Chapter 1

Lilly

I watched my mate from my bedroom window.

There he was, fixing a plate of food for the female who is carrying his pup in her belly.

I couldn't stand to go to the pack barbecues anymore, not when I was forced to witness something so heinous; The person I'm meant to be with, tending to another she-wolf, one who had his future growing inside of her.

My heart constricted as I peered out the sheer curtain of my bedroom window, watching as he attempted to make her feel at home. The looks other members were giving her was the only thing that brought me a sense of satisfaction.

The Alpha and Luna understood my need to stay away, they allowed it.

Everyone knew about us.

Everyone knew he was mine and I was his. They knew who the pregnant female was to him too.

She had been a one night stand gone wrong.

It was embarrassing at first. The night he arrived home with her in tow, the pack assumed she was his mate. Never paying her any mind, I had been too enthralled with how his scent called to me, so I approached him. I claimed him as my mate in words alone, and the small crowd erupted into cheers.

The daughter of the Beta and the Alpha's first born, we were family friends since the beginning of time. I could only discover he was mine once I went through my first shift, a night that still haunts my memories to this day.

We would make strong pups, they all said.

Then I noticed the blonde female, standing on the other side of his vehicle. She pursed her lips, her eyes becoming glassy with unshed tears. I knew right then that something was amiss.

Realization set in, my face morphing into shock.

He closed his eyes as his head hung in shame, feeling that wave of guilt coursing through his system.

Manning up, he explained the situation to the pack, but not before we had a private conversation in the driveway. That conversation left me broken, shattered, lying on the gravel driveway as he made his way inside to check on her.

He has a responsibility to do the right thing now, and I'm the one who has to suffer.

I continued to watch as he set her plate down in front of her, her brown eyes squinting as she smiled up at him with happiness. He returned the smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.

I know him. Ever since I was a baby, I've known him. That wasn't his happy smile.

That could have been me down there, eating with him.

If he had never gone to our northern allying pack this summer to train, it would be me down there with him.

He's the Alphas first born son, the future Alpha.

Every future alpha is expected to spend their summer at a different allying pack to train with the other warriors and Alphas. They do this to become a strong leader and learn all the different methods there are to being a warrior, making them a supreme Alpha.

He began leaving for the summer when he was eighteen, a year after his first shift. Future Alpha's spend their first year training with their own pack, learning from their own Alpha. This was his third year of training. There was only one more year left until he would be considered ready to take over if anything happened to his father, the current Alpha.

Now the goal of finding his mate, his Luna, had been shattered by the lust that he hadn't managed to restrain.

The one thing every future Alpha dreams of is finding their true, moon-given mate, and that was thrown down the drain for one night of uninhibited passion.

The thought sickens me to my core.

And to think, I saved myself for him, my mate.

Two weeks.

It has been two weeks since he arrived back home.

It's been two weeks since my first shift celebration, the night I discovered he was mine.

Two weeks that I've been broken inside, not healing - staying the same.

He was a full-grown Alpha male. I may be just eighteen, a juvenile, but I could see the love in his sky blue eyes the night he discovered I was his mate.

There was shock written on his face, then happiness, followed by alarm and guilt. He couldn't know what I was to him until I shifted into my own wolf, even after all these years of our families being so closely knit.

Now it was too late.

My soul shattered that night, standing in front of him as we cried together, no one around to hear our words.

He was sorry, but I was broken.

How could my mate be so selfish to have let this happen? How could he have risked this? This one moment, defining of both our lives.

I felt my vision blur, their forms becoming fuzzy as the tears welled up in my eyes. My breathing became restricted and I clutched my four-day-old t-shirt as the agony propelled itself into my chest. My heart broke, dropping down into my nauseated stomach, causing the millionth wave of tears to be released. My tears were hot, dropping down cheeks already stained with the natural saline that my eyes seemed to produce every ten minutes or so.

My heart had broken and now there was nothing left inside me to break. Every organ inside my body seemed to whither and die like an orchid that had been thrust out into harsh, cold, winter snow.

Secretly watching them, he gave her food off of his plate. That honor was meant for me. She smiled, taking his hand in hers. A shudder ran through me and I had to fight my wolf to stay down, her emotions becoming too much for me to contain.

A thick lump in my throat formed as I watched their happy display. I wondered briefly what everyone thought, but their eyes said it all as they, too, watched the exchange.

Suddenly, his eyes found mine and my breath hitched, my heart skipping a beat.

He felt me watching him.

You always feel the watching eyes of your mate.

He had probably felt my eyes on him five minutes ago when I initially peeked out the window, but ignored me, thinking I would go away. The thought only made it hurt worse inside as the pain swallowed me up. My wolf whimpered inside my mind at the same time she snarled at the thought of that female who didn't belong here.

I held his gaze for a moment as tears rolled down my cheeks, relishing the effect he had over my nerves when he looked at me. It was a calming sensation that soothed my anxiety, a double-edged sword I had to live with until we both marked and mated another.

Letting the curtain drop between our view, I turned away and crumpled onto my bed, sobbing violently. I shouldn't hurt myself worse by watching them- watching their interactions with each other. The pain was all too real, but I couldn't help it. The wolf pushed me to see, she needed to witness this as well.

This female was nothing more to him than a summer fling. She wasn't his everything, that was me.

I'm may be just eighteen and three years his junior, clearly not Luna material yet, but I was meant to be by his side. I'm Luna born, not her.

He wouldn't have waited long to mark me, though. Males can't resist marking their mate once they find her, no matter the age difference.

You could only ever find your mate once both were shifted wolves, so eighteen was as young as it went, It wasn't frowned upon.

