His Purpose

Chapter 3

Arabella Pov

I was annoyed as I walked through the training grounds and to the pack house, ignoring the few people that were calling out to me with hesitant hellos. I was a mystery to most of them, the pitiful little rogue's daughter that they were forced to deal with. I didn’t belong here. ‘Our mate is here. We belong wherever he is,’ my wolf, Misty said.

I scoffed, walking into my room and slamming the door behind me. Absently I pulled the dagger Nate had given me out of my pocket and started to twirl it around my fingers, a habit of mine when I was annoyed and frustrated. I liked feeling the cold steel against my fingers, I felt comfort in the knowledge that I could protect myself, and that I was never going to let anyone put me in a cage again. ‘He’s an abomination.’ I replied to her with a growl.

‘You love him, though.’ She argued with me. ‘At least you did, once,’

I closed my eyes, the dagger falling from my fingers with a swish against the carpet as I shuddered in my memories. For a year, I loved Isaac. I was eighteen, so young, so…stupid. I had already been distracted that day on the battlefield, the day I had learned that my mother wasn’t killed by the Nightshade wolves and that my father had lied about the attack. I had been training and honing my skills for years to get revenge against the Nightshade pack for my mother, but as I was dragged to the battlefield that day I was shocked, and questioned everything. Were they even my enemy? My father had lied, and honed me into his weapon, and for what? Once upon a time my mother and I had wanted to leave the rogues, to go to the Nightshade pack and beg them to let her back, to take mercy on her. I hadn’t put the pieces together quite yet back then, shocked, my whole life a lie, and then I smelled it.

I still remember how I had stood there with a sword tight in my hand, staring up at the hill. I could hear Isaac’s sharp commands, his body poised for attack, hardened from years of training. Even now I remember breathing deeply, his scent washing over me, and Misty begging me to go to him. He was my enemy, and I was his, and I was shocked. Before I knew it, I was being knocked over the head and a needle pushed into my shoulder, wolfsbane. I awoke alone in a cell, shuddering from the cold chills as I threw up in the bucket that was close to me, over and over again. They didn’t give me enough of the drug to be deadly, but my body was going through the motions as if a human would have flu. For a week I was alone, dry heaving, sleeping and simply laying there shivering. I’d awake and there would be dry food and a jug of water, a new bucket for me to throw up in. I was given one blanket, and one pillow, for three years.

The first year, all I did was lay there, staring up at the small cell window with bars over it, wondering when Isaac would come for me. He was my mate, he would surely find me. He had to be looking for me. He knew who I was, as I knew who he was because we had fought against each other on the battlefield for a few years before I had turned eighteen. Age didn’t matter if we had the skill, and werewolf pups were trained young to be strong, to be ready. While the Nightshade pack liked to choose those that were eighteen or older to fight, Isaac was special because he was the one who led them, even if he was only fifteen when he started coming onto the field. The rogues, we didn’t care. We took advantage of the fact that the Nightshade pack members were hesitant to kill kids, and then we destroyed them, over and over again. I laid there staring at the bars for a year, waiting for Isaac to come to me, to find me. But he never did. After that year I gave up on the notion, and instead of letting myself succumb to the overwhelming sadness, I started to train. It was all I knew how to do since that’s what my father had made me, a weapon. I trained, I prepared, and I waited for the day I could strike.

‘That was a long time ago, Misty. I stopped loving him when he never came for me.’ I explained to her.

Not that she didn’t already know. She was there, every step of the way. She let out a soft whine, remembering the way I had curled into a ball and cried night after night, begging Isaac to come to find me, to save me. ‘He didn’t know, though. Remember? He didn’t know.’

I nodded, sitting down in the middle of the room, right next to my knife. I pulled the crumpled picture of Isaac out of my pocket, wondering why I even still kept it. ‘I would have accepted that answer and given him a chance if Jason didn’t tell me he told Isaac, and Isaac didn’t care. Jason showed me the texts, he showed me how he had told Isaac. As Isaac said: I don’t care what you say.’ I sucked in a deep breath, my finger tracing the curve of Isaac’s jaw in the picture, anger radiating through me. ‘Isaac knew about me, the last few months, and didn’t care. Jason came and took pictures of me, and sent them, and still, Isaac didn’t care. He didn’t care about me then, so I’m not going to care about him now.’ I said with a clipped tone, crumpling his picture once more, and shoving it back into my pocket.

Misty whimpered, feeling the pain I was trying desperately to ignore. It was a strain, the way Isaac and I were trying so hard to keep our emotions away from each other, but every once in a while I let him feel my anger, my pain, my frustration. He deserved to feel every bit of what I felt, knowing he was the reason it was there. ‘He left me there when he could have saved me. Tessa would have been fine if he had traded her for me. She was kidnapped anyway, and she made it out perfectly fine. But instead, he protected her. And while I’m glad in a way because I actually like her, but…I’m his mate. He should have put me first. Even Tessa scolded him and told him that he should have put me first above her. Then he…told her he loved her. He loves her, Misty, not me. He let me stay there while he was out here loving another woman. I can’t forgive that.’ I said with a growl.

‘He doesn’t love her anymore, he loves you. He felt the mate bond,’ Misty said weakly.

I growled, grabbed the knife again, and stabbed it into the carpet. ‘It doesn’t matter. He has damaged too much for me to forgive him because of his weak and useless confessions of love.’ I was so frustrated, and I started to pace, the dagger twirling around my fingers once more. I needed to take a shower, to get out of the sweaty and dirty clothes, to go find food so I can get ready for tomorrow, but I didn’t want to move just yet. While Nate had promised that he wouldn’t put me right next to Isaac, we were still placed in the same pack house, on the same floor, just on opposite sides. Every time he came in when I was trying to leave I’d be forced to feel those green eyes peering at me, the sadness he couldn’t quite contain, the yearning, and It just…infuriated me. He wasn’t allowed to want me, not after throwing me away to protect another woman.

The most frustrating thing of all was I couldn’t even hate her. Tessa was not at fault in any of it. She didn’t know and she didn’t reciprocate Isaac’s feelings. Not to mention she was so strong, defying everything anyone would have expected from her. A small bunny that turned savage and tore through everyone with her sharp claws and her long teeth. I respected her, and in a way, it made it worse. There was no one else to feel the fury that was flowing through me, to have it directed towards them, just Isaac, and if that was all I had the that was what I was going to do. He caused this pain, this heartbreak, after all. He deserved every bit of the sadness that came with it. Every bit of the pain he caused when he chose another woman, over me.