Chapter 2

Tears sprung in my eyes when she held my neck and squeezed. 

I gagged, feeling my windpipe starting to give way due to lack of air.  Eyes rolling back on my head in agony, I cried to the moon goddess to save me from the monster that I used to call my mother while Luna Bella continued to squeeze my neck, choking me to near death. 

“Die, bitch! Die!”  Luna Bella hissed, her eyes turning feral while her skin started to grow hairs. 

It’s the full moon.  Werewolves' natural transformation happens during a full moon.  

At this realization, I was reminded of my mate, Boris.

“Don’t dare die.” Maya, my wolf warned me.  “Boris is waiting for us to perform the sacred mating ritual.” She added. 

“But I have no strength left,” I told Maya,  arms flailing to the sides. 

With a sinking feeling, I realized that Luna Bella wouldn’t feel compensated for her sufferings unless she kills me tonight. 

It was only now that I was made fully aware of how deep her anger runs toward me - the offspring of her cheating sister and mate.  I could feel the bitterness of their betrayal eating up her soul year after year as she watched me grow while her daughter languished due to ill health. 

Slowly I began to understand the cruelty, the vicious words, and the physical abuse I suffered for eighteen years. Luna Bella was hurting!  

“What a terrible thing to endure - your mate and your sister.  One was connected to you through the bond and the other by blood.  How hard it must have been for Luna Bella to keep the contempt, the loathing she felt inside her?  No wonder, she hated us so much.”  Maya was crying in my head.  I wanted to push her off, but I couldn’t,  feeling my human body becoming weaker by the second. 

“Maya?” Panic arrested me when I failed to hear Maya’s voice in my head. I couldn’t feel her even when I called hard.  

I closed my eyes, accepted our fate, and prayed to the moon goddess to guide our souls in the afterlife when suddenly, the choking grip on my neck slackened. 

“Who is it?”  Luna Bella turned her head to the side to glance at the stairs, checking if anyone had the temerity to venture into this part of the house. The basement is off-limits for anyone except the Alpha.

When she got no answer, Luna Bella shoved me aside, gathered the skirt of her gown, and hurriedly ran up the stairs to check.  

I held on to my neck, rubbing it to ease the pain while gasping and panting. And then, I realized that Luna Bella had left, giving me the perfect moment to escape. 

“Maya, are you in there?”  I asked my wolf. 

“I am here.” She was gasping, but she was alive.  Thank the goddess!

Slowly I let Maya take over and my body shifted.  My bruises would heal much faster in my wolf form. 

We slid through the floor, making as little noise as possible, but every move was torture.  My muscles ache from too much beating.  Pain shoots my body every time I put my paws forward, but I was determined to leave this place. 

Knowing what I now know, I could not bear to live in this house again with this sin hanging on my head.

“We must escape and leave this place,”  Maya told me when we reached the head of the stairs.  

We got out of the basement and walked silently in the dark house until we reached the back door.  Then, we hit it with our paws, until it opened and we  lopped out into the dark night. 

Outside, Maya ran as fast as her injured leg would allow, putting a considerable distance between us and the pack house where I spent eighteen years of my life. 

When we reached the forest, I kept urging Maya to go faster. She was still weak but had regained her sure footing. She ran faster, as far away from our pack’s territory as possible to get off my mother’s back.  

“What about Boris?” I reminded Maya when we reached the heart of the forest. 

We stopped.  

“We can not go back, Erin.  We have to leave this place or else, Luna will kill us.  We were just lucky to have escaped her.  If she was not interrupted,  she would have succeeded in killing us, tonight. Let us not give her another chance to plot our death.  The next time she has the opportunity, she might succeed.”

I know Maya is right, but I could not just leave Boris behind.  

“Boris is my mate. What about the mating bond?”  I insisted.

I have waited for this moment all my life - the sacred mating bond.

“Do you think it matters?  Luna Bella wants you dead.  And Boris is your father’s soon-to-be Beta. Will he go away with you once he knows?  Are you willing to tell him?”  Maya listed all the reasons we should not go back, but I was stubborn and hard-headed.  

In the end, I won out and Maya relented. 

We stopped at a nearby lake and lapped the water with our tongues. 

When we finally regained our strength, we decided to go back to Alpha Leo’s pack territory. 

At last from a distance, we saw Boris’s house. We ran a little faster and when we got outside Boris’ home, we shifted.  Maya let me take over. 

I slipped inside, feeling the mate bond pulling me, but then something inside me twisted.  It was like I was gutted in the stomach. The pain was so severe, it made me clutched my stomach with my hand.

