Chapter 3

Mora

My heart is racing as the door opens and Dad comes inside, heading straight for me and Mom. I can’t quite stop the shakes as they race through my body.

“You’re okay, honey,” Dad promises, lifting me onto his lap, hugging me as tight as he likely dares. My body doesn’t ache quite as much as it did earlier today, and amazingly, I can even lift my left arm up to hug him back.

“What’s going on?” Sammy asks him, as he and Mom share a look. “I can put Mora in the car and get us out of here before he gets back.”

“No, he’ll just follow and when he finds you…” Dad stops, his tone making me shake further. “He won’t hurt you honey but the rest of us wouldn’t fare so well.”

“I don’t understand,” I state looking between my parents.

“He’s your mate, Mora,” Mom says, and I shake my head not believing it for a second, not wanting it either.

“No, no he’s not.”

“Look at your leg, honey,” Dad says, drawing my attention down to it finally. It’s not bleeding any longer, there’s not even a mark on it, bringing my eyes back up to his in question. “Only a parent—shiften blood parent, or mate can heal someone, especially someone hurt as badly as you were. I was suspicious when he didn’t take the final blow after you called out and his fixation on you, but when I saw your leg after he bathed it, I knew. You’re his mate, honey, but the fear flowing through you is likely keeping you from feeling it in return.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re actually going to let her go to that…that…”

“Block of monstrous ice,” Sammy finished for Ryan bringing my attention over to them in further wonder.

“You know him?” I ask, studying their faces. All of them beyond Mom seems aware of something and I want, or perhaps rather, need to know what.

“I’m sure he’ll be different with you, Mora. You’re his mate, it makes a difference,” Dad says, but that’s not at all comforting.

“Different from what?” I ask, repeating it when they don’t speak. “Different from what? Who is he?”

“Cole Arthurian, alpha of the Glacial Mount Pack,” Dad finally answers, making my breath stall entirely in my chest.

“Glacial Mount? As in the pack that lives in the coldest part of the Alaskan mountains and has killed everyone they’ve come across that doesn’t follow his rule?” I thought it was stupid to have a class that was only about the other packs and current events. It seemed absolutely pointless for me to participate in it because I wasn’t one of them really and now…now, I desperately wish I knew nothing about the monster that thinks he owns me.

“Yes,” Dad says, a grimace on his face. “This isn’t the match we hoped for you to find, but it is the one we have to face. We should be thankful that he’s accepting of the match, there are plenty of others in his position that would reject a human mate. That he’s willing to accept it, is already possessive and protective over you, means that he abides by the Mother’s beliefs.”

“No. I won’t do it,” I state, trying to get up, get away from them, from all of this.

“I know it’s scary, and you may not feel it right now, but sweetie,” Mom says, turning me toface her. “You do not want to give up your true mate. The connection you’ll feel with him is beyond anything you could possibly find with someone else, even a human. There will be a hole that you’ll never be able to fill if you turn your back on him.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want a mate, especially not some absolute brute like him,” I argue.

“I don’t think he’s going to accept a rejection, honey,” Dad warns. “If you try to leave, he will follow. From what I know of him, you won’t be able to hide anywhere. He will find you and push for you to accept his claim.”

“You’re honestly telling me I have no say in this? That even though I don’t want this, I have to?” I ask them, amazed they’d begin to make me do something this insane with a man of his reputation.

“You will want it, sweetie, if you just give it a chance. The Mother creates matches that will please both sides beyond your wildest imagination,” Mom says gently, but I can’t do it. I won’t.

“No…why would he even want me? I’d be nothing but a liability to someone like him,” I counter, hoping to get them on my side, help me get away from him, from all of this.

“The Mother knows what she’s doing when she creates matches. It may not make sense on paper, but soon it will, Mora,” Dad states and I bury my face in my hands. “Right now, just rest. Your mom will pack you some things. We’ll bring the rest with us. Sammy, I want you to go with them. Whether he likes it or not, we’re all coming but it will take us some time to get everything packed up. I want someone with your sister to keep an eye on the rest of his pack until we can get there. I may not have fears that he’ll harm her, but I don’t trust the rest of his pack.”

“Does he know we’re all going to be joining him?” Mom asks, stopping at the doorway with Sammy.

“Not yet, but if he wants Mora as his mate, then he’s going to have to accept us all. I will not let her be that far away from us. Not ever,” Dad says, hugging me as they leave the space, pulling a sigh from me.

“Look on the bright side, Sis,” Denny says with a chuckle. “At least you’ll never be hurt again. Pretty sure he’d kill anyone if they tried to come after you. I mean hell, he was ready to kill Sammy and Ryan before he knew we were your brothers.”

