Kasan’s POV:
There are three things that I hate the most in this world: My father, my mother and…. myself.
I’ve always had no control over my anger ever since I was young. While others feared what I would do if I was pushed too far, my father however, was ecstatic…. or should I say proud. Kenley was nothing more than naive child and as the oldest, I was the one who was trained to inherit his position. I didn’t know why but I liked the idea of giving orders and looming over others, so to say I was happy was an understatement.
Things only started to get out of hand when I had taken a few of my brawls too far. Father started doubting both my sanity and my ability to lead while my mother started to avoid communicating with me.
Henceforth, Kenley became their new hope and joy.
I was angry, but after a while, I honestly didn’t mind. I couldn’t hate my brother for stealing something he didn’t ask for anyway…. especially since he was now the only one who didn’t treat me like I was some kind of monster.
Soon, it all came to the point where mom didn’t talk to me at all and father only spared me attention when he was in a really really good mood.
It was on a full moon that I shifted for the very first time. My parents and brother had gone out and I was left sitting alone at home like some sort of prisoner.
Young wolves tend to shift between the ages of 10-18, though there are some who are late bloomers and some who evolve extraordinarily fast. Knowing that, my mother never ever mentioned to me that I was a werewolf. Not until that night when they entered the house and saw me sprawled out on the floor… my bones cracking one by one and fur dispersing over my skin.
Dad and Kenley looked utterly petrified but mom wasn’t surprised at all… it looked more like she was both inconvenienced and worried, not for me but for herself.
I knew it then that she had expected this…. probably not at that moment, but she did expect it nonetheless.
Angry words and hopeful confessions were instantly shared between my parents but I was in too much pain to even try to understand their chattering. The world around me became blood red and my insides felt as if they were being ripped through my flesh. Sounds from both near and far away seemed like they were beating against my eardrums and even my consciousness felt like it wasn’t mine. I couldn’t even feel my own body much less control it.
It was only at the sound of loud gunshots that I was finally able to see through the crimson red that clouded my vision. When I looked around, the whole place was nothing but a crumbling mess. Furnitures were overturned and sprawled across the room were also dozens of bodies…. my mother was one of such.
Her black hair was longer than I knew it to be, her canines were protruding through her lips and her nails had grown into claws… but despite that appearance, I knew it was my mother who was lying there lifeless with a prominent hole through her chest… and I also knew that father was the one who had pulled the trigger.
It took all that to finally realize why mother had begun avoiding me after noticing my inhuman traits…. Simply put, she already knew the havoc that I would cause.
My life suddenly turned upside down and in the end, I found myself hating my mother for not explaining a single thing to me, my dad for treating us like bloodthirsty monsters and humans for burning bonds so fucking easily.
That night, I made a firm promise to refrain from involving myself any further with humans… every single one of them. But when a battered girl came running my way, I couldn’t bring myself to just leave her to die…. especially when she was being hunted by another of my kind.
At first, she was scared, but the moment we fled the forest and into an abandoned building at the outskirts of the town, she gradually calmed down. We stayed for several days, hungry and barely gasping for breath. But within that little time, she had become one of the few humans that I didn’t want to let go of.
…. She was an exception.
We were like siblings at that point. While I scraped the forest for food and stayed on the lookout, she took the risk of stealing clothes and essentials from any store she could find on foot.
But when I least expected it, she disappeared in the middle of the night. Her familiar scent as well as the scent of another was present there when I woke up, but no matter how far I followed, I never caught up to them.
The only thing left of her was the necklace she had always been clutching close to her chest.
Again… another bond had been burnt.
It took days to find others like me and years to become their ‘ruthless’ Alpha as well as the ‘devil’ mafia lord.
Little by little, I got to know more of myself, more of what I could do and more about the mysteries of mates…
However, no matter how important they labelled a werewolf’s mate as, I didn’t want to leave it all up to fate.
Instead of the shitty human that the goddess had made for me, I wanted to be able to chose who I mated… and if given the chance to do so, that particular person would be Clara; my only exception.
Even if she was human, I wanted her by my side.
I took my time searching, years after years. And just when I was mature enough to finally give up on my childish fantasies, I found that the very person I was searching for… was my mate.