“Boris..” The word died down in my throat when I reached Boris’ bedroom - the same bedroom we spent some days talking about our plans - and found my sister sitting on top of Boris’ bed, almost naked. 

The air around us smelled of sex and treachery.

Tears gathered around my eyes as the three of us looked at each other.  My eyes showed my pain while Boris and Lyla both looked unrepentant that I caught them cheating on me. 

    

“W-what are you doing?” I stammered, not quite believing this betrayal. 

Boris is my mate.  

“W-why are you together?”  I stammered, trying to wrap my head around the scene before me. 

My mind already knows what is happening but I refused to believe it. 

“Don’t act as if you didn’t know, bitch!”  Lyla, my sister snorted. 

An involuntary laugh gurgled to my throat as I watched them with disbelieving eyes.  Did I just escape Luna Bella’s horrendous punishment for this?

Tears that pooled in my eyes fell, hands clenched to my sides as I stood there waiting for answers. 

It did not take long before Lyla managed to very delicately cover parts of her body that were exposed earlier before she walked in my direction.  She had this calculating look on her face like she was purposely making me wait for the kill.

My throat felt constricted while I waited for her in bated breath. 

“I am sorry, sister dear, but your secret is out!  Consider this as your punishment for your mother’s betrayal.”  Lyla spat the words on my face. 

Alarm rushed over in my head at her expression. 

Could it be that she also knew the shameful circumstance surrounding my birth?

“How did you know?” I almost choked on the word.

Lyla sneered.  “I heard you and mother in the basement.”

So, it was her that caused Luna Bella to spare me from my early death.  Her interruption sidetracked Luna, allowing me time to escape.   

I shut my eyes as pain starts to shoot my body once more at the remembrance.  Then, remembering Boris, I shifted my gaze from my sister to my mate. 

“Boris..” I held out a hand, entreating him to fully trust me, to choose me. But the expression on his face had me worried. 

Boris stood near his bed, unmoving, eyes watching me with disinterest. 

The look he gave me scares me.  Fear that I have never known before suddenly hit me so hard.

“This couldn’t be.”  I heard Maya at the back of my head. She wanted to take over, but I held her in place and pushed her as far back. Then, I took a deep breath, summoning enough courage to face Boris, seeing the venom written all over his face. 

“You lied to me.  Everything about you is a lie.  You made me believe you were treated unfairly when you deserve all of it.   You filthy b*tch!.”  Boris spat out contemptuously, each word was like a knife that dove deep into my wounded heart. 

“No.  I didn’t.  I didn’t know about my real mother until tonight.”  I tried to make him understand, but Boris seemed deaf to any reason. 

He tilted his head back and laughed, eyes growing feral when he directed them to me.  “And you think I believe you or that I am even willing to take you back?  A lowly creature like you does not deserve me.  How do you think I would stand a chance of becoming this pack’s beta with you as my mate?  You needed me more than I needed you.” 

Maya surfaced.  We snarled at him, pent-up anger boiling on the surface. So this is all just a convenient arrangement for him.  What about our love?

“I don’t believe you.  You are my mate. We are destined by the moon goddess to be each other’s mate.” I asked, urgently pushing Maya back,  while the two circled around me like two predators ready to pounce on their prey. 

If our wolves become angry, this confrontation would end up bloody.  Maya can fight Boris’s wolf, Ben. We’ve trained secretly in the past for me to know my wolf’s strength and it can surpass any wolf in my father’s pack but I do not want to hurt my sister Lyla and give our parents another reason to hate me. 

Maya snarled, protesting when I shut her out before I faced Boris.

“Do you think I would willingly submit myself to the mate bond knowing about the shameful circumstance surrounding your birth?” Boris added, shattering all the dreams I had about us, about my freedom. 

“You used me.” 

Boris laughed.  “As you did me.” He told me, callously, not caring about hurting me. 

“Wasn’t your plan to mate with me to get away from your filthy lineage?” Boris added before shaking his head in disgust.  

Then, he made a tsking sound.  

“It was too bad that you were found out.”

“Boris we are mated.  Our fates are intertwined. Are you telling me that you are going to throw all that away?” 

To werewolves, mates and fate are intertwined.  Mates are equivalent to your life.  When a mate dies, their mates would soon follow. 

Boris eyed me with derision.  “I don’t need a mate like you - a liability more than an asset.” He ground out that had me retreating in shame. 

I stood there, speechless when Boris spoke once more.  This time, he looked sinister when he declared. 

“To make this official, I, Boris Ferguson, reject you,  Erin Acklen as my mate.  I hate you and despise you.  May you and your wolf rot in h*ll!”