Shadows of the Alpha's Past

~Winter~

I felt my skin blaze the first time I saw him.

 Most people would consider this painful but it was the opposite. It was excruciating but in the most beautiful way. I am not regular, and I never have been so I do not believe in fate or cliches but at that particular moment, the world did really fall away. 

My wolf stirred, pacing restlessly within me, whispering the one word every single creature like me hoped to find in their lifetime— Mate.

He stared back unmoving, recognition flaring in his dark eyes. There was something else, one I couldn’t decipher as his eyes traveled leisurely down my body as if he was searching for something, a trail of want filling his gaze, then in an instant, the warmth was gone. His eyes hardened and all I could do was stare back in confusion. 

What was wrong? 

“You are one of them,” His cold voice cut through the midnight air then without another word, his bones began to crackle with an unsettling sound, a low growl rumbling deep within his chest. In a blink, he was no longer the captivating stranger but a hulking creature in midnight fur and his eyes glowed with an eerie red light. 

He became the monster I was told to fear. 

I gasped, taking a step backward. He was one of them. The realization slammed into me like a painful blow. His scent became more prominent with the shift. At that moment, all  I could think was that the Moon Goddess must be playing some kind of cruel joke on me because there was no way he could be my mate. 

My entire being was paralyzed with fear because I knew exactly what he was. One of the deadliest creatures born of the shadow. One strike of his claw and I would be dead. I could almost hear my mother’s scolding voice. “One of these days, you will end up dead because you never listen.”

She was not wrong. I never did, which was why I had snuck out of our territory despite all the dangers I knew lurked outside the border. Now here I was, about to be killed by a Shadowborn Stalker– the most terrifying werewolf kind ever to walk the realm.

I blinked, resisting the urge to move towards him despite how my wolf growled in my head, wanting to be claimed by her mate. For two hundred years, our kinds have been at war. They were the monsters in the dark that every creature in the realm feared and we were pure, untainted werewolves.

I closed my eyes bracing myself for the hit but it never came. When I opened them, he was gone, almost like I had dreamed him into existence. His intoxicating scent that lingered in the air was the only reminder that he was real. I had found my mate and he was a monster. 

That was the beginning of our story. I  tried to fight it but it was a battle I lost before it even began and every night after that,  I snuck out to that exact spot in the woods. The pull was not one sided as it turned out because he was always there and each night I discovered something new but the most terrifying truth came when I realized that he wasn’t just a Shadowborn Stalker, he was their Alpha and I  was the daughter of the Alpha of the Light wolves.

 A forbidden affair some might have called it. 

A calling for a disastrous ending but Kieran and I  managed to prove them wrong. 

Six months later, I turned my back on my entire kind, denounced my claim as the future Alpha of the Light Wolves. Despite the whispers, I chose Kieran. I went against everything my parents had ever told me about their kind. 

“The Shadowborns will rip your heart from your chest and feast on your bones.”

“They are the monsters in the shadows that you never see coming. Not until you are dead.”

Why?

That little four-lettered word called love. I loved Kieran with every ounce of my being so I endured it when his kind treated me like I was a taint on their image. I took the endless humiliation for three years because I believed it when he said he loved me. 

“You are the only light in my darkened heart and I will love you till the end of time.” Those were the words he whispered just before he claimed as his mate defying two centuries of rivalry.

My story was meant to be different because I chose to write it the  way I wanted it to be told yet the chapters were ripped away from me with unimaginable words scribbled across the pages, which was why I stood staring in shock at this very moment.

I wiped the already blinding tears from my eyes, “You can’t do this to me, Kieran.” 

My father’s last words echoed in my head, “If you walk out that door, I will never take you back, Winter. You will seize to be one of us.”  

My voice quivered, “Kieran, please. I have nowhere else to go.”

His dark eyes gazed at me. There was not an ounce of warmth. He stared at me like he did on the first night I met him when he realized what kind of wolf I was, “You are starting to grate on my nerves. Get your things and leave my territory. Do not make me tell my sentinels to throw you out, Winter.”

Winter.

I have never hated the sound of my name like I did at that moment when it fell from his lips. It felt like another stab to my already breaking heart. Another cliche I hated. He had not called me by my name in the three years we had been mated. 

My begging was doing nothing to help, I realized so I straightened my spine, “You are really going to throw me out? After everything we have been through together? After everything I gave up to be with you and you don’t even have the decency to tell me why?”

He continued to stare at me coldly like I had not spoken to him. Like I was nothing. His features had not changed over the last seconds when he walked in here but yet he looked so different. He looked like the monster I grew up to fear.

Still, I stood my ground, “You cannot discard of me like I am nothing to you.” I whisper yelled hoping to get a reaction but he continued to stare at me bleakly.

“Are you not going to say anything?”

Silence followed hanging in the air between, almost suffocating me then walking past me, he grabbed a piece of paper and in a cold voice, he handed it to me, “Put your signature of it and get out of my territory. The next time I ask, I will not be nice about it.”

With shaking hands, I collected the paper and I had to swallow the gasp that almost came flying out. He was really doing this. He was making me forfeit all my rights as his Luna leaving him free to claim someone else. 

“Kieran, please let me fix it. Whatever I have done, I will fix it but please do not do this to me,” I tried again moving towards me but his eyes bled to black making everything in me freeze, “You take one more step towards me and you will know the true meaning of monsters.” His words had me stopping in my tracks but I held on to the last string of hope I had, “Please, We are mates.”

The words left my mouth and regret followed instantly. His eyes darkened even more,  his next words made me realize that my parents had been right about everything. He was a Shadowborn and he was about to rip my heart out. 

“I, Kieran Blackwood, reject you Winter Nebris  as my mate, and as of this moment, you mean nothing to me.”

Nothing would have ever prepared me for the pain that hit me. My knees buckled and I fell to the ground, gasping for air. Tears spilled down my cheeks and my skin blazed but this time, it was excruciating in the most painful way. My wolf winced, growling in pain as I struggled to see through the blinding tears.

His cold voice cut in, “Get her out of my sight.”

There was no time to react as two strong hands dug into my skin drawing blood picking me from the ground.

“Wait, Kieran please,” I managed to gasp, “I’m… ”

“I don’t ever want to see her again.” Those were the final words that completely ripped not just my heart to pieces but destroyed my life. I hated cliches yet I had ended up living one, left heartbroken by a man whom I had given everything to. Given up everything for.

My skin had blazed the first time I saw him.

And the last time I saw him, it burned until there was nothing left but agony. Until all that was left was the need to burn one last time. So I did. I walked right into the burning fire and then…

 I died.

~Winter~

~Three years Later~

A lot has happened since that moment. The moment when I decided to walk into the burning flame because I wanted to feel the burn one last time but it’s a narrative that I will keep for another time.

Over the time that passed, I became attuned to only two emotions: Love and Hate.  Love for the only person that made me want to continue breathing and hate for the person who fathered him.

I didn’t let myself feel anything else. There was no pain, no hurt. Just those two emotion up until this moment when I stared at the piece of paper in my hand. Another emotion had managed to creep in— Shock. 

“Are you going to go?”

The voice snapped me out of my thoughts as I turned my head to face the woman, Neera standing at my door.  An unfamiliar name, I know. When I walked into that fire, there was nothing left to exist for but at the last minute, I had backed out.

My f