Prologue
Dagger
There was a time I might’ve welcomed a mate. Chosen or fated, it wouldn’t have mattered. I would’ve loved her, cherished her the way my father did to my mother. We would’ve marked each other, and that would’ve been it.
But the Moon Goddess liked to fuck with me.
There were no mates for wolves who’d gone rogue. Everyone knew that. We were taught since pups that those who betrayed their pack or were exiled did not deserve their mates. As time went on, I decided I could live without a mate.
Half of the Elders did, so why couldn’t I?
I wasn’t weak. Not anymore, at least. Without a mate, I could’ve ended up like Benny: alone and happy. Or at the very least, content. Satisfied with the outcome of my failures, knowing I would come home to nothing and no one.
It sounded lonely at first, but the longer I was alone, the more I realized I didn’t need anyone. Regardless of what Benny said. Isolation suited me. There was no betrayal, no whining, and I could do as I please. I liked my life as it was. There was nothing that needed to change.
And then there was her. Nothing else, just her presence, and it was suffocating. For ten years, I’d accepted that my life was one of solitude with no mate to drag me down. But now, I had her just within reach. Everything I’d never have was suddenly given to me on a silver platter…
The cruel caveat? If I wanted to keep her, I’d have to break sacred pacts and rules because, again, the Moon Goddess liked to fuck with me.
But fuck the rules. Fuck the sacred pacts.
She was mine.
