27/10/2022
Sabrina’s POV
“You look perfect, dear.”
The sound of my dad’s compliment makes me smile at my own reflection in the mirror. My blonde hair is up in elaborate braids, and I put makeup on my face for the first time ever. Dad is right. I do look perfect. My blue eyes twinkle with joy.
And how can they not? Tonight is my eighteenth birthday.
Tonight is also the night where Klaus, the Alpha heir of the Dark Howl Pack, will claim me as his Luna.
“Thank you, Dad,” I beam at him, dabbing on more lipstick. “I want things to be perfect when I go join the Moonshine Ceremony.”
Mom smiles at me and straightens my dress as I face my parents. I still have an hour to go but I want to go out now and get claimed by Klaus.
It’s the tradition for werewolves to find their mates when they turn eighteen, but Klaus and I already had a connection since we were kids. He’s from the leading family and I had to keep my distance then, but we knew early on that we were mates. He’s distant by default, though, but maybe things will change between us.
And everything will be official tonight.
“Do you think he will propose to me?” I ask suddenly.
Dad chokes on his drink. Mom drops the clothes in her hand. I giggle at their reaction, but I can’t help but voice out all the happy thoughts in my head.
“Well, we would be married someday, I’m sure--”
“Um, Sabrina?”
I ignore Dad. “Probably when Alpha Amos passes down the title to him, right? That’s usually when Alpha’s marry their mates--”
“Sabrina, he is--”
“Mom, I know it’s too soon but think about it. Your daughter is going to be the Luna and--”
“Sabrina.”
This time, the voice makes me stop talking. I whip around and my heart almost stops. Standing by the door of my bedroom is no other than Klaus.
He’s already in a suit for tonight’s event. His black hair is slicked back, drawing more attention to his handsome face, particularly his golden eyes. My heart flutters at the sight of him and I smile as wide as I can, but he just looks at my parents and says, “Please, Mr. and Mrs. Carver, give us a moment to talk.”
Mom and Dad exchange glances and bow, nodding at me before exiting the room.
Once alone, I open my arms to invite Klaus for a hug, but he doesn’t move. “Klaus? What’s wrong?”
He turns his cool gaze on me. “I can’t take you as my Luna.”
My blood turns cold. Everything seems to have gone black for a moment. I try to smile and play it off as a joke, but he’s as serious as ever. “But . . . Klaus, we are mates--”
“No,” he simply stated, cutting me off with a calm look.
For some reason, his calm and defeated gaze makes me feel worse than I already do. I would have preferred it if he screamed at me or pushed me. I don’t think I can bear the disappointment emanating from him, especially since I don’t understand.
“Tell me why, then,” I urge him, my desperation making my voice crack. “We’ve always been close. We knew we were mates for four years, Klaus. You can’t just take it back. Did your dad--”
“He has nothing to do with this,” Klaus states, and once again I’m chilled by his tone. “Yes, I knew for four years that we were mates. I tried to understand, believe me. I hoped I was wrong, but that didn’t mean I knew everything about you, about who you are. About what you are.”
I step closer to him. “What am I, then?”
His jaw clenches. “It’s best if you ask your parents or your brother Dylan that question. I’m in no place to answer. Just accept the rejection and I shall let this go.”
“No.” I shake my head, blinking hard to keep my tears at bay. “You’re the one who came here. You explain it to me!”
Klaus stares at me as though considering it, but then he nods briefly and turned around. “Good night, Sabrina.”
That’s it for me, the breaking point. The pain in my chest reaches its crescendo, and I find myself in a daze, marching towards him and pulling him by the arm. He tries to pry my hand off but I hold on and make him face me.
“Look at me and tell me what is going on,” I demand. “Tell me why you’re . . . why you’re rejecting me.”
“I reject you. . . .” Klaus pauses meaningfully. “Because you’re human.”
My hand falls to my side. “What?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Carver found you in a forest because your real parents have abandoned you,” he says simply, his voice emotionless. Careless. “For four years, I have doubted this. I observed you. And I hoped against hope that I was wrong, but I wasn’t. You are a human, and I can never have a human mate.”
Tears flow down my cheeks. I swallow hard, looking at him imploringly, struggling to even beg him to stay. I try to take his hand, but he turns away, his face set.
