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Fated to My Forbidden Alpha – Episode 08
Selene woke on her eighteenth birthday to a room she barely recognized. Paper moons hung unevenly across one wall, three small gifts rested beside a frosted cake, and a handful of candles stood ready on the table. The kitchen servants had decorated after she fell asleep, offering a quiet kindness no one in the Alpha wing would ever notice.
She should have been touched. Instead, Selene sat on the edge of her narrow bed and stared past everything they had prepared. One parcel contained warm gloves, another a blue ribbon, and the third a secondhand book she had once admired in the kitchen. The modest gifts proved someone had noticed her, but fear made gratitude difficult to reach. Eighteen was the birthday every young wolf anticipated, the threshold between waiting and becoming. For her, it carried the threat of final proof that nothing lived beneath her human skin.
Morning passed without a shift. No bones broke, no senses sharpened, and no wolf announced herself. Selene touched one of the paper moons, forcing down disappointment. Perhaps everyone had been right; perhaps the strange voice in the forest was only hope pretending to be real.
Warmth spread through her chest before the thought finished. It moved slowly this time, not painful but deliberate, like a hand reaching through darkness. Then a female voice spoke inside her mind with unmistakable affection. Selene… it’s me.
Selene rose so quickly that the bed frame scraped the floor. “Who’s there?” She searched the room, though some instinct already understood the voice had not come through the door or window.
My name is Lyla. I’m your wolf. The presence unfolded through Selene’s consciousness—comforting, familiar, and far more powerful than the fragile creature Blood Moon expected her to possess. Selene felt impressions that were not quite images: silver fur running beneath an open moon, ancient magic folded around a guarded heart, and claws strong enough to split earth. Whatever Lyla was, she had never been weak.
“My wolf?” Selene whispered. Her knees weakened, and she sank back onto the bed with one hand over her racing heart. She had imagined this moment for years, but never the intimate shock of discovering she had never truly been alone.
I’ve always been here, Lyla told her. I had to wait until you were ready to hear me. Memories of silver light and a second heartbeat rushed through Selene. Joy rose first, brilliant and almost painful, followed by anger at every person who had called her broken.
“You’re real.” Tears blurred the little cake across the room. Every insult she had swallowed seemed to loosen at once, and a laugh escaped through her tears before she could stop it. Lyla’s warmth wrapped around her like a cloak. Real, she confirmed, but there is something you must know before tonight.
Selene felt the wolf’s concern and knew what subject waited between them. “Our mate?” Even forming the word frightened her. Every wolf was taught that the bond was a blessing, but Selene had learned blessings were rarely distributed fairly.
We have a mate, Lyla said. He is here in Blood Moon. Selene’s breath caught. Faces flashed through her mind—warriors, servants, strangers preparing for the celebration—until Lyla spoke the name that stopped every thought.
Jackson Richford. Alpha of Blood Moon.
“No.” Selene stood again, shaking her head as if she could physically dislodge the truth. “That can’t be possible. Jackson despises me. He humiliates me, orders me around, and lets this pack treat me like dirt.”
The bond does not measure kindness, Lyla answered softly. It recognizes what fate forged. I sensed him years ago, but you could not feel the connection before I awakened. He has known, Selene. He has been hiding it.
That revelation wounded more deeply than the bond itself. Selene remembered Jackson asking about her birthday, his attention in the office, and the possessive anger that appeared whenever someone hurt her. She remembered punishments that had stopped without explanation and cruel incidents Jackson pretended not to notice until they threatened to become serious. Pieces that once seemed contradictory settled into a pattern she hated. He had protected his secret, not her dignity.
“He knew and still treated me that way?” Her hands curled into fists. Any secret hope that a mate might finally offer belonging curdled into disgust. “I don’t want him. The Goddess can’t force me to love a man who chose cruelty.”
No, Lyla said, strength entering her voice. Fate creates a bond. It does not erase your will. Relief barely touched Selene before the wolf continued. But prepare yourself. Jackson intends to reject us.
Selene went still. “Reject us?” Rejection severed a sacred connection through ritual words, inflicting pain that could scar both wolf and human. Some rejected wolves never shifted properly again; others carried a hollow ache for the rest of their lives. Jackson had denied her dignity for years, yet knowing he considered her unworthy even as his fated mate opened an old, familiar wound. Fate had offered belonging only for him to turn it into another humiliation.
You will see his choice for yourself, Lyla told her. The bond is real whether he honors it or not. Selene paced the room, anger wrestling with humiliation. She wanted to call the entire experience a dream, but Jackson’s scent already seemed clearer through the walls.
She crossed to the small mirror beside her wardrobe. Silver briefly circled her dark pupils, and the frightened servant in the glass looked back with an unfamiliar steadiness. “If he rejects us, will we survive?” Selene asked. Lyla’s answer came without hesitation. Yes. It will hurt, but he is not the source of our strength.
