Chapter 5

Tara

MY whole body flinched away when one of my former pack members, lunged at me. I tried to scoot back but he never got to me as my mate grabbed him by the stomach before he could get any closer.

I see Alpha Connor throw him with such force that it took him a while before he got to stand up.

“Stand down, son,” Alpha Kane said sternly.

The member immediately stood straighter and stepped back a few times. He could not deny the command from his Alpha.

“Connor.”

My gaze went to Irene who just spoke. She was sporting a worried look while looking at her son.

“You brought your son here, Irene?” Alpha Kane asked, looking in our direction.

He was frowning and I could also feel the tension radiating from him. Being an Alpha, his emotions are more intensified and most wolves closer in proximity can feel his aura.

I felt a wave of discomfort in my stomach. It was accompanied by a throbbing and sharp pain on the sides of my head. I try to massage my temples to alleviate the pounding but I stagger forward losing my balance. Warm arms caught me before I fell. I look up to see my mate’s face with his eyebrows furrowed.

He made me lean on him with his left arm encircled around my waist. I rested my forehead on his chest, trying to calm myself down. I whimpered when prickly pain radiated from my arm. My wound had become a recurring issue and the pain was excruciating. I don’t think I can handle it anymore, but me being this close to my mate helped a little bit.

“Are you Alpha Kane?”

I heard my mate ask, feeling the rumble from his chest. I looked up to see my former Alpha looking strangely at both me and my mate.

“I am. Welcome to the South Forest Pack, Alpha Connor,” he replied in a serious tone.

I glanced up at Alpha Connor wanting to see if he would believe what Alpha Kane said. He has not been accommodating with the idea that South Forest really does exist. He simply kept quiet and just looked back at Alpha Kane.

I see Alpha Kanes' gaze land on me and I flinched remembering that he was the one who commanded his fighters to chase me away from the pack.

“I see that you are alive, Tara. That’s good to know,” he said in a low voice.

“Why did you banish her?” Irene asked, stepping forward near my former Alpha.

“It was an experiment,” he simply answered.

“An experiment? Are you serious right now, Kane? She could have died with that mark on her arm,” she said, almost shouting.

Alpha Kane merely raised an eyebrow at Irene’s tone. He took a step forward but my mate growled causing him to stop. I leaned back at Alpha Connor giving him most of my weight as I was finding it difficult to stand on my own. He tightened his grip on my waist and my wolf was elated with the close contact that she almost purred out loud.

“How are you?” Alpha Kane asked, looking at me.

I was confused by his sudden worry towards me.

“Don’t talk to her,” my mate growled at him.

Alpha Kane scrunched his eyebrows at my mate’s statement. He was clearly displeased with what he heard. Alphas have a tendency to be too proud for their own sake.

“Young Alphas always have too much dominance in them. I’ll let that slide because I too was once young like you. I knew what it felt to have such unsettling feelings for my mate,” he replied with a small smile.

I took a deep breath when he said the word mate. I still do not know if Alpha Connor was going to accept me. Judging from his actions right now, my hopes are high that he will. But who knows what he is thinking.

“Tara has gone out of the Veil and since then, the mark in her arm has not been getting any better,” Irene interrupted the stand-off between the two Alphas.

Mentioning my wound only made me think about it more. I looked down at my arm to see it wrapped with a bandage but it was already wet with my blood.

“I had high expectations that she would survive crossing the Veil. I’m rarely wrong,” Alpha Kane replied.

“You purposely made her cross the Veil? Why would you do that?” Irene asked with an angry tone.

“South Forest has been gone for too long, Irene. I wanted to know if we can go back now,” he responded, matching her anger.

“And what about the mark on her arm? Why make her go through all that pain?”

“She was never going to cross the Veil on her own. I needed a reason to push her in doing so.”

I felt my mate stiffen upon hearing this. I knew he wanted to pounce on Alpha Kane, but he was holding me up so he could not make any movements towards the other Alpha.

I groaned when I felt another sharp pain shoot through my body from my arm.

“How can we get rid of this mark?” my mate asked in a hurried voice.

I see Alpha Kane smirk before stepping forward again.

“South Forest doesn’t have the answer to that problem, young Alpha. You had the solution all this time,” he replied.

“What do you mean?” Irene asked, confused.

“Alpha Connor, you need to mark your mate.”

I turned to my side when I heard the door open. My mate walked into my room. I sat up from laying down and turned my gaze on the floor.

