Chapter 1

Mara

I climb the steps to my father’s mansion with heavy legs. 

Haley, my best and probably only friend, dropped me off at the gate because Lucas, my mate, won’t allow me to drive.

The guard refused to let Haley in, and I was forced to walk up the kilometre long driveway, while my bruised and battered body screamed out in agony.

I haven’t been home in two years. Today is my twenty-first birthday, and my father wanted to see me for the first time since I married Lucas Mattfield - the future Alpha of Red Ridge.

I am in a sad state. I’m only allowed to eat once a day - Lucas wants a hot wife - and last night I took a particularly brutal beating. It was one of the worst he’d ever given me, and he laughed the whole time. 

I think it’s one of the reasons my father refuses to see me. I’m always covered in fresh and healing bruises now, and he can’t stand to look at the thing he had done to me.

On the night of our wedding, Lucas took me into the bond room - the place where newly wed couples have sex to seal their bond - and proceeded to beat me black and blue. When he was done, he threw me on the bed and violently took my virginity.

He dragged me out of the bond room and presented me to my father, as is the custom, with blood streaming down my legs and my face beaten to a pulp. “Thank you for my mate, Douglas,” he said. “I’ll be sure to enjoy her.”

Lucas wanted to send both our fathers a message. He was pissed. He didn’t want to marry me, and I didn’t want to marry him. Our fathers set the whole thing up. It still amazes me that Lucas could not see that I was as trapped and unhappy as he was.

My father looked at me, then at Lucas, said, “May she give you many, healthy sons,” and left. 

In the years since, it has only gotten worse and worse. Every day that Lucas is with me, is another reminder to him that an Omega owns his pack, and he can’t stand it. 

Sometimes, the only break I get from the constant beatings and stream of verbal assaults is when Lucas is forced to attend a meeting at BioGen - my father’s biomedical engineering company.

Douglas Smith, once an unassuming pack wolf, Omega, genius, and my father, started that company from scratch and single-handedly saved Red Ridge from financial ruin. Everyone, from the humans in the bordering town, to the wolves in our pack works for my father.

The current Alpha and future Alphas for generations to come, will always be indebted to my family.

And they hate it. Being forced to marry an Omega’s daughter so the pack won’t lose their cash cow, was an insult to Lucas’s pride.

With a sigh, I press the doorbell and wait for Ira, the butler, to open the door. I am just a guest now, and I have to announce myself like everyone else.

The door flies open and Lucas looms over me, his amber eyes flashing in the gloom of the foyer. “What took you so long?”

My heart almost stops beating and a knot forms in the pit of my stomach. Why is he here? “Sorry,” I mumble and keep my eyes on the marble floor. 

My mate’s fist disappears into my stomach. All the air whooshes from my lungs, and I fold in half, unable to breathe. “Well…come in,” he says as if nothing has happened.

I grab the doorframe and force myself to stand up straight as I gasp for air and try to keep my tears at bay. 

Lucas hates it when I cry.

My head spins as I step into the familiar house. I grew up here, but I can never come back. My father made that much clear on my wedding night when he turned his back on me and left me with Lucas.

I quietly follow him through the mansion, trying not to make a sound as every step sends shockwaves of pure agony rattling through my body.

I’m not healing anymore. Aria, my wolf, has gone silent and Lucas forbids me to shift. Even on the full moon, when the shift is inevitable, he makes sure I can’t shift by forcing some kind of potion down my throat that puts Aria to sleep.

I haven’t felt her for months now. She’s so weak, and as a result so am I.

We walk into my father’s impressive parlour. Alpha Kyson, my father, Haley, Donovan, her mate, and a man I don’t know, all look up at the same time.

I focus my gaze on Haley. Not twenty minutes ago, I watched her drive away. Why is she here?

Everyone has a glass of champagne in their hands and looks ecstatic. All of them except for Donovan. I manage to catch his eye and he woefully  shakes his head at me. He holds up his left hand to show me that his wedding ring is gone.

