THE ALPHA'S CURSED MATE

The pull

SELENE’S POV

The last thing I ever wanted was to stand beneath the moon and pretend to be grateful for it. Most female wolves dreamed of the Moon Ceremony — they called it sacred, beautiful, a blessing from the goddess herself. I called it what it really was: a sentence. I wasn’t as naive and easily fooled like all the other girls were.

I wasn’t anyone special — just an orphan with no family name to carry, no one to stand for me. In this pack, that made me less than nothing. I was the wolf they sent when no one else wanted to go. This ceremony was part of it, it was one of the things that I didn’t want to do but had to do it because I was an orphan. It was a punishment dressed up as an honor for my pack.

Maybe I would’ve cared about the tradition if it hadn’t been twisted into something vile — something that belonged to Alpha Dante.

Dante.

Even saying his name in my head made me uneasy. To the warriors, he was a legend. To the other alphas, a nightmare they didn’t dare wake. And to the women, he was the kind of monster they convinced themselves they could love. But he didn’t want anyone — not really. The ceremony proved that much. If he had ever wanted someone by his side he would have had that by now, there was nothing stopping him and no one could stop him if he chose the mate that he wanted. The fact that the moon goddess had chosen to allow this to go on for this long proved to me that even she couldn’t stop him.

Every five years, he’d summon the chosen she-wolves from each pack. He’d take them to his palace— not for comfort, not even for company — but for blood. They’d fight each other for a place beside him. Some said the survivors became queens. I knew better. No one ever made it out of that palace alive. Of course female wolves would be quick to try to debunk my belief but no one could ever tell us what had happened to the girls that had won the tests before us. This was some sort of sick entertainment for him, he would pick a girl and use her as a play thing until he was tired of her. Then if she was lucky should be confined in the walls of his palace but if not she was killed,

No one questioned it. No one dared. Every alpha, including mine, believed it was the only way to keep Dante from tearing the world apart again. They called it duty. I called it cowardice. There was no way that all of the twelve alphas in our kingdom couldn’t stand up to Dante, there was just no way that he was that powerful and without a mate.

I wasn’t afraid of him. Not because I was brave — because I had nothing left to lose.

When you’re already unwanted, fear doesn’t have anywhere left to sit. Being picked or not picked didn’t matter to me because it was going to be a loss for me anyway. Unless maybe if I managed to escape but even I knew that was impossible. Where would I even go?

My alpha told me I should be proud to represent the pack. I was told to keep my head high, to smile, to be obedient. For the first time in my life, they looked at me — really looked — and I let them dress me like I mattered. I told myself it was fine, that this was my way of being useful, finally. But the truth? It felt like being decorated for slaughter.

When we reached the Blood Moon territory, they made us remove our shoes. The ground was cold, damp, and unforgiving beneath my feet — fitting, I thought, for what was coming. I didn’t have the training or the strength to survive what waited ahead. I knew that I had already failed before it even began.

Around me, the girls whispered.

“I heard he doesn’t have a mate yet,” one said, her voice trembling with excitement, although I failed to understand what the excitement was about.

“I heard he’s cursed,” another whispered back. “The Moon Goddess refuses to give him a mate because he killed his father.”

“I don’t care,” a third giggled. “As long as he chooses me tonight.”

Their words made my stomach turn. I stayed silent. There was nothing to say. How could they know all of this and still believe that this monster was desirable?

Even though the air was still, I felt every tremor of fear rippling through the crowd. The night was too quiet — too still — the kind of silence that presses down on your lungs until you forget how to breathe. It felt like the forest was watching, waiting.We all were.

Some waited for glory. Others waited for death. I just waited to see which one would come for me first.

Then the moonlight broke through the clouds, pouring into the clearing like a blade of silver. The crowd erupted — cheers, chants, the sound of hope twisted into something desperate. And then something inside me shifted.

It wasn’t fear — not exactly. It was deeper, heavier. My chest tightened, my skin prickled, and every instinct in me screamed to move toward the light. My legs trembled with the effort to resist it. It was like something was pulling me forward, dragging me by the soul. My breath caught, my heart hammering too fast. The noise was deafening inside my skull. I pressed my hands to my ears, trying to drown it out, but it only got louder. The others noticed. I felt their stares, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Get up,” someone hissed beside me, grabbing my arm. “What’s wrong with you? Do you want to die before it even starts?” I could sense the fear in her voice.

I tried to answer her — I really did — but then I felt it.

That pull.

That sharp, invisible hook beneath my ribs. Tugging at my heart and slowly tempting me towards something that I knew was dangerous. And when I turned, I saw him. Alpha Dante stood at the edge of the clearing, watching me. His eyes caught mine, and it felt like he saw everything — every secret, every thought, every fear I had tried to bury.

The noise in my head stopped.

My wolf went silent, then screamed, I needed to escape but even in this chaos that was going on in my head I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get very far. I knew that they would catch me and bring me back to him so that he could kill me. Dante was known to not be a wolf that would ever show kindness and I also didn’t have a history of wolves showing me kindness.

He wasn’t supposed to look at me. I wasn’t supposed to feel this, but he did and I did. I suddenly felt like I was trapped by my own feelings. I wanst sure why my wolf was still screaming, was she trying to warn me? Well if she was it was a little too late for that. I was doomed, if my wolf actually cared about me I wouldn’t have even ended up here. I wouldn’t have been facing him or these strong female wo;ves that could probably crush me with one hand tied behind their backs.

But that wasn’t the issue now, I knew that whatever the reason for this…it wasn’t the ceremony that would be the death of me, he was.