We were back at the packhouse of South Forest. Alpha Kane permitted us to stay in his territory for a while. I knew he had other plans for us, but for now, all we can do is agree with him. I once again fainted and when I woke up I was back in my old room in my former packhouse.

“How are you feeling?”

I looked up to see my mate standing a few feet away from me. His voice was far from the deadly tone that he used before when we were in his pack’s prison cells. It seemed like he warmed up to the idea of me being his mate.

“My arm is burning,” I answered in a low voice.

He started to walk towards me and I held my breath when he sat beside me on the bed.

“I need to mark you,” he stated simply.

I just nodded but did not do anything. I was scared. He might reject me this time.

“Me marking you means that you will be bound to me for life.”

“I know that,” I responded.

“It means you can never leave my pack. You can never leave me,” he said in a strained voice.

I gulped not knowing what to say to him. A gasp escaped my mouth when he held my shoulders and turned me to face him. He was looking at me so intently.

“Lay on the bed,” he ordered.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“I said lay on the bed.”

I frowned. He wanted me to sleep now? I guess he doesn’t really care if I am hurting or not. I flinched away from his hold and scrambled to lay down in the middle of my bed turning my back from him. I shrieked when I felt him pull me to lay on my back and in one quick move he was now hovering above me.

I felt my heartbeat escalate. For some reason, breathing started to become difficult to do. His face was a few inches away from mine and I could feel his breath on my cheeks.

“I thought you would be blushing if we were to be in this position,” he said gruffly.

I pursed my lips not wanting to say anything. His gaze moved down and I visibly saw him gulp. Involuntarily, my lips parted a bit and I heard him growl. This growl was different from the ones that I’ve heard from him in the short time that we have been together. It was more animalistic in a way that I knew his wolf wanted to take over.

Alpha Connor pressed his lower body to mine. I yelp knowing there was no way he was going to let me go right now. I was caged by a powerful Alpha.

He returned his gaze to my eyes and I saw his pupils dilating. I moaned when he placed his lips on my jaw, warmth spread throughout me. He nibbled his way down to my neck and I flinched when he scraped his teeth on my bare skin. I knew his canine fangs are currently extended and those are what I felt grazing me.

I closed my eyes and moaned louder when he started trailing open-mouthed kisses on the side of my neck. Alphas love to show everyone their ownership and I just knew they were going to leave marks there even though it was not going to last long because the werewolf gene would quickly try to heal it.

“Alpha, I-”

My words were stopped short when his lips attached to mine. I felt a pleasurable tremor run through me at the first touch of his lips. I heard him growl when I opened my mouth to give him more access.

I almost groaned from disappointment when he once again trailed down to my neck. He was now kissing the part where he would mark me and more moans were coming out of my mouth. I could not stop myself.

My eyes immediately opened wide when I felt his fangs plunged into my skin. I sob and try to push him away as the pain was very intense. It was like being stabbed with a hot burning knife. I tried harder to push him away but he was so strong that he didn’t even budge.

Tears fell down my eyes as the pain only worsened. I feel him sucking the blood that gushed from the wound and then he retracted his fangs off my skin. Just like that the pain also went away. My breathing was still heavy but the pain from my neck was gone.

Alpha Connor kissed the mark one more time before lifting his head to look at me. He frowned when he saw the tears on my cheeks. He wiped the tears away with his right hand and touched my cheek after.

I saw a bit of blood on his lips and choked back a sob. I never knew the Marking was this painful.

“Does your arm still hurt?” he asked me in a rough voice.

My eyes widened. I almost forgot about my arm. I brought my arm to the side of my head to see it when a sudden burst of anger rolled through my body. I held Alpha Connors shoulders and pushed him off me. With a slight frown, he got up and sat on the bed.

I didn’t know where it was coming from but there was just so much anger in me at the moment. I looked at my mate and my anger doubled. How dare he mark me just like that! He never asked for permission!

Without a single thought, I lunged at him and we both fell down on the floor with me straddling him. I felt my class extend and I was about to swipe it across his chest when his left hand stopped me. I growled but he simply held my hand stopping me from attacking him.

“Tara, stop!”

My wolf whimpered hearing the Alpha command from her mate’s voice. I stiffened and immediately tried to pull my hand away but he did not let it go.

Realization dawned on me when I looked at my mates eyes. My wolf was borderline going feral.