Chapter Five

Avyaane’s POV

Everything went hazy and the world tilted in and out of focus as wave after wave of shock and disbelief washed over me. And as the word that had just left Chad’s mouth soaked into my brain, I was gasping for breath in short, panicked gulps.

Mate.

No. No, this wasn’t real. This had been some twisted, cruel prank the Moon Goddess had played on me. It had to be.

I scrambled backward, my body vibrating from what had just taken place. I turned to face the four of the brothers Chad, Logan, Killian, and Blair my legs nearly wobbling beneath me. It awoke something fierce and primal in them, something deep and burning that slit their eyes.

Chad gripped my wrist tighter, the woodsy tips of his nails digging into my skin, seemingly terrified that he would blink and find me gone. Kept insulated from this revelation, his lips parted in shock.

“You’re my mate?” His voice was hoarse, frayed with disbelief.

I swallowed hard, fighting the nausea that rose from deep inside my stomach. I didn’t want this. I didn't want this. Not after everything they did to me.

Images from years past flickered through my mind the shame, the torture, the betrayals. I had suffered under their heel, and now the universe was audacious enough to tie me to them?

A mirth as bitter as bile rose in my throat. “You have to be kidding,” I said, shaking my head. “This—this is a mistake. A nightmare.”

Killian came forward, the red in his eyes drilling into mine. “The Moon Goddess doesn’t err, Avyaane,” he murmured, a hint of a smile tangling at the corner of his lips. “You belong to us now.”

“No,” I said, shaking, my voice shaking.

Blair chuckled darkly. “Little wolf, you can deny it all you want, but we felt it the instant before the clock struck midnight. You’re ours now.”

I shook my head violently, fighting against the dizzy sensation creeping up and paralyzing me. I will not be theirs. I refuse.

I wrenched my arm free from Chad’s hands and took a step back. “ I don’t accept this,” I said under my breath.

Chad’s jaw clenched. He looked as if he were fighting himself, caught between his hatred for me and the persuasive lure of the mate bond.

“You don’t get to choose,” Logan said finally, his voice low and laced with menace. “Fate has decided for you.”

Rage boiled inside me. “I don’t care who fate decided is who! I screamed, balling my fists. “I would rather die than be tied to any of you!”

A somber silence fell between us. It was this thick atmosphere of tension that was suffocating me. This article has been suppressed for several reasons, but I would urge that you read it if you are not already familiar with my wolf stirring restlessly inside me, my skin prickling with awareness. It should not have looked like this on the first shift.

Chad took a step toward me, blue eyes darkening in the way I couldn’t call it. “Oh, you are not getting this, are you?” he said, his voice silk laced with steel. “We are not something that can be refused.”

Logan crossed his arms over his wide chest and cocked his head. “If you reject us, you’re going to die. The bond is already settled. Your wolf should die without the severance.”

My breath hitched. No. That wasn’t true… right?

Killian loomed over me, his breath fanning my cheek. “And if you do survive, where will you little mate go?” His fingers grazed my arm, and a worst fear crept up my spine. “Your father? He sold you. The pack? They’ve never cared for you. You have no one.”

A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to scream, to battle and, but what I don’t have to tell you is a part of me knew they were right. I had nowhere to go.

But that didn’t mean I was going to give up.

I lifted my chin defiantly. “I’d rather take the risk than be your prisoner.”

Blair whistled lowly. “Feisty. I like that.”

Chad let out a sharp breath, running a hand through his hair. I could see the battle in his eyes, the war that raged inside of him. He didn’t want me. Not after what he had concluded about me. But the mate bond was already sinking its claws into him, just as it was me.

“We will give you time,” he finally said, his voice straining with restraint. “But don’t get it twisted, Avyaane. You will submit. One way or another.”

I swallowed, my heart banging against my ribs.

This wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

Chad’s POV

I watched her tremble, her green eyes staring wide with fear and defiance. (There was a storm raging inside of her, and I knew it because I felt it within myself too.)

The mate bond was merciless. I had hated Avyaane for years, had told myself that she was nothing, that she was a liar, that she was a whore. But now the universe had knitted her to me. To us.

A cruel twist of fate.

I turned away, my fists clenching so hard my knuckles turned white. “Bring her to the castle,” I commanded in a frosty tone. “She’s not leaving.”

Logan laughed and leaned in, snatching Avyaane’s wrist before she could bolt. When he drew her to him, she made a small surprised sound.

“You heard him, little wolf,” Logan said, the word tearing from him like a gasp as his mouth skimmed the shield of her ear. “Time to go home.”

She struggled, her eyes fierce with rage. “Let me go!”