This can’t be good. But things rarely are these days.

“Fantastic news, Mara!” Alpha Kyson exclaims. “Your bond with Lucas will be dissolved.”

My heart does a little flip-flop of excitement, but when I look at my father my joy evaporates.

“You have been married for two years, and haven’t produced an heir,” Kyson says. “That entitles Lucas to abjure you and take a new mate.”

I let out a fluttery little breath. I’ve been buying an illegal and very dangerous birth control potion on the black market. I told Haley about it, but no one else knows. 

“Why have you not produced an heir, Mara?” my father asks, his loud voice booming around the parlour.

“I- I don’t know,” I lie.

“I’m very disappointed in you,” he declares. 

“Haley is pregnant with my child,” Lucas says without a hint of embarrassment. “She has agreed to marry me.”

This time, I think I black out for a few seconds. A low buzz starts to echo in my ears. Haley? 

I glance at Donovan who looks like he’d rather be eaten alive by alligators than be here right now.

My head begins to spin and I can’t seem to pull any air into my lungs. I blindly start to feel around for a chair but can’t find one.

“All is not lost,” my father announces. “Alpha Johnathan Banks of Haven’s Crest will take you as his mate.”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire I go. “What?” I ask.

The unknown man steps forward as if summoned. “Hi, Mara,” he says in a warm, friendly voice. “I’m Beta Preston. Alpha Johnathan sent me to pay your bride price, and bring you to your new home.”

I’m so confused. He already sold me to someone else? I look from the Beta to my father. “Why are you doing this?”

“What did you think would happen?” my father asks. “You have a responsibility to produce an heir. You failed.”

The law. If a she-wolf can’t give her mate an heir, he can abjure her and demand compensation for his loss from her father.

I bargained on this. It was my only way out of that hell of a marriage, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon.

Or that my father would sell me to another Alpha.

Knowing that my father cares so little about me almost crushes the last bit of life out of me, but I refuse to die. I’ll go on living simply to spite these assholes.

Haley’s betrayal cuts far deeper. So deep that I can’t bear to look at the wound. With tears in my eyes, I stare up at Preston. I’ve never heard of this Alpha Johnathan or Haven’s Crest. “He doesn’t want me. I can’t have children,” I say in a low whisper.

It might be my only way out. The way I feel now, I’d rather go rogue than marry yet another wolf who’ll use me as his personal punching bag.

“It doesn’t matter,” Preston answers. “He doesn’t want you for your childbearing abilities.”

“Why does he want me? I’m just an Omega.”

“What are you doing, Mara?” my father hisses through gritted teeth. “The deal is done.”

“There’s no need for that, Mister Smith,” The Beta says and gives me the warmest, most genuine smile I’ve seen in a long time. “Alpha Banks wants you for the same reason any Alpha wants a mate. Our pack is in need of a Luna.”

“I…” I catch a glimpse of my father’s disapproving eyes and shut my mouth.

“I disown you as my daughter,” my father says in a chillingly cold voice. “You are removed from my care.”

As he did on my wedding night, my father turns his back on me and walks over to the bay windows overlooking the gardens.

“Mara Smith,” Alpha Kyson says. “You are banished. Red Ridge is your pack no longer. You are not welcome here. You may not shift with us or hunt with us.”

Before I can even recover, Lucas takes his turn. “I Lucas Mattfield, future Alpha of Red Ridge, abjure you Mara Smith, daughter of Douglas Smith. My protection and love is yours no more. I will call you mine no longer.”

“I accept,” I croak.

It is a lot to deal with all at once. I’m not Lucas’s fated mate, but I can still feel the agony of the breaking bond. It’s as if someone’s carving my heart apart with a rusty blade.

I start to sway as darkness creeps up on me. 

The last face I see is Haley's, then the world simply blinks out of existence.