In that moment, I thought…. ‘luck is definitely working in my favor’.
But looking at the situation as it is now, I guess I was wrong.
Now that she knew my darkest secret, I had no choice but to explain everything the simplest I could: why I became an alpha, why my father is my enemy, why we’re bonded, why she’s being targeted and why I’m not completely human. I carefully excluded anything that included our first meeting, because to me, it wouldn’t change a thing.
Throughout it all, I doubt that Clara even absorbed much. Her eyes kept darting over the room, skimming across each of our faces one by one and within her small blue eyes laid not a single visible emotion… and her expression gave away absolutely nothing.
What was she thinking? I couldn’t tell.
But every now and then, she kept pulling the duvet further up her body and shifting every two seconds against the bedhead. She was uncomfortable… that much was obvious.
My lips curled into a small, miserable smile.
I bet if she still had her rifle, things wouldn’t have been this peaceful. Afterall, it’s only natural for humans to kill whatever they fear.
I dropped my head in my hands with languid movements and sighed. “Since Kenley is the only human here, you can a–”
“Kasan.”
I stiffened.
This time around, the sound of my name on her tongue didn’t bring the same euphoric feeling as it always did. Instead, my veins swelled beneath my skin and my heart beats accelerated, sending jolts of pain through my being each time it drummed against my rib cage.
This is… the pain of a possibly impending rejection.
“Is that why you did all that when we first met?… because we’re ‘mates’?”
I looked up at her from the small stool I was sitting on, the short movement making me feel as if my skin was being pealed off my bones.
She stared stoically into my eyes without the slightest twitch of her lids and her lips were pursed tightly together, only parting occasionally to let out a few heavy puffs of air.
Is that a sign of anger?
Her expression remained the same, except for the brief wince when she moved her bandaged shoulder. My wolf was still restless at the sight of the injury, but I pushed him to the farthest depths of my mind. Letting him override any of my consciousness again would only make this harder than it already is.
“Once I found you, I couldn’t simply ignore your existence. I wanted you under my nose, but with your personality, I had to take things further than planned.”
“Further than planned? You mean threatening my parents? And forcing me to stay with you?” Her voice was cold, but along with those words came a round of emotions flashing across her blue orbs: anger, confusion, worry, fear…
The way she said those words stung.
It seemed as if she was seeking to find my faults, and it hurts to know that I don’t even know how to appease my own mate.
What does she want me to say?
“Why didn’t you tell me all this?”
She ran a hand through her hair, her fingers almost pulling out the strands. I wanted to say something, or atleast stop her from hurting herself, but I stayed still and entwinned my fingers under my chin, clenching them together. The wrong words could reward me with a solid rejection.
“Nevermind, don’t answer that.” She shook her head, her fingers still ruthlessly pulling at her hair. I sucked in a breath but it did nothing to calm my nerves.
“I should’ve known from the moment I found out Lucas joined you and your goons when he disappeared. He wasn’t all that interested in gangs and neither was he interested in making friends. I should’ve guessed that you all were of the same kind.”
… What?
“Lucas….? You knew?”
Her parents claimed to be not have known, but now that I think about it, why did I also assume she knew nothing about her brother being a werewolf?
“You… are all werewolves like that? Violent? Why would you hurt Nate back there? What did he do for you to beat him half to death?”
Was that her attempt at changing the subject?
“He’s unreliable if a little wolvesbane knocks him out cold. He deserved that and more.”
“Then what about me?” She fired, conflicted blue eyes searching my very soul. “If I… If I ever made a mistake, would I receive the same treatment?”
To that, there was one simple answer… but my lips refused to move. The course of our conversation made it crystal clear what exactly she thought of me.
Even though it’s fair to say that her mutt sibling played a part in all the shit swirling in her head… the words still pierced me.
“I’m surprised you’d ask me that after you’ve been with me for this long and still unharmed.” I clenched my jaw, my teeth gritting behind my lips. “But no, I would never harm you Clara.”
Without waiting for another unfavorable response, I waved my hand and sluggishly got up from the stool, signaling for the others to file out of the room.
This place is getting suffocating…