SHAPESHIFTERS

4

The silence is damning. Damning and hollow as I stare into the unfeeling hazel eyes of the wolf shifter who is apparently my fated mate. An alpha doesn’t share his mate, so this is the only man in the entire world who the moon goddess believes I should be with. And he is a monster. The alpha doesn’t move as green magic crackles around his body, picking up his fur cloak that hangs off his large shoulders. Thick black hair falls to his shoulders in a straight line, not a strand out of place, and his stern face is stoic as he looks at me. Water drips down my dress, my wet hair sticking to my shoulders, and all the warmth from the water is gone now. The magic is gone, replaced only with fear for what happens next. “No.” His single word rings out across the beach to me, the few yards that are between us are like nothing. No. No to the mating? No, it being me the moon goddess chose as the alpha’s mate? I agree with him...hell no. Mating with this excuse of an alpha, a man with no soul and a scar on his chin I caused when I was fifteen, is a life I would rather not live. Only once have I ever thought about giving up on my life, once on a wintry day like this, caused by the same man I’m looking at right now. This is the second time I have wanted to give up completely. Whispers and gasps from the crowd of wolves behind him and from the crowds on the cliff finally reach my ears, and I try to block out what they are saying even when some of their words are perfectly heard. “Her? The alpha’s mate? Disgusting!” “Maybe the moon goddess made a terrible mistake.” “He should kill her and be done with it.” The whispers never stop, and the same thing is chanted as the alpha’s eyes bleed from hazel to green, his wolf taking over. Then he takes one step forward towards me, and I itch to run, to turn and leave as fast as I can, but something tells me not to. Maybe that bit of stubborn pride I have left. Mike always said pride is a bigger killer than any man. I can see his point as my legs refuse to move and I stay still as a deer caught in a wolf’s gaze. The alpha walks right up to me, his closeness making me feel sick to my stomach as he grabs my throat and lifts me slightly off the ground. Not enough to strangle me or cut my airways off, but enough to make me gasp, to make me want to struggle. I claw at his arm to get him off, but I’m nothing but a fly buzzing around a cake to him. I can see it in his eyes, his eyes owned by his wolf. “How did you trick the moon goddess herself into believing a rat like you could ever be an alpha’s mate?” he demands, and when I don’t answer, he shakes me harshly, tightening his grip for a second. A second enough for me to scream and gasp, coughing on air when he loosens his grip. He shakes his head, his eyes bleeding from green back to hazel. To think I once trusted those hazel eyes, I dreamt about them, I thought he was my real friend. “I asked you a question, Irin.” “My name is Mairin to you, not Irin. M-my friends call me Irin, Alpha Sylvester Ravensword. Kill me if you’re going to do it. I have feared you for so long that you killing me is nothing more than the goddess giving me my wish.” The lie falls from my tongue easily, even if his name does not. The moon goddess never gave me my real wish, my wish I begged her for once, to kill him, the alpha’s son, Sylvester Ravensword. Instead, in some twisted version of fate, she made him alpha and me his mate he has waited for. His eyes stay hazel, but in the corners I see the green struggling to take over. He slowly tightens his grip around my neck, and I close my eyes, wanting to see nothing in these last moments. I gasp as I struggle to breathe, instinctively smacking and scratching at his one hand holding me up by the neck. Fear and panic take over, making my eyes pop open just as I’m thrown across the sand. With a slam, I hit the hard sand on my side, and a cracking noise in my arm is followed by incredible pain as I scream. “Irin!” I hear Daniel shout in the distance, a wolfy and deep noise just before a foot slams into my stomach once. Then twice, then again and again. The pain almost becomes numb when my voice gives out, and the kicks finally stop as I roll onto my back, looking up at Alpha Sylvester as he angrily kicks me one more time before stepping back, rubbing his hands over his face repeatedly. “No one follows us. If anyone does, I will rip them to shreds,” I hear Alpha Sylvester demand, and the noise of wolves fighting nearby mixes with the sound of the waves. A hand digs into my hair and pulls me up as I taste blood in my mouth. Everything is blurry as someone drags me by my hair and arm over sharp rocks that cut into my back and catch on my dress, but part of me detaches from my body, drifting into a world of no pain as I fade in and out of consciousness. Eventually I’m dropped onto grass, and I blink my eyes a few times, coughing on the blood in my mouth and turning my head to the side, every inch of my body hurting so badly the pain threatens to knock me out with every breath. A hand wraps around my throat once more, and I’m lifted into the air, my feet hanging as I struggle to breathe. “Open your eyes,” Alpha Sylvester demands, his fiery breath blowing across my face. Opening my eyes is harder than I thought it would be, and when I do, I see he is right in front of me. “I can’t kill you, because my wolf will not allow it.” He shakes me once. “Die in the sea for your fated mate, Irin. Die like you should have so many years ago, because if the sea does not take you, I will know. I will know, and I will never stop sending wolves to kill you. I have rejected you as my mate, you are not worthy of me, and you never could be. You are nothing.” “Then why does the moon goddess think otherwise?” I whisper back with all the strength I have. I should plead for my life, I should beg and cry, but I just stare at him as his eyes flash with pure anger, and he roars as he lets me go. The wind cannot catch my body as I fly off the cliff, well aware the sea is going to take my life in seconds. And in those seconds I fall, I still pray to the moon goddess for someone to catch me.