“But . . . I can make things work.” I feel hot. Delirious. “I can still be a good mate to you. I can still be your partner--”
“You don’t understand,” he interrupts. “I need a Luna more than I need a mate. My father is counting on me to find someone strong and . . . fitting for the title. I’m sorry, Sabrina.”
My heart breaks. One quick snap. I watch in complete utter silence as he walks out of my room and leaves me lying on the floor. My entire body is numb. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how it happened. . . .
He called me a human.
He said my real parents tossed me out.
But Mom and Dad are my real parents. They have to be.
I’m shaking all over. I’m half expecting everything to be a dream, but the sudden burst of happy sounds from outside tells me that everything that happened is real.
Everything seems to be in slow motion as I get up, but then the door opens and my parents enter. My chest tightens. I don’t even know if I should call them that.
“Sabrina?” Mom rushes towards me and touches my face. “We . . . we heard what happened and we want to explain--”
I jerk away from her touch. “So you mean to say that what Klaus said is true? I’m human and you’re not my real parents?”
The look of shame on their faces is enough to tell me the truth.
“So I’m not your child?” I ask them in a quivering voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you are ours!” Dad insists. He tries to hold me. “You are ours, Sabrina, we don’t care what everyone thinks!”
That draws the line for me. I push past them and leave my room, our house, and head into the woods. The sounds and the lights from the ceremony are still reaching me, and for a second I think about making my way there and announcing to everyone how Klaus treated me.
Then again, who will take my word against his?
I should just count myself lucky that he didn’t reject me publicly.
But he still broke my heart, and he did it by simply stating a simple fact: I’m a human and I’ve been lied to my entire life.
And that explains a lot.
I don’t have a wolf. I’ve always been told that I would eventually hear a voice in my head and take on its form, but that never came to me. No wonder trainings are useless for me. No wonder I can never keep up with Klaus and his group, even with my friends.
I never belonged here, and Klaus made that clear.
With tears flooding my eyes, I run as fast as I can, scaling low hills and pushing away low-hanging branches. I know I have to stop eventually because this part of the woods leads to a cliff, but I don’t stop until I reach the edge.
Maybe it would be better if I just leave it all.
Mom and Dad won’t have to deal with the embarrassment of having a human, rejected child. My friends won’t have to be laughed at for being associated with me.
And I won’t have to deal with the pain of knowing that Klaus never loved me. He just wants a strong, respectable Luna.
I stare at the yawning emptiness beyond the edge of the cliff, hearing it calling to me. Feeling it pulling me.
So I take a deep breath and jump.
Klaus’s POV
It was the right thing to do, rejecting Sabrina. But why does it feel like I made a huge mistake?
I begin to second-guess myself the moment I step out of her room. A part of me wants to go back and apologize more, but a bigger part of me is relieved that the job is done. I’ve been dreading this night since I found out, but I can’t have it hovering above me any longer, so I just walk back to our palace.
“Master Klaus,” our maids greet as I enter the doors, and I really wish they didn’t do that because that alerts my dad.
My dad. The great Alpha Amos.
“Klaus,” he calls out to me, appearing at the hallway. He’s also in his suit but his hair looks undone yet. The scar on his left eyebrow is shining under the light. “Where have you been? I was looking for you.”
“What for?” I ask. “I was just out to check the ceremony.”
He and I always had a strained relationship. He wants a strong heir, and a strong Luna to come with it. That is exactly why I had to break it off with Sabrina. He would consider me an outcast if he finds out that my mate is a mere human.
I might not even be crowned as the next Alpha.
Alpha Amos nods and scans me as though trying to detect a lie, but I’m used to this scrutiny so I just stand straight and meet his eyes.
“Well, that is what I wanted to talk to you about, checking the crowd for the ceremony,” he says. “Have you found your mate yet? Tonight should be the night.”
That makes me freeze. Once again my mind flies to the scene where I rejected Sabrina. The hurt in her eyes seems to be embedded in my mind.
“I don’t know her yet,” I tell Dad.
What a lie. I knew from the beginning that Sabrina is my mate before we were even teenagers
But as we grew older, I began to have some doubts.
Every training, she always gets injured. She can’t heal herself. She can’t fight. Her strength and her endurance are almost nonexistent. She can’t outrun any of us, and her parents are supposed to be Betas.
Because of that, I was pushed to observe and investigate. Four years ago, I found out that she was human.
