Grey's POV 

  This annual celebration would never fail to make me feel a lot of emotions at once, I thought to myself as I raked my fingers through my hair. I was currently seated at the high table, a few feet away from the wide and high stage; where a couple of werewolves were sparing as a means of entertainment for the excited crowd.

This annual gathering got established by me, a year after my newly formed pack was a year old, because that date was such a meaningful memory to my pack members and myself, and as the year passed, so did the crowd that attended each yearly celebration multiplied drastically. This year's turnup was unexpected and a lot more than I expected, but I wasn't complaining, because there was definitely more than enough to feed them all.

I turned my head around when my beta, Alexander, tapped on my arm lightly. He was pointing at the stage and I followed his line of view to see what he was pointing at, it was our best friend, Ava, who was getting some boxing gloves on. I returned her enthusiastic wave and smile before leaning into Alexander's side.

"She's definitely going to get her ass kicked." I snickered out and Alexander snorted out a laugh. Ava and a female werewolf who was part of the warriors of the pack, were about to spare together. Ava couldn't fight to save her life, and I always wondered why she'd always volunteer to participate in this same sport every year, only to get her ass kicked, to our amusement.

The fight kicked off and as expected, Ava got trapped a few minutes into the fight, and after three seconds, the other werewolf was pronounced the winner and the whole crowd hooted. One thing that always wowed me was how Ava was still always bright eyed and in a good mood after each fight, it was like she didn't always care that she was always losing.

"She's probably crying inside her mind." Alexander supplied and I chuckled before shaking my head. "Nah, I doubt. It could be that she's plotting her opponent's death right now, or she just doesn't give a fuck about winning or not."

"Probably… I'm still going to rub it into her face and use it to tease the fuck out of her for a month at least." Alexander stated as he reached for his drink on the table and took a long swig. I hummed a little as I leaned forward to do the same, feeling the cold liquid of the drink slide down my throat. 

Apart from my beta and I, a few other people were sitting with us here at the high table; as a sign of respect, all the leaders of each packs which had decided to grace us with their presence, were seated here at the table. I wasn't really close friends with any of them, but we all kept a pretty good relationship and could perfectly work well together when necessary.

The stage was getting cleared out for a new act to come on, and I glanced up into the clear sky, breathing in the fresh air, as I tried not to let those overwhelming emotions that were all swirling around get into my head too much. I knew the heavy emotions were bound to come, knowing just how much this date meant to me.

It was the day I took my pack members, at a very young age, deep into the lands, until I settled on a particular spot which I felt was home– and with the blessings of the moon goddess, with nothing, but just ourselves, we were able to build a pack this big and popular, that in a few years after that particular day, it turned into one of the popular packs in the lands.

My best friends were all I had back when the most tragic day of my life happened, plunging the whole pack into chaos, and now that we've all been able to accomplish building a pack for ourselves, and managing to flourish in it, I was extremely glad that my best friends are still with me till date.

They were Ivan, Calum, Alexander and Ava. We've all known each other since we were little, but I was only closest to Alexander since birth. Calum, Ivan and Ava came into our friendship group after that tragic day in all our lives had occurred, and we've been best of friends since then. 

Calum was the only one in our midst who had found his mate, he was lucky enough to come across her last year, and they've been happily mated ever since then. The rest of us were still praying the moon goddess would lead us to our mates sooner than later.

As the Alpha King of the pack, I was supposed to have acquired a mate for the past five years, but for some unknown reasons, I still haven't found my mate. Although I sometimes act like I do not care about that around my best friends, deep down, I was starting to get worried because I wasn't getting any younger, I was already twenty-seven years old, and I was sure my pack members were already starting to get worried about my lack of a mate.

I wasn't lonely as a werewolf, I get entertained sexually by a lot of female werewolves, although my favorite of them all, was my best friend, Ava. We started to hook up when we were still suffering of loneliness in a pack that wasn't ours, and had done that as a means of comfort to each other; but we never stopped after that night, or after we formed our own pack, because there was just something about Ava that always pulls me back to her.

I had a feeling some of the pack members might have started to think I was going to get mated to her, but it was just purely sexual between us. We both loved each other too much as friends to imagine getting mated to each other.

The sounds of hoots and ear blocking cheers pulled me out of my thoughts and I realized the next act was completely over, and I had missed everything.

