Alpha's Revenge: His Mate Kisses His Enemy

Four

Ariane:

"What?!" I asked, my voice rising despite myself. "Arrest me? What the hell are you talking about, Ash?"

"Ariane, you know I would never do this if I didn't have to," Asher said, his voice tight with the weight of duty. "But with everything that's happened—you being the one who found the poison, the ability you have to make potions —it's too suspicious. There's no way around it. I have to bring you before the pack."

"I didn't do this, Asher," I whispered, feeling the blood drain from my face. "You know me. I would never harm Alpha Orion or anyone in this pack. I found the poison. I'm trying to protect the pack!"

"I know," Asher said quickly, his voice strained and his jaw's tension evident. "I know. But right now, everything is a mess. The pack's panicked, and there's a fear spreading. You're the last person I want to bring in, Ariane. But by order of the Alpha, I have to take you in."

"You can't do this," I said, my voice shaking now. "You can't arrest me. I didn't do anything! I'm not the one who poisoned Alpha Orion!"

But Asher's face remained set. His loyalty to the Alpha ran deeper than anything, and right now, his duty was to bring me to the pack—no matter what. He had to follow orders.

"I'm sorry, Ariane. But I don't have a choice." His voice softened but was firm, and his hand reached for the cuffs at his belt. "Come with me, please. It'll be easier if you don't resist."

With a shaky breath, I nodded. "Fine. Let's get this over with."

Asher moved forward, gently placing the cuffs on my wrists, his expression filled with sadness. I didn't want to fight him, not here. But deep inside, something told me this wasn't just about protecting the pack anymore. The game had changed, and I was no longer just an outsider but a target.

As Asher walked me out of my home and through the woods on a path leading to Nyx Vale, an area much like a courtroom in most realms, he apologized again. But my heart only raced more.

Rarely was it that anyone walked away from Nyx Vale. It is where wrongdoers go to die.

Varek:

Ariane had left me shaken tonight. So shaken I had barely noticed when a presence settled in the space before me, ethereal, undeniable. I knew who it was even before the air thickened with the scent of moonlight and forgotten promises.

The Moon Goddess herself.

When it came, her voice was like a soft whisper in the wind, delicate but laced with urgency.

"Varek," she said, her voice carrying an ancient power. "You have been chosen for one of my own."

I had no interest in fate, no belief in the twisted threads that bound us all to some grand design. But her presence—the power radiating from her—compelled me to listen.

"There is someone within the Silverfang pack. You are to protect her," she continued, her words like chains wrapping around my soulless being, pulling me deeper into the murk of her prophecy. "She is your mate, Varek. The one whom the stars have chosen for you."

I almost scoffed. The Moon Goddess spoke of a bond—a mate—like something divine. But I had never felt its pull. For centuries, I had walked in shadows, untouched by the frail heartstrings of mortals and their foolish desires.

"Mate?" I growled, my voice thick with disdain. "I do not need a mate. I've thrived without one. Just look around you, goddess at the kingdom I've created for myself.”

"You will need her, Varek. You do not understand, but you will. She is the key to a purpose much larger than either of you." Her words were edged with a shadow of something darker, something urgent. "If you do not save her… if you fail to protect her—she will die before she can fulfill her purpose, before she can become the force she is meant to be."

Her words hit me like a sharp, cold blade slicing through the fog of my mind. Those words ‘Die before she fulfills her purpose,’ made a strange ache pulse within me, something I could neither explain nor dismiss.

The thought of someone so fragile meeting her end stirred something deep within me, and then it hit me—the Moon Goddess wasn't speaking of just any wolf within that wretched pack. She was speaking of Ariane, it must be.

Ariane, the one I had watched from the shadows, both of us unaware of the connection that had already tethered me to her when she was but a child, alone in the forest, powerful and fierce.

She was the outcast, the one the wolves of Silverfang had cast aside, who carried magic as dark and untamed as my own.

And yet, she was meant for me. How could this be?

"What am I to do with her? Having a mate will only make me weak,” the words slipped from my lips before I could stop them. "She's nothing but an abandoned half-blood cast aside by those who should have protected her. You expect me to save her, but I've seen her—she’s weak, broken by the wolves, living in the ruins of a world that does not want her."

The goddess's eyes flashed with the cold light of a thousand moons. "That is precisely why you must save her. She is more than she seems, Varek. She holds within her the power to change everything. You know as well as I do that the Silverfang Pack will not let her live in peace. And Kaelen… he will destroy her if left unchecked. The Alpha is not well. But, right now, Ariane's safety is my main concern."

Kaelen.

I had seen the Alpha before, dealt with his father, but the boy... His arrogance, his rage—those traits would be his undoing.

"If you say she belongs with me," I said, my voice low, a quiet promise in the air. "I'll protect her. But you're asking me to enter a war I have no part in. Why should I care for her, Moon Goddess? What makes her worth this struggle?"

"Because you are the storm that will protect her, Varek. Your darkness will be her shield, and her light will be the fire that kindles the power within you. Together, you will be unstoppable… or you will be once the third star aligns,"

I had no time for her riddles.

Ariane was mine? Had she always been mine?

She stood among wolves who could not see the power behind a half-blood; she stood among a pack that would burn her as a sacrifice for their own selfish desires.

The goddess was right—if I didn't act or intervene, Ariane would perish, leaving the world to drown in the same shadows I had so long called home.

"Protect her, Varek," the goddess faded from view, her voice trailing behind her like the faintest whisper in the night. "Before the Alpha's sickness takes everything."

It would not be enough to simply protect or claim her as my own.

I knew there were forces at play, forces much older than even the Moon Goddess, and they would stop at nothing to see my little half-blood destroyed.

I would not let her fall.

Not while she still drew breath. Not while I still walked these realms.