It was a night of camping in the seaside of San Jose. It was she and I, and a couple of our friends. It was supposed to be a fun night filled with laughter and stories around a fire, but then Rogues attacked.
All of us were forced to take on our wolf forms and fight back. We were all supposed to have our wolves then. All of us, except Sabrina, who stood there in fright and almost got mauled by a Rogue because she just wasn’t able to save herself.
And that event was what prompted me to look more closely at her. I found out that her Beta parents just adopted her after finding her in the woods as a baby.
My father will disown me if he found out that that weak orphan is my mate.
I need a mate like my mom. Strong, ferocious, can defend an entire pack all by herself without relying on her Alpha.
Sabrina just isn’t that person.
“I will talk to all the young women in the ceremony tonight, don’t worry,” I assure Alpha Amos, and he smiles tightly at me.
“Well then, if you wish to do that, it would be best to start early,” he tells me, taking my arm and leading me towards the door.
Together, we go out into the courtyard where the ceremony is happening. The moon is already up and bright above us, and my peers are all claiming their mates by asking them for a dance. Still, there are a handful of boys and girls who are standing in the sides, looking confused.
But of course, once we enter, all the girls perk up. They all wave and flash me winks, which I respond to with a polite bow, but my dad shakes his head.
“You can’t expect to find someone in that attitude of yours. Go talk to them.”
With that, he pushes me into a crowd of girls. I force a smile on my face and try to listen as they introduce themselves to me, but I can’t shake off the unsettling feeling in my stomach.
And it doesn’t take me long to find out why I’m feeling like that.
I look up and see Mr. and Mrs. Carver in the distance, both with desperate looks, searching the courtyard. Our eyes meet, and something tells me that things aren’t right.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I say, then I hurry towards them.
“We can’t find her, Master,” Mrs. Carver tells me almost pleadingly. “We’ve been searching the whole house and the whole pack, but we haven’t found her.”
I open my mouth to say something, but then I see Alpha Amos appearing at my side. “What’s wrong?” he asks the couple.
“Our daughter is missing, Alpha.”
My dad nods, and wasting no time, he turns to the crowd and announces, “Has anyone seen Sabrina Carver?” When no one responds, he claps his hands together for attention. “Gather in groups. We shall sweep the woods and find out where the young lady is. There have been rumors about Rogues, so be vigilant.”
My skin grows cold. Rogues? Around this pack? Why haven’t I heard about this before?
I want to confront dad about this, but we have no time for that. Instead, I use the trace of Sabrina’s scent on my suit to follow my own path into the woods.
The others have scattered in groups, and although I know I should be there for her parents, I opt to search alone to avoid any kind of suspicion. I don’t want anyone to find out that Sabrina is my mate.
But this grows to be more and more irrelevant as the night wears on.
Hours and hours. I spend all my time and sharpen my senses to get even a small trace of her, but the path I’m following is faint, almost gone.
With my heart sinking lower every moment, I continue my search until I find the end of her scent at the cliff.
And there at the very edge, caught in one of the sharp shards of stone, is a sliver of blue fabric.
The fabric of the dress Sabrina wore tonight.
No. This can't be.
I blink a couple of times to make sure I'm seeing the fabric correctly. My pulse is racing so fast that I have to pant just to catch my breath. I want to reach down and take the strip of fabric, but it's too far down.
Which only means one thing.
Sabrina jumped off this cliff.
My hands start to shake. I fall to my knees, the pain in my chest too much to bear.
This is all my fault. She jumped because I didn't take it easy. Because I didn't bother to explain. I just told her what I thought she needed to hear, with no regard to her feelings. Even though she's been my friend for the longest time. Even though she's my mate.
But maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe she's still here somewhere and my human form isn't doing its best in tracking her scent.
I step away from the cliff and take a deep breath, channeling my wolf, Thunder. Slowly, he takes over, transforming my body into a majestic black wolf with golden eyes.
We can track scents better as wolves, and we have the ability to know where the scents end. I sniff around in my wolf form, trying to track the scent, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of the cliff.
"She's gone," Thunder whispers in my head. "I can't smell her scent any farther. She's dead."
"She can't be. . . ."
Pain racks up my body in the most intense way I never knew before. I want to let it out and scream at the top of my lungs, but the thing that escapes my lips is a long and mournful howl.
Soon enough, the whole forest is echoing with howls. They heard my message and they know now that we have lost a member.
