Chapter 1

• SASHA’S POV
• The word tore from my soul before my mind could even catch up.
• “Mate.”
• A grin, wild spread across my face. This was it. The moment I had dreamed of through the loneliest nights of my life. The moon goddess had finally answered my desperate prayers.
• Still buzzing with joy, I lifted my gaze, eager to drown in the warmth of my fated partner’s eyes.
• But the smile froze on my lips.
• His face was a mask of ice his eyes, the color of a winter storm, held no flicker of recognition or love only a cold, breathtaking disdain that sent a shiver of dread down my spine.
• “No.” His voice was flat. “You can never be my mate.” he retorted.
• I felt the words like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. A choked gasp escaped me.
• He took a step closer, but it wasn’t a step of connection. It was an invasion, his lip curled as he looked down at me, his next words dripping with venom. “I could never be with someone like you.”
• “Someone like me?” The question was a fragile whisper. I reached out a trembling hand, yearning to close the gap between us, to feel the mate bond’s promised spark.
• He recoiled as if my skin were poison.
• “Don’t you dare touch me!” he roared, his voice echoing off the walls of the crowded hall. People gasped, and a circle of onlookers began to form, their eyes filled with curiosity.
• I stumbled back, my hand dropping to my side. Hurt and confusion filled me. “Why?” I breathed, my voice cracking. “Why don’t you want me?”
• He let out a harsh laugh. “Don’t play coy, witch.” He spat the last word like a curse.
• “You have witch blood in you, and you’re an outcast in your own pack, an abomination.” His eyes blazed with contempt. “Why would I, an Alpha, tie myself to filth like you?”
• The word witch hung in the air, a brand seared onto my very existence. She had been my father’s mate, and his choice to love her had made us pariahs.
• I had grown up in the shadow of their whispers, the sidelong glances, the empty spaces left for us at pack gatherings. I had always told myself it didn’t matter. That my mate would see me.
• Now, face to face with that brutal reality, I felt the hope I’d nurtured for so long shatter like glass a lump formed in my throat.
• I opened my mouth to speak, to plead, but no sound came. My heart was a wound, bleeding out in the middle of a crowd.
• Hot tears burned behind my eyes, but a desperate thought surfaced. The bond, the sacred, unbreakable mate bond. It had to mean something It had to matter.
• “That… that doesn’t matter,” I said, forcing the words out, trying to summon a calm I was far from feeling. “I am your mate. The moon goddess chose us to be together.”
• He laughed, acold, mirthless sound that was echoed by the people around us. Their laughter was a storm of needles, pricking at my skin, twisting in my heart.
• Humiliation washed over me in a hot wave, but I refused to break, not yet. I stood my ground, my body trembling, but my chin lifted.
• I had one card left to play. “You are an Alpha,” I spoke up, injecting a confidence I didn’t feel into my voice.
• My heart hammered against my ribs. “I know how important the mate bond is to Alphas, for your strength, for your pack you need me.” I said.
• My words were met with a fresh wave of ridicule, which he silenced with a single, sharp glance. He turned his icy gaze back to me, his expression one of pity.
• “I never knew hybrid bloodlines bred such delusion,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s almost pathetic.”
• I felt the heat of shame burn my face. I dropped my gaze, unable to bear the sight of his sneer. I stared at the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow me whole.
• His voice, when it came again, was final. Absolute. “I would rather take a she-wolf from the gutter, someone who is not my mate, than tie myself to a cursed outcast like you.”
• I snapped my head up, my eyes meeting his. I could feel it the fragile glass of my heart shattering into a thousand pieces.
• Regret was a cold stone in my stomach I should never have come. I should never have hoped.
• “I, Alpha Callan,” he declared, his voice a booming echo in the silent hall, “reject you as my mate.”
• A gasp, sharp and agonizing, tore from my throat. My eyes welled over, blurring his cruel, beautiful face.
• No this couldn’t be happening the day I had anticipated my entire life was dissolving into my worst nightmare.
• I fell to my knees the cold, hard floor bit into my skin, but I didn’t care. I didn’t see the crowd. I only saw him.
• “Alpha Callan, please!” I begged, my voice raw. “Don’t do this! We belong together! Please…”
• My fall only seemed to feed his cruelty. A slow, triumphant smirk spread across his face.
• “Look at this, everyone,” he announced, gesturing to me as if I were a spectacle. “The hybrid, groveling. How… beautiful.”
• The crowd erupted. “Desperate witch!” someone yelled. “Just take the rejection!” another cackled.
• Their words were a torrent of filth, drowning me. I felt my spirit break beneath the weight of their scorn, leaving only a raw, weeping wound where my hope used to be.
• “Even if you plead until the sun burns out,” Callan snarled, stepping closer, “I will never want you. So just accept my rejection. Now.” His voice held no emotion, no flicker of the bond we were supposed to share.
• He was a stone wall, a heartless monument to my own destruction.
• I stared up at him, my tears finally flowing down my cheeks. “Alpha Callan… I’m sorry. But I… I don’t want to break this bond between us.”
• His face went from cold to furious in an instant. His eyes blazed with a sudden, terrifying rage, in two strides, he was upon me.
• His hand shot out, not to help me up, but to seize me by the throat. He hauled me to my feet I choked, my hands flying to his wrist as his iron grip tightened, cutting off my air. My vision began to spot.
• He leaned in, his face a breath away from mine, his fury a palpable heat. “Now,” he hissed, his voice a low, deadly snarl. “Accept my rejection, or I will snap your neck right here.” he threatened.
• I saw the truth in his eyes, he hated me and he would do it. A cold, final wave of terror washed over me.
• Tears streamed down my face, hot against his cold fingers. My voice was a broken whisper, barely audible even to myself.
• “I… Sasha Jack… accept your rejection.”
• The moment the words left my lips, the world fractured. A searing pain, like a red hot blade, sliced through my chest.
• I felt the mate bond that golden, sacred thread that had tied my soul to his snap with a sickening, final crack.
• He released me instantly, shoving me away as if I were contaminated. I stumbled, barely catching myself. A triumphant smile was plastered on his face as he turned his back on me.
• His eyes scanned the crowd, a predator on the hunt. They landed on a random she wolf behind me, her eyes wide with hope. A predatory grin returned to his face. “Ah. There you are.”
• “Oh my goodness!” she squealed, her face alight with joy as he took her hand. “He picked me!”
• “Here is my mate,” Callan announced, his voice ringing with authority, claiming her for all to see.
• He had chosen someone else, someone he’d just laid eyes on. The tightness in my chest became a vise, crushing my lungs. I couldn’t breathe, the spot ache where the bond had been was now a raging fire.
• How could this happen to me?
• My nostrils flared, a primal, ugly anger surged within me. I turned, my gaze locking onto the woman now beaming at his side.
• I wanted to attack her to tear her away from what was supposed to be mine.
• But I couldn’t I was no one, but just a rejected outcast a freak.
• I was utterly, completely alone.
• Tears, hot and bitter, finally spilled down my cheeks. I couldn’t hold them back anymore.
• I had prayed all night to the moon goddess, begged her for acceptance, for a love that would finally make me feel whole. And she had given me this a public execution of my heart.
• As I stared at Callan, laughing with his new chosen mate, my grief curdled into a cold, hard knot of fury in my stomach. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of despair, the weight of rejection pulling me under.
• How will I ever survive this? Will I be alone for the rest of my life?
• These questions echoed in the emptiness of my soul as I finally let the tears fall, no longer caring who saw.
• The chapter of my life I had so desperately wanted to begin had ended before it ever started.