16: Never Been Like This Before
1181 Words
Axel's POV
The apartment was quiet, except for the ticking of the clock on the wall. The silence was heavy, pressing down on my chest like a weight I couldn’t shake off. I sat at the head of the long leather couch, staring at the low table cluttered with empty beer bottles and crumpled fast food wrappers. My head throbbed with anger and frustration.
We should be celebrating the win. The fact we survived that cursed Dark Blue Moon. But instead, all I could think about was her.
Rina.
I rubbed my temples, trying to clear the image of her standing there on the mountain, her scream ripping through the air like something out of a nightmare.
"Axel, you gonna say something, or are you just gonna sit there brooding all night?" Ryder’s voice cut through the tension. He stood near the window, arms crossed, staring out at the campus lights below. His eyes were narrowed, like he was still trying to make sense of it all.
I exhaled sharply. "What do you want me to say?"
"How about explaining what the hell that was?" Kade was pacing again, a restless energy buzzing off him. He was always the most volatile of us, unable to sit still when something was gnawing at him. "We almost died a few weeks ago, and then she shows up and saves our asses again today? What the hell kind of mate is she?"
"She's not supposed to be our mate," I growled, slamming my fist down on the table. The beer bottles rattled, but it didn’t help ease the frustration boiling inside me. "A mute? A girl who communicates with sign language and can't even speak? How the hell is she supposed to stand beside us?"
"And that scream," Ryder added, still not looking at me. "It’s like… it could tear right through you. I’ve never felt anything like it. That’s not normal, Axel."
"I know it’s not normal," I snapped. "But what the hell are we supposed to do about it? The pack's seer already told us we can’t reject her. We’re stuck. She’s tied to us. She’s the mate the Moon Goddess chose for us."
"Yeah, well, maybe the Moon Goddess made a mistake," Kade muttered under his breath.
I clenched my jaw, not bothering to hide the irritation surging through me. "Don’t be an i***t, Kade. The Moon Goddess doesn’t make mistakes."
Kade’s pacing stopped, and he turned to face me, eyes flashing with anger. "Then why the hell are we mated to her? To Rina of all people? We’ve been trying to make her jealous, to push her away, and it’s not working. Nothing is working. I hate this. I hate her."
"Yeah?" I shot back, leaning forward, my hands gripping the edge of the table. "Then why do you feel like ripping someone’s throat out every time you see her with someone else?"
Kade didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. We all knew the truth.
It wasn’t just me.
We all felt it. That rage that built up inside us whenever we saw her near someone else, whenever she smiled at Callan or looked like she was getting too close to anyone. It was suffocating. Maddening. We wanted nothing to do with her, and yet we couldn’t stand seeing her with anyone else.
"Look," Ryder said, finally turning away from the window. His voice was calmer now, more measured. "I don’t get it either, alright? I don’t understand why it has to be her. But there’s got to be a reason. Something we’re missing."
I leaned back against the couch, exhaling slowly. "The seer said it herself. We can’t reject her. We're tied to her whether we like it or not."
Ryder sank into the chair opposite me, running a hand through his hair. "But why her? She's not like the others, not like the girls we’ve been with. She's… different."
"She's not our type," Kade said flatly. "She's tall, but not sexy enough. Not classy. I mean, what does she even have to offer? She can’t talk, Axel. She can’t even speak. How do we lead a pack with a mate who has to sign everything?"
I felt my teeth grind together as Kade’s words echoed the thoughts I’d been trying to bury. He wasn’t wrong. Rina wasn’t like the others. She wasn’t what we had imagined in a mate. We had pictured someone strong, fierce, someone who could match our power. Instead, we got a girl who was quiet, withdrawn, and… cursed.
But there was more to her than we wanted to admit. That scream,it wasn’t just powerful. It was like it connected to something deeper, something primal. And the way she had healed us weeks ago, placing her hands on us when we were on the verge of death… I couldn’t forget it. The warmth that surged through my veins, the way my heart started beating again, the way I felt like I was tethered to her.
"We can’t ignore what happened," I said, my voice low. "She saved us today. She saved us weeks ago. There's something about her, something the Moon Goddess must have seen."
"But why does she have to be ours?" Ryder muttered, rubbing his temples like he was trying to stave off a headache. "We don’t want this, Axel."
"Doesn’t matter what we want." I stood up, walking over to the window. My reflection stared back at me in the glass, but all I could see was her. Rina, standing there on that mountain, screaming as the Dark Blue Moon held still. "We’re tied to her now. And we need to figure out why."
Kade scoffed. "Yeah, because being tied to a girl who doesn’t even look at us half the time is exactly what we need right now."
I didn’t respond. My fists clenched at my sides, the frustration building. I hated this. Hated that I couldn’t shake her from my thoughts. Hated that the more I tried to push her away, the more I felt the pull.
We were supposed to be in control. We were the strongest Alphas at Silverclaw University. Feared, respected. And yet, this girl, this mute girl, was at the center of it all.
And there was nothing we could do to stop it.
"She’s in our heads," I muttered, more to myself than to them.
Ryder’s voice broke through the haze of my thoughts. "So what do we do now, Axel?"
I turned to face my brothers, the weight of the situation settling on my shoulders. "We figure out why the Moon Goddess chose her. We find out what makes her so special."
"And if we don’t like the answer?" Kade asked, arms crossed again.
I smirked, though there was no humor in it. "Then we deal with it. Just like we always do."
But deep down, I knew. This was different. This wasn’t something we could just deal with.
Because Rina wasn’t just a girl. She was our mate. And no matter how much we hated it, we couldn’t escape that fact.
Not anymore.
- Writer
