~CHAPTER 1~
♥Isabella♥
"I, Kane Nightshade, King of the Lycans, reject you, wolf-less wench, Isabella Williams, as my fated mate," Kane boomed, his voice echoing through the forest. "How dare you bear the mark of someone else and have the guts to be pregnant too?"
The Lycan king's words cut deep, and I struggled, my heart racing. "Punishment is to be whipped a hundred times, and by the end of it, her head should be cut off," he decreed.
I stood there, frozen in shock, as memories flooded back to me. How did I end up here?
♣♣♣♣♣
A girl, no more than nineteen, tore through the outskirts of the pack land. Her heart slammed against her ribcage.
Her loose and torn gown clutched tightly in her hand, barely covering her while she ran for her life.
Fear and desperation drove her forward into the dense forest.
She needed to escape, to get as far away as possible before the full moon rose, signaling the biannual mating ceremony.
A ceremony that would likely end in embarrassment or worse, her death.
It was a ceremony where every sixteen-year-old mate-less shifters were eager to find their fated mates. Their other halves, their perfect soulmate. Someone who completes them.
The ceremony is being held every four months on a full specific moon. Isabella had attended five full moons after turning sixteen but still, she didn't find her fated mate and She knew she wouldn't find her mate now or ever.
Ouch, her feet stumbled on a branch, sending her straight to the floor. Tangled white hair whipped across her face, revealing a bruised and scarred cheek.
Cheeks that were swollen from his abuse.
Her shaking and sore legs wobbled as she picked herself up and ran as fast as she could, pumped by her thudding heart.
The dark forest loomed over her, darkness everywhere, pressing her down. She couldn't see two feet ahead of her despite being a shifter.
Well, a wolf-less one. Her sore legs staggered, shaking her off track. A tear dripped down her cheeks at the pain.
Fuck, her hands trembled just at the thought of that, that monster, Kane, she so wanted to wrap her hands over his neck.
That monster, Kane, had come for her again, just like the past two days, to do the most horrible things imaginable.
Her eyes bled, more tears threatening to pour at the thought of the forceful activities. But that wasn't what hurt the most. It was the fact that her family, the people...sniffs...who were supposed to love and care for her, had abandoned her.
Her mother, Luna Aria, had given her a warning, a warning that was still fresh on her mind:
"Listen to me, and listen good, Isabella. You're to shut the hell up and endure anything King Kane does to you. Am I clear?"
Those words still haunted her, ripping her heart into pieces. Imagining a mother would let their child suffer this much.
The world out here wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, and hers was a nightmare, a never-ending circle of pain.
Thinking back to the day the Lycan king came to their pack, claiming her as his prize due to some ancient agreement between him and her father, Alpha Williams.
Her father, who was supposed to protect her, had simply looked at her and said, "Don't you dare disappoint us," and he walked away, leaving her with a dislocated arm.
But what could she expect from him, though? She'd always been an outcast in the pack—a mere runt who didn't find her wolf when she should have, a killer who'd killed her twin brother when they were only five, and a mate-less whore who hadn't found her mate after five full moons.
The curses went on and on. It was endless, literally.She was a failure and a cursed soul.
A curse to her family and her father's position, something their pack had always been ashamed of and was ready to get rid of her at any given opportunity.
She had nowhere to go, no one to run to. Going back to her father's pack was a death sentence, a pack that never accepted her as a living thing but an object to inflict pain.
Isabella ran, her tiny legs barely hitting the ground because finally, she was finally free.
Free from him, free from them, free from the torment and the tormentors.
♥♥
Meanwhile, a creature in the nearby forest stirred. It was a being unlike any other, unearthly.
With eyes that blazed red in the dark and a body as thin as a broomstick. It was hungry, starving for blood to regain its strength after a thousand years of slumber.
Its senses heightened as it breathed in the damp smell of the earth and located its meal.
The creature's eyes snapped toward the fleeting girl, and it moved with incredible speed, slamming into her and pinning her against a nearby tree.
It wasted no time in tilting her neck to the side and biting hard. It got no time to sing a lullaby.
Throat was patched more than the Sahara desert and it needed to be quenched.
Isabella cried out in pain as something—fangs?—sank into her neck. Right where a mating mark should be.
