Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Mate

Mate.

My hand stilled midair, the dagger hovering inches from my chest, my grip slackening as if the air had been pulled from my lungs. I blinked once. Twice. But the monster looming above me didn’t disappear.

Neither did the word.

Mate.

I’d never heard anything sound more terrifying.

It wasn’t just the way he said it—low and filled with emotions, like it came from somewhere deeper than language. That was what came after. The silence that pressed against my ears, the tremble in my fingers that didn’t come from fear this time. The word didn’t echo aloud again.

But the same word repeated in my head, like confirming that it was all real. Like a secret my body had known long before my mind could name it.

Mate.

I swallowed hard, but the taste of blood and dirt clung to my tongue. My thoughts scattered, trying to make sense of what had just happened and what was still happening. I knew the voice that answered from inside me; it was not my wolf...it was my own.

The wolf loomed over me, chest heaving as if the weight of the forest pressed down on him too. His breath came hot against my skin, stirring the dirt and leaves between us.

He didn’t move at first. Just stood there, massive and silent, his claws sunk deep into the soil on either side of my head. The weight of him kept me pinned to the cold earth, and I could feel every shift in his body, every ragged breath that scraped through his throat.

Then he lowered his head.

His muzzle brushed against my neck—slowly, deliberately—and I went still. The dagger trembled in my grip, caught between instinct and something else I didn’t want to name.

He inhaled, a long, dragging breath that made something in my chest curl inward. It wasn’t just that he was scenting me. It was the way he did it—slow, careful, like he was trying to memorize the pieces of me I no longer knew how to hold together.

Then he growled.

A sound that didn’t come from his throat alone but from somewhere deeper.

"Mate."

savoring the taste of the word on his

a ripple through

But something deeper. Like the faint hum of a current slipping beneath the surface of

collarbone, and I felt it—that jolt. That strange spark where his touch met

along my throat again, pressing into the space between my shoulder and

all I

Even though there was a burst of warmth, there was no sense of safety. Just a hollow ache beneath

me recognized the

word tasted wrong in my mouth.

tale. This wasn’t

the same man who had turned his back when I needed someone most. The same

was dragged to the warriors quarters, and now he was telling me that I

tightened my grip on the dagger, but he was too focused on my scent that

some haze of instinct. His snout brushed my jaw. But it only made me more disgusted. As the shock of the word

off me," I said with my

I screamed at the top

ME! YOU

words tore from my throat like something broken loose. I kicked, shoved, and struggled against his weight. But he

said, my voice shaking with each breath. "I

was still now. Just watching

here?" I asked. "Saying that word? Like it

tears

what they would do with me,

The words were harder

them—" I stopped. Swallowed. Couldn’t

I screamed again. Louder this

make him feel something. feel the pain

I said, quieter now. "You don’t get to have

I heard a low whimper escaping his throat...he recoiled at my words like I had said something that had

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