I saw it in the way he looked at me the night we stood in the driveway. He wanted to mark me, but the thoughts of the pregnant female wouldn't let his wolf ascend to claim me. I'm glad he didn't, I wouldn't want to be stuck in that mess.

He brought her back home with him. She could have stayed in her own pack, but my mate was too much of a gentleman, so he brought her here, never knowing that I would be here waiting.

Another round of sobs wracked my body as hot tears drenched my pillow. My chest felt empty.

The place where my heart should be, it ached.

He took that with him when he sniffed me out and told me everything that had happened once the pack members went back to the celebration, my first-shift celebration.

No one knew what he'd done that night, but they all recognized I was his. The beta's daughter was their alpha's son's mate. It was a time to rejoice, two strong bloodlines promising strong heirs in the future.

A knock at the door stifled my cry as I hid my face under the blankets, waiting for him to go away.

I could smell Dan's scent, my best friend, and his younger brother.

"Lilly, I know you're in there. Open up, I brought you something." His semi-deep voice called out.

Dan was my age, eighteen. We had always talked about the 'what if's' if we were mates and prayed to the moon that it wouldn't be so. Wel we're more like siblings than anything, but now I wish it had been different.

I could smell the permeate through the sore, making my stomach roll in a wave of nausea. Food wasn't something I had been indulging in, in the past few weeks. My stomach couldn't deal with the process of breaking down and digesting because that was what my broken heart was currently doing to my soul.

"I'm not hungry, Deacon" my weak voice was hoarse and raspy from crying so long. I couldn't let anyone see me like this, especially him.

I heard him sigh through the door and then the sound of metal jingling before my door popped open. I sat up gaping at him as he walked in with a warm smile, plate in one hand.

"Figured you'd say that, but Dad wants you to eat. He said it's an order." He sat the plate on the nightstand and sat beside me on the bed. I knew I looked and smelled awful, I hadn't been out of my room to even shower in three days.

"Don't look at me like that, Dan." I glared at his sky blue eyes, which were almost identical to his brother's.

He frowned. "Like what?"

"Like everyone else who sees me looks at me- with pity. Don't feel sorry for me, Dan, not you. I don't want your pity." I felt a tear slide down my cheek. You'd think I'd be all cried out by now, but there were always more ... There will always be more.

Dan sighed, taking my face in his hands, forcing Me to look at him. "I don't pity you, Lilly. I am angry at my brother. I'm so angry at him for doing this to you, regardless of him not knowing until it was too late. I'm dealing with trying not to wolf out on him and tear him to pieces because of how this is breaking you. I don't pity you. I pity him. He's the one who messed up and now instead of being happy with my best friend, he's now stuck with the consequences of his decisions. He's missing out on the love of someone so perfect and so special." I was taken aback by his honest words. He wasn't just being nice.

"Thank you." It left my chapped lips in a whisper before he brought me into a big hug, arms locking me into him from behind.

I breathed in the familiar comforting scent, but his scent lingered, layering in between the woven pattern of Dan's own scent. I couldn't help but pull away as my insides clenched.

"You smell like him." Was all I could say.

Dan ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, eyes assessing my form.

"You're wasting away in here Lilly. You need to eat something- maybe take a shower." The pain in his eyes was evident.

"If you want, we can go down to the lake, just me and you, like old times. We can get in the canoe and just go. We can talk, or we can just be silent, but I want you out of this house today."

His tone gave me no room for argument. I knew he was right, but my heart just wasn't into it. All I wanted to do was lay in bed and cry, that's it.

"Eat. Alpha's orders" he pointed at the plate on my nightstand.

I took the plate, eyes scanning over the barbecued ribs.

The same ribs he put on his pregnant female's plate.

"I can't." The tears welled in my eyes once again.

Trying to fight off the distraught loneliness that was crushing me into bits, I covered it back with the foil.

Deacon snatched the plate out of my hands, ripped off the foil and filled a fork with potato salad.

Thank you for not choosing the ribs.

He held the fork to my lips expectantly. Giving into his hardened gaze, I opened my mouth, allowing him to place the food in and I took the bite.

Forcing myself to chew, I felt saliva pool in my mouth as my taste buds relished in the deliciousness of the potato salad with mayo, dill pickles, onion, and celery salt. My favorite.

"Good girl." He grinned without showing his teeth while patting my head.

I managed to swallow and my stomach thanked me. Still tensed up, It managed to let the food settle.

I allowed him to feed me the rest of the potato salad and a few bites of baked beans, refusing the barbecued ribs. My stomach was full, more full than it had been in two weeks.

"Come on, get up and go get a shower. I'll change your sheets and clean up this..." He looked around my room at all the used tissues overflowing the waste basket. "Mess.."

I stood on wobbling legs. My pajama shorts were large on me now and my T-shirt sagged in places that used to be tight. I've lost too much weight being locked away in my room, dying of a broken heart.

I walked into my ensuite, silently thanking the moon that I was fortunate enough to be the beta's daughter. Only the beta's family and the alpha's family had ensuite bathrooms in their rooms. I couldn't stand having to go to the communal shower. I just couldn't cope with the thought of anyone seeing me like this, or seeing the pity in their eyes, it was too much.

Closing the door behind me, I turned on the shower and stripped down, getting into the ice cold water before it had the chance to heat up. I was numb anyway, I didn't even feel the shock.

I sank down to the shower floor and let the sobs wrack my body. Not knowing what the future holds, just knowing the present, it kills me inside. I don't know her, I just know she stole something from me that was supposed to be my happy ending - My life.

She stole my life, and I can't even fight her for him because she's carrying his future, the future that was meant for me.

This was my fate.