The creature's grip tightened, its naked body pressing her into submission. It was as naked as a newborn, dark long hair reaching its waist, flowed with the wind.
Blood, blood, blood, the words chanted through the creature's mind as it drank. It needed nothing more than blood.
Isabella struggled, using her fingers to stab at the back of the naked thing that took gulps from her blood.
What the hell was this, this thing? It was insanely strong despite its skinny appearance.
She knew she was weak as hell, but she shouldn't be overpowered by something this thin.
Isabella began to feel her life force fading away as the creature fed. She thought back to her life, to the torment and pain she had endured.
Was this how she would die? Drained of her blood, her life force extinguished?
Life was shit.
She cursed the day she was born, the day her twin died, and the day her fucking wolf didn't show up.
The grip on her tightened, as despair flooded over her, threatening to drown her.
How cruel was her fate written? Did Selena—Goddess of love—hate her for her fate to be written this evil?
This, this bad!
Or was this some cruel fate simply a twisted game she finds entertaining.
Fresh tears dripped down her scarred face as the pain slowly faded, and she knew it was time to finally die. Finally, what took you so long?
But then, something strange happened. The pain began to fade, replaced by a sense of something...something.
Isabella's eyes rolled back in her head, and dizziness flooded her, making her lightheaded, drunk in an immense heat that pooled at her lower stomach and from the bite mark.
The pain wasn't painful anymore, although she could still feel the creature sucking her dry, but it had drastically changed into...pleasure?
The creature, too, felt a sudden change. Its eyes, once blazing red, began to shift from gray, red, and black. It retracted its fangs, its head spinning with dizziness.
Isabella's eyes met the creature's, and she saw something unexpected—the skeleton figure she had described it as had changed to a masculine man.
The creature's gaze swept onto the girl's neck, and it frowned, its head spinning again with dizziness that wasn't its, as its neck began to burn with pain.
The girl's unfocused eyes met the stormy gray/black/red eyes that still blazed with rage...or perhaps pain?
She watched as the man groaned in so much pain, holding onto his head as his eyes finally changed back to red, and he suddenly snapped his eyes toward something in the distance.
And just like that, it took off with a forceful speed, leaving Isabella to collapse onto the rough forest floor.
Her neck pulsed with a strange energy, as if it was calling to the creature, summoning it back to stay by her side.
Her eyes were fading, she was losing consciousness, and just as all hope began to lose, a familiar, heart-twisting voice she deeply hated rang out through the forest.
"ISABELLA!"
Kane, no, he's here? Why...why is he here? She looked up at the sky to see that the full moon had risen. No, no, no. It can't be. He should be with his mate, should have found her by now. Him coming here means....
"What the hell are you doing here?"
She was flipped upside down, coming face to face with the monster that had taken her dignity.
His cold gaze softened, looking at the girl, who looked so pale, he dropped to his knees.
"Mate."
Kane's soft whisper made the blood-drained girl snap her fading eyes to him, looking at him with so much pain and hate.
No, it can't be. It can never be that him, Kane, the Lycan king, was her mate? In what universe?
The very man who raped her, locked her up in a room for two days straight, just to do that horrific thing to her, was her mate?
She forbids. Over her dead fucking body, would she, Isabella, be pair with a monster. She would preferably be mate-less than have him.
She couldn't even sense him as her mate with the full moon shining through. Her absent wolf made it difficult to know if the man before her was lying.
Kane, seemingly looking like a puppet in love, eyes roamed over his fated mate's frame, his gaze moving from her golden eyes to her scarred cheek.
He looked...different. His eyes, once cold and hard, now shone with a warm, tender light.
His beta and warriors formed a protective circle around their king, their faces etched with concern as Kane cradled Isabella's fragile form, his arms wrapped tightly around her as if he would never let her go.
Isabella's mind reeled as she stared up at Kane, her thoughts tangled in a knot of fear, confusion, and hatred.
Kane's gaze landed on her neck, and his face darkened. "A mating mark?" he growled.
The words were shocking to both his ears and the girl in his arms, who was now trembling.
Isabella's eyes widened as Kane's hand flew out to her neck, gripping it hard, his fingers wrapping tightly around her skin as he dragged her face closer.