“Plus, he did take out the alpha scum,” Henry adds, and a shudder runs through me recalling the savagery that entailed. I’m not sad that Mark and Tyler are both dead. They deserved to die, but I can’t begin to imagine what that monster will do to me if he learns the truth of why I wouldn’t go near the packhouse.

There will be no hiding it if he gets close enough to…god I can’t even think of that happening with him. With anyone really, but especially someone as cold as he is.

I wanted out of this life. Away from shifters that let their emotions lead them. Let their wildness lead them. I did not agree to become some ice-cold brute’s mate. I will never agree to that, want that.

I want to go back to the morning of graduation and never attend it, never have that attack happen, landing me here still. If I wasn’t here, then that monster couldn’t have found me today. He’d have taken out the scum still most likely, but I wouldn’t have been caught up in this insanity if I weren’t here.

Then he’d have moved onto Dad and the boys.

The thought floats through my mind and ice floods my body. My vision becomes hazy, and my breathing tightens, panic filling me entirely.

That monster was about to kill Dad as it was. If he only stopped because I screamed, was in pain at the idea of losing Dad and I refuse to be his…

No, I won’t think about that right now. I can’t.

I am not going to become his mate. Never.

I’ll go with him today because there’s clearly no fighting that part, but as soon as I can, I’ll convince Dad that I’m not able to be that monster’s mate, and hope that he’ll get us out of there.

I know Sammy and Ryan will do it if I beg them to. They’re smart enough that we could evade even Cole Arthurian long enough for me to get somewhere safe. Then Sammy and Ryan can go back for the others.

That’s the only thing that gets me to move from my spot when Mom comes back with new clothes for me. The hope that I can get away from the brute as soon as possible, be free of shifters entirely—beyond my family at least.

“How does your leg feel?” Dad asks as he helps me stand.

“Better but that doesn’t mean I believe that he’s…”

“Once you’ve rested, calmed down, you’ll understand, sweetie,” Mom says, stopping me from arguing that he’s not my mate. “I’m sure he’ll give you time to settle in, finish healing before he tries anything else again. At that point, you’ll see. You’ll realize how fast you can fall for someone, for them to become everything to you,” she adds, helping me change into a new set of comfortable clothes.

They’re nothing fancy, not even compared to what I would have worn to school before all this happened. It’s just a pair of bootcut yoga pants, a bralette, tank top, and cardigan. And despite the warmth of the day still lingering, she helps me with a pair of fuzzy slipper boots before giving me a warm hug.

“I swore I was going to lose everything today,” she whispers to me, holding onto the back of my head. “You, your dad, the boys…I love you so much. I never want to feel like that again, and while he may seem like a bad match, what I saw from him today…he’s not. He didn’t realize you were our daughter at first, I can see that now.”

“What?” I ask, confused still as to how she could think that monster could possibly be a good mate.

“He didn’t like the boys near you because he could tell you were his and they were shifters, unlike you. He didn’t know that you were just mine biologically and that’s why you’re human and your brothers aren’t, why they were so protective of you. I’m sure he thought they were trying to take you away from him. Shifters don’t like other men near their mates, especially not alphas. They can be hotheaded but they’re the most loyal to their mates,” Mom adds and my brow lifts in surprise. “You wouldn’t know that from what you saw here since you were never around other alpha couples. Anna wasn’t Alpha Thomas’ true mate. Your father said he rejected his fated mate because she wasn’t a full blood. It was when they were young, long before he found us. Years after he rejected his real mate, he chose Anna as a mate, but she didn’t matter to him. When she died…he went on as though it was nothing. Most of the pack didn’t approve of that but they were too afraid to say anything about it. Your father wasn’t and that’s what widened the rift between them.”

That explains how Thomas just went to work the day after Anna died. It didn’t make sense to me considering how worried Dad would be if Mom were simply sick with the slightest thing. But it still doesn’t change my mind. The first chance I get, I’m getting as far away from that monster as I possibly can.

I’m not about to let him take out that savagery of his on me if the truth comes out. I won’t live worrying that someone’s going to hurt me that way or try to kill me again. I hope in the human world, I can keep to myself without everyone asking why. They won’t know that I’m terrified to sleep in the dark, to close my eyes because I know there are monsters out there that are ready to attack at any moment.

I can’t do that with my family—at least not entirely. They only know the top layers of my terror. They don’t have a clue the ones I’ve kept hidden for the last two years. I never want them to know that because there’s nothing, they can do to help make it better. No one can.