Killian chuckled darkly. “That’s cute,” he mused. “She still thinks she has a say in it.”

Blair simply sighed. “This is going to be fun.”

I could not let my eyes rest on her any longer. If I did, I didn’t know what I would do.

It was a sickly bond, poisoning me, making me long for that which I shouldn’t, that which would prove so unattainable.

Her.

This wasn’t over.

Not for her.

And certainly not for me.

Avyaane’s POV

The castle loomed before me an apparition against the rolling lands; its high walls became my new fate, rising with each step I took. The mate bond had tethered me to my most terrifying fears, and now I was being dragged into their world a world in which I had no power, no voice and no way out.

Logan gripped my wrist tighter and pulled me in. The front entry hall gleamed with golden light, the chandeliers dripping crystals, the air thick with sandalwood and burning firewood. It was beautiful beautiful enough for someone like me.

I had no place here.

And yet, here I was.

Chad strode in front, military-erect, jaw tightening the irritating way it did when he was trying to hold it all together. That I wanted to scream at him and hit him in the face until he experienced just one, little piece of the hell I was sloshing around in.

But I held my tongue.

For now.

The moment we walked into the grand hall, we veered left down a dark, shady corridor, walls covered with abstract portraits of past alphas. It smelled of antiquity, of history and might.

Coolly Logan stopped and swung open a heavy oak door. “This is your room,” he told me, shoving me into it before I had a chance to protest.

I jerked forward, nearly falling on the shag carpeting. My throat seized in suspension while I took in the space too grand, too elegant, too much. An enormous four-poster bed draped with velvet sheets, a fireplace crackling in the corner, floor-to-ceiling windows peering out across the pack’s sprawling lands.

I had never seen something like that.”

But I was not so foolish as to take this for kindness.

As I turned around, Logan and Killian stood in the doorway, watching me like I was a caged animal.

Chad wasn’t there.

He had left without a word.

Good.

I didn’t want to see his face.

“What do you want from me?” My throat sore, my voice wavering from the whirlwind of the past few hours.

Logan was leaning against the doorframe smirking. “For now? Stay put. We’ll see what we can do with you soon enough. ‘

Killian chuckled, his blood-orange eyes glimmering. “Take it easy, little wolf don’t even think about running off. From this moment you depart this castle, you will be hunted. And I swear we’re going to hunt you down.”

I clenched my fists. “I’m not a prisoner.”

Logan let out a low chuckle, his gaze sliding over me. “No, sweetheart. You’re worse. You’re ours.”

With that they spun on their heel and slammed the door behind them.

The lock clicked.

Trapped.

I gurgled hard, my body quaking as I dropped down onto the bed. I hated this. Hated them. I hated that, no matter how furious I was, the mate bond flicked like silver in my blood, murmuring things I didn’t want to hear.

I needed to get out.

But how?

I was looking out the window, spinning in my head.’ There had to be a way out of this nightmare before it consumed me entirely.

Chad’s POV

The moment I walked out of Avyaane’s room, I felt it.

The pull.

The bludgeoning, insatiable urge to go back, to find her.

It made me sick.

I walked down the corridor like someone was clenching my fists. The castle passed tonight like a curse, air thick and poisonous. The smug glances of Logan and Killian only exacerbated it.

Her voice still echoed in my head breathy with defiance, rage, pain.

She had cried that she’d rather die than be one of us.

And it wasn’t something that should have stung the way it did.

She’s nothing.

She’s a liar.

She’s

My mate.

Like flame it was seething inside my chest, the signal that ripped every barricade I had made to protect myself from her to pieces. The thought of some other man’s hands on her, of her peering into the sky and screaming for me to help her, twisted something black’ and tight in my insides.

She was mine.

Whether she liked it or not.

But I wasn’t going to grovel for her acceptance.

She’d sit on her own in front of me.

And she walked out, never to come back.

Avyaane’s POV

I waited.

Hours passed, the moon rising among the trees. The castle was silent, the hallways dim.

I tiptoed and pressed my ear to the door. Nothing.

They had left me alone.

Idiots.

They thought they had beaten me, that I was just going to take this as my fate.” Although, they woefully undercut my assessment.

I wasn’t their prisoner.

And I was about to prove it.

I tiptoed to the window, my heart thrumming in my chest. It was high — too high — but there was a ledge, and if I could just…

I opened it with trembling hands. The cold night creeped inside, my skin prickled.

I took a deep breath.

This was it.

Freedom.

I scrambled up onto the ledge, where the wind whipped my hair around me. My wolf twisted in my belly, hissing complaint in my hea

d, but I went on.

I wasn’t staying here.

I took one final look at the castle and steeled myself.

And then I jumped.