"We're going to have to give a little speech now, because the rest of the celebration can commence." Alex informed me as he started to push to his feet, and I did the same after a few seconds. The cheers got impossibly louder as I made my way towards the stage alongside my beta, and as I climbed on the stage and picked up one of the microphones, the sounds of cheering only got louder until I started to speak.

I moved my eyes over the crowd as I cracked a couple of jokes, noting once again just how large the crowd was, it was almost overwhelming to take in the fact that my pack was the only one in existence that could generate this kind of crowd.

As I spoke, my beta added adlibs smoothly and the crowd roared with laughter each time a joke was cracked. I started to offer my speech of thanks, waving my hands at the crowds when they started to cheer once again.

I was about to round up the speech, with a bright and genuine smile gracing my face, which I was sure was making a lot of ladies' hearts flutter– when the unexpected happened.

A loud roaring and whirling sound took over the hoots of the noisy crowd in the next moment, while the crowd erupted in panicked screams and dissipated. There was no warning, or time; it all happened in a few seconds.

One moment, I was about to round off the speech, and in the next, a huge ass plane fell straight from the sky, right on the stage where I, my beta, and the female dancers whose performances I had completely missed, were currently standing in. Suddenly, I felt myself getting shoved forcefully off the stage that intense pain blasted through my head, just as the loud whirling sound heightened drastically as the plane crashed heavily on the stage, the piercing sound was so loud, I thought I had died for a second. 

The stage crumbled beneath the large plane instantly, and I could barely see when I blinked my eyes open because of the thich, choking smoke that was everywhere, and as I glanced sideways, the first thing I noticed was that the tire of the plane had missed my head by a few inches.

The sounds of horrifying screams and the strong stench of gasoline thick in the air, made me get some strength to push myself into a sitting position, because what was going to happen in any second from now was starkly obvious. 

"There you are!" Ivan's voice echoed from above me just as I got pulled up and I glanced around me once my head wasn't spinning anymore. The plane which had been joyfilled a few moments ago, was now in complete chaos, and the sight of the wings of the plane which had somehow fallen off in different directions if the crowd was trapping some people underneath it, made my jaw hardened as I pulled out of Ivan's hold.

"Thank Fuck you're okay, the plane crashed from the sky out of nowhere and I thought we had lost you at first." Ivan spoke, but I wasn't listening to him, I was heading towards the completely ruined stage on legs that wobbled a little.

"Where are you going?" Ivan demanded as he caught up to me and gripped my shoulder. "The plane is going to go up in flames any moment from now, we have to get out from this spot." 

"Where is Alexander? He was on the stage with me when the plane…" I couldn't finish my sentence, I was unable to, the rest of the words felt trapped in my throat because a part of me was already imagining the worst.

A horrified look blanketed Ivan's face almost immediately. "I thought- I thought…"

"Where is Alexander?" Ava's voice was shaky and loud as she came out of nowhere, with a grim faced Calum.

"I uh, I think he is currently beneath the plane because uh, he was standing beside Grey when the plane crashed, I thought Grey also got trapped beneath the plane as well…" Calum, who was one wolf who never cried since I knew him, currently speaking with red rimmed eyes as he gestured helplessly towards the crashed plane.

"Alex is… dead?" I asked in a small, flat voice as I glanced amongst my friends, feeling my blood slowly turn cold.

"Let's get out of here, the plane– is already catching fire, we have to leave now!" Ivan cried out urgently but I turned around and headed towards the stage, all I cared about right now was getting my best friend, fuck the fire that was about to break out.

I didn't go far before my friends were forcefully pulling me back towards the opposite direction of the plane which was already burning a little, and was definitely going to explode in a few moments.

"Let go of me, you fuckers." I tried to shake them off in anger, as I felt my heart squeeze painfully in my chest.

"The plane is going to catch fire–" Ivan started but I cut him off.

"Fuck the fire! We have to go get Alex." 

"Alex is– no more, Grey." Calum's voice was thick with emotion as he spoke and something broke loose inside me at that moment.

We were already a good feet away from the plane, and as soon as I broke free from my friend's holds and tried to go fetch my friend, the force of the exploding plane rocked the whole place and we all lost our footings. Watching the plane burn brightly, was when it fully registered in me that my best friend who had shoved me off the stage and saved my life, was no more. It suddenly hurt everywhere, inside my whole body, and I wanted to get whoever was behind this, to kill the person oh so slowly, even though that wasn't going to be enough, nothing was ever going to be enough.

