The Beta's Cursed Mate

Prologue

This is a slight spin-off and a continuation of A Secret Alpha Mate and The Omega's Revenge. This is following the Beta of Silver Moonstone, Lucas, and his mate Isabella who was introduced in The Omega's Revenge.

The first book is A Secret Alpha Mate followed by The Omega's Revenge. You don't have to read those to understand this one but it helps with some backstory if you have read them. Some POV will be from characters introduced in the first two books but you'll still be able to follow along and I'll give enough explanation and description of who they are.

A muffled ding, familiar. Familiar.

My body felt like it was surfacing through deep water, the ringing in my ears turned muffled, but as I reached the surface, strained my hand to break through the muffling water churning around me.

I couldn’t.

I was treading water beneath the surface.

It’s happening again, it must be, but this time it's different. This time I'm cognisant of what my body is doing even if my brain can't make contact with it.

I feel like I’m watching myself from inside, desperately trying to get out. I open my mouth but I can’t scream, I can’t reach the other part of myself to tell her to stop.

Silent sobs and screams come from within but I can’t break through, but I have to try. The rational part of me is coming through, I can feel the cold air on my skin, too cold for me to be out here with my arms bare. I can start to smell the wet overturned dirt.

I'm thrust forward and my consciousness is met with my body. I look from my eyes and fully smell the cool earth that coats my bare hands. The dampness of rain around me is a welcome feeling to feel anything, to ground myself.

I can focus on that, if I can focus on the sights and smells and feelings, then maybe I wouldn’t slip back. Maybe I could figure it out this time.

I clamped my trembling hands together and tried to understand my surroundings. I looked around, trying to find out where I was, get a clue of what I was doing, maybe why I was doing it before I slipped back into the abyss.

I couldn’t go back there. I had to break this.

I grasped something cool and hard, colder than the dirt, and I turned to see what I was clutching onto.

A gravestone that looked new, my body refused to move as I studied it.

The date of death was less than a week ago.

I scrambled away from the new stone, kicking something hard and probably metal into the hole. A deep hole.

The thud was soft but I didn’t dare look back to see what it hit. I already knew there could be only one thing in that hole of fresh dirt.

My stomach was churning and my head felt hot. I pushed away with my feet and crawled away, scared to fall in and be taken by the darkness in this place.

When I was far enough away I made myself stand. I was almost certain that I wouldn’t slip back into the darkness. Besides the paralyzing fear and confusion and a dull thudding headache, my mind felt like me again. I was in control of myself.

I staggered my first step, the small logical part that was slowly coming back to me told me to bury the coffin again and wipe my fingerprints from the shovel.

The driving force was pulling me away. I was sick of what I had done and I didn’t understand. My head rang with confusion and fear. I couldn't turn back, I couldn't face what I did.

Who was I? What was this part of me?

I followed the steady slope of the hill and reached the painted iron fence that surrounded this place, I couldn’t even think of the name or it would have solidified what part of me had tried to do, what I had tried to do.

The creak of the door thudded softly behind me, but it was enough to make me jump.

I was back on the street, back to a reality that seemed so distant moments ago. It was almost jarring to be out of that dreamlike nightmare. My head fully cleared as I stepped into civilization.

A car's headlights shone brightly, illuminating me for a moment before disappearing.

I so wished I could be in one of them. Not for the warmth against my frigid skin, not for the fact that they were leaving this horrible place behind them.

But for the fact that they were someone else, anyone else that wasn’t me.

The street was quiet enough. Besides a few more slow cars and some people in the distance, the dim lights of a cafe flickered across the street. I wondered what time it was but was even more nervous to check for some reason, it didn’t matter, anyway.

A soft rain started and it pricked at my already numb arms, waking them up, and I shuddered against the new level of chill.

I looked down at my torn jeans, ripped from whatever happened tonight, what I did tonight. I had to start accepting that this was part of me. That’s what he always told me. The first step was in accepting who I was and embracing it, and then I could try to move past it.

I sighed, maybe he was right, tonight might have been a breakthrough. I should tell him about it but, no, I couldn’t after last time.

I reached into my jacket pocket that was tied around my waist for some reason, in the dead of night in the middle of winter.

My dirt-encrusted hands shook as I unlocked my phone, my nails were black and there were a few cuts on my palms as if what I was doing was more important than my own safety.

My stomach churned again at the thought. My curly hair was sticking to my damp forehead mixed with sweat and rain, but my appearance was the last thing on my mind. I needed to get out of here though. Someone will come, right? I should clean up. I look like I just walked out of a crime scene and I guess technically I had.

The world was pushing in around me and I tried to focus on my surroundings. The familiar panic settled in until I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t make sense of it, there was nothing to make sense of.

I had to get out of here but I couldn’t go back.

I had to face this and I couldn’t with him.

I looked down at my phone screen and saw a message, the ding that first made me muddle through the depths of my mind back to reality.

I opened my phone and called the number. It was my only option.

Two Months Before..