold.

Jump, the voice in my head commanded. It wasn’t a suggestion this time. It was a roar of authority that made my knees tremble. Now, Isabella!

I looked across the churning black water. Through the mist on the far bank, I saw him.

That monster.

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