A deep void was already forming inside my chest, the bond which I had with Alex in my heart wasn't there anymore, and I knew I was already in a dangerously, bloodthirsty mood. Sounds of people crying and screaming in horror was echoing from every corner, and worsening the echoing ringing sound inside my ears.

Suddenly, a different noise was filling the whole air, and I turned my head to watch as someone was getting dragged towards where I was standing. For a fleeting moment, I imagined that person was my best friend who had also somehow managed to jump off the stage before the plane had fallen on it, but as soon as I realized who was being dragged towards me, a feeling of gloomy disappointment settled over me heavily.

In the next second, things fully registered in my head that the person being dragged towards me was a human, and everything inside me managed to turn even more sour. 

Of course it was a human's fault; all they were good at, was bringing forth chaos and nothing more, after all.

As soon as the human got thrown at my feet, the crowd's voices all went up even more as they all chanted the same thing.

"Kill the human."

They didn't even need to ask, I was going to do it without being told, I thought bitterly as I lifted a hard sharply that rendered the whole crowd silent immediately.

"My sword."

A few seconds later and the heavy weight of my sword was settling over my opened palm, and I closed the small distance between the human and I in a few strides. The human was coated in dust, and from the blood soaking one of his pant leg and other parts of his body, plus the bloodied wounds on his hands, it was obvious that he had jumped out of the plane before it had crashed, in order not to die, meanwhile, taking the life of innocent people who were celebrating.

I let out a loud roar as I delivered a kick against the bloodied leg of the human, and his pained cry didn't sooth my boiling rage one bit. I crouched low beside him and took in the tears streaming down his face, the stupid, bastard human, he was going to be dead in a few seconds.

"Why the hell did you do this? Killed a lot of my people… and think you could escape the death you caused?" I growled into the human's face and he only fliched before coughing out blood and gurgled words that suspiciously sounded like pleas.

I lifted my sword high and was about to slice his head off, just as an intense smell of rain, honey and flowers hit my nose at once, stifling the whole atmosphere around me so thickly and unexpectedly that it left me feeling dazed for a second. I glanced around, checking if I was the only one who got assaulted with that mouth watering scent, but everyone was staring at me in anticipation for me to kill the human.

The scent only got thicker, and that was when it dawned on me that the scent belonged to my mate, and I pushed myself up immediately and started glancing around for the owner of the scent, but as I glanced around completely and locked eyes with no one who was my mate. The scent got unbelievably thicker, with my wolf brimming with anticipation and excitement to finally meet its mate, but those feelings froze up in my chest as soon as my eyes fell on the splayed out human, whom I was just realizing was the owner of that scent, to my complete horror. 

My mate… was a human? I thought to myself as I staggered a little in shock, and pain as intense as no other, enveloped me in the next moment that I roared angrily without thinking, making the crowd focus uneasy gazes on me at once.

After waiting for years, my mate turned out to be a fucking human? Does the moon goddess think this is some sick kind of joke? I thought to myself as I closed the distance between the human and I, to deliver a harsh kick into his side in anger.

The person who was responsible for this whole chaos, who was also responsible for my best friend's death; was my freaking mate? I never knew the universe hated me this much, until this very moment… and I wasn't even gay, to begin with. I've always been straight, and out of nowhere, my mate was turning out to be a man— a freaking human, a fucking murderer of my best friend!

I crouched beside the human once again and lifted the sword, ready to strike– but the sword felt frozen in the air. I tried again, and again, but the sword refused to lower, and it broke my heart even more, because I wanted to kill this human so badly, to hell with him being my mate, I'd rather remain mateless than to be mated to a human.

The crowd was definitely wondering why I still haven't killed the human yet, and I was also wondering the same thing as well, because I had no idea why the sword was refusing to come down and cut off the human's head.

I pushed myself to my feet in anger and delivered countless kicks to the sobbing human's sides and legs before turning away from the pathetically annoying sight, and ordering my guards to throw him into the dungeon.

I suddenly needed air so bad, a fresh breath of air, because the scent of honey and flowers was still clinging to the atmosphere around me so thickly, that it was starting to make me feel sick.

A day which had started off really perfect and joyous, had ended with tragic chaos so heavy and irreversible, it shattered me completely, and I wasn't sure I was ever going to heal from losing my best friend and beta, Alexander.