PROLOGUE
Since I was a little girl my mom always told me stories about mates. My favorite story was about her first meeting with my father. It was the sweetest moment of her life. I always loved how she had sparks in her eyes, a smile on her lips, and a glow that always appeared when she remembered the first moments she had spent with my father or rather every time she spoke about him.
Later, when I was about nine or ten, I cringed as she added some more detail to her stories. I often asked her to stop, or made nasty comments on these details, hiding my face under the pillow pretending that I didn’t want to hear about it, but the truth was the opposite. I waited hungrily for every single story.
Thanks to her stories I always looked forward to meeting my own mate. I always hoped that it would be someone strong, but caring and protective like my father was. He was the beta in my old pack and a very respected person in our community, but sadly he left us early. When I was fourteen my pack was under attack from rogues migrating across our territory and my father died during combat, protecting the women and children of our pack. He died a hero in my eyes and in the eyes of every other person in our pack. The Alpha was devastated by the loss of my father and I was supposed to take his place, but I was still too young. Without my wolf I couldn’t do my job as a female Beta. My cousin, the son of my father’s brother, took my place. I wasn’t angry or mad. I always knew that once I gained my wolf and got stronger, I would take back the title I was supposed to have. I would be as strong and protective as my father was. Little did I know what fate had prepared for me.
The next year our Alpha created several alliances to make sure we would have support in case of some more attacks on our packs. Our Pinewood pack wasn’t one of the strongest or fiercest packs, but the other packs around us knew and respected us. That was enough to secure our position during negotiations.
It was around that time that I met him, when I saw him for the first time. I was just fifteen back then. I didn’t truly understand the feelings that grew inside of me. I understood the feelings later, when my wolf finally made her appearance and I was able to shift for the first time. That was when Leia told me about my mate that came to our pack on my birthday, waiting for my first shift and smiling when he saw my wolf for the first time. Her presence intensified everything, but the pull I felt towards that person and the fear he awoke in me wasn’t something I was prepared for. It wasn’t something I would expect to feel when meeting my mate. That day, when I first shifted on my fifteen birthday, stood out in my memory like a reminder of what was going to happen the following year. I knew very well that the person would come back and claim me. He would take me back to his pack and I would have to go with him. I would have to leave my home, leave my mom.
Leia and I were both worried and excited about the day he would come for us, but at the same time a strange feeling sat deep in my gut, telling me that something wasn’t right. Something in that smile we saw on the day of our first shift wasn’t right.
When I reached my sixteenth birthday and was old enough in our wolf-law to get my mate, he came back for me. Adrian Davenwood, the most dreadful Alpha on our continent from the Dark Moon pack, stood in the office of my Alpha, waiting for me, with the same smile I saw a year ago. He scanned me from head to toe as if he was checking food served to him on the table. At that time I didn’t quite understand what that look meant. I would find that out later.
The Alpha of Pinewood pack was looking at me with an unspoken question in his eyes. A question I didn’t understand at that time. I didn’t understand that look on his face until later when I grew older and got to know my mate a bit better. When I was old enough to understand the fame that followed my so-called mate. I didn’t know that he was practically asking me without saying a word if I was really sure about leaving with the person standing in front of me. I didn’t know that I had another option, another path which I could choose.
The only thing that seemed logical to me was to leave with my mate. We only had one chance with our mate, at least that was what I always thought. That was what I was always told. Having a mate was a blessing. My Leia was ecstatic seeing our mate waiting for us and personally coming to pick us up. We had no idea what it would be like living in his pack. We had no idea what it meant to be Luna in the Dark Moon Pack. But we were about to learn. We were both about to find out that mate bonds didn’t only mean good memories. Having a mate was not always a blessing. It could easily become a curse a nightmare you wanted to wake up from only to find that there was no place to hide. There was no place to run from your fate.
But was it always that way? Did having a mate really mean you had to stay with him no matter what? Was the mating bond really the ultimate bond that couldn’t be broken? I couldn’t believe that. I didn’t want to believe it.
That was two years ago. I became the Luna of the Dark Moon pack and I was not going to give up without a fight. I would fight. If not for me, then for what I believed was right.