But it’s incomparable to the pain I have knowing I lost my mate.
Heavy footfalls suddenly appear behind me. I turn around and immediately recognize the wolf form of Sabrina’s brother, Mr. and Mrs. Carver’s real son, Dylan. He doesn’t speak to me, but I can feel his pain.
Mr. and Mrs. Carver soon appear as well, including Sabrina’s friends, Cindy and Riley. They all look at me for answers, but I can only look at the cliff to signal what they probably already know.
“Is the girl nowhere to be found?”
The booming authoritative voice shakes up the forest. It’s Alpha Amos. He is in his human form, but everyone bows at his presence.
“Everyone, please return to your homes for safety,” he announces. “We will be updating you about the status of Sabrina Carver.”
Everybody leaves, their footsteps shaking the ground until I’m left standing face to face with my father.
“Are you sure you don’t know what happened to this girl?” he asks in a low voice.
I shift back into my human form. “No. I have no clue.”
“Very well.” Alpha Amos stares at me meaningfully. “We should find Sabrina Carver if we are not to delay your crowning ceremony. If not, I’m afraid you will have to wait.”
* * *
Sabrina’s POV
The moment my feet leave the ground, I feel free. Free from bad thoughts. Free from pain.
All I can feel is the rushing wind in my ears as gravity takes hold of me and begins to pull me down. I close my eyes, waiting for the thud and the greatest pain that will end it all. I feel myself getting closer and closer to the water. I wait for the impact. Any moment now. . . .
But the impact doesn’t come.
Splash. My body sinks into the bottom of the river as I expected, but I feel no type of pain. It seems that my body isn’t even here. I just hear the water splashing around me, and I gasp, which causes the water to pool in my mouth.
Maybe this is how I’m going to die. Not by the impact of falling, but by drowning.
But I do have to wonder why I wasn’t hurt by falling at all.
Still, that’s something I don’t have to worry about now. The raging waters in this river will surely finish the job.
Another massive push from the water hits my body and pushes me farther under. My feet are now touching the riverbed. I let go and let myself get carried under, but then a strange wave hits and suddenly I’m starting to float.
What’s happening? Why am I being carried to the surface?
Panic seizes me and I start to thrash around, but that only propels me closer to the surface of the water until I find myself washed on the side of the river.
I cough, letting all the murky water flow out of me. I look around and find that I’m so far away from camp. I don’t even know where I am now.
But I’m still alive.
Shaking my head and spitting out the rest of the dirty water, I lift myself on the ground and start to head to the woods, but then I stop in my tracks.
There are men approaching me. I can hear more behind me, at the other side of the river, and even farther inland. It seems that they are all hiding behind the big trees, scouting, and it just so happened that they found me. I can see their eyes glinting under the moonlight, smart and sharp.
My legs are jelly. I don’t know what to do. I want to run or maybe jump back in the river and get carried by the current, but I know that one wrong move will get me in trouble.
Swallowing hard even with the grit in my mouth, I raise my hands in surrender. But before I can even lift my arms, the men before me bust out of the woods and press their spears against my neck.
“NO!” I yell in fright. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Silence, Rogue!” the man in front commands. “What are you doing in our territory?”
“Wh-what?” I stammer. “No, you must be mistaken. I’m not a Rogue, I just fell into the river. Please, please don’t hurt me. I can go. I’ll leave, please. . . .”
That doesn’t take any effect. They press the spears closer, and I can feel the cold tip poking at my skin, an ounce of force away from decapitating me.
The man huffs, lighting up a torch and bringing it close to examine my face. I flinch and close my eyes because of the sudden brightness. I hear him gasp.
“This is impossible,” he whispers, then he turns to the other warriors. “Lower your weapons!”
The spears get brought away from my neck, and relief floods me. I open my eyes to see if they backed away, but I only end up face to face with the man in the middle.
And he looks astounded. Almost horrified. I want to ask what’s wrong but I don’t want to risk it.
He turns back to his men. “Call the King. Tell them we found her.”
“Found who?” I blurt out, my fear coming back in full force. “Who?”
He doesn’t say anything, but one of them runs as fast as he can. I’m shivering full on now, and something strange is happening with my body. I don’t know if it’s just the fear, but I feel feverish and anxious, like something horrible is about to happen.
I step back, hoping to get carried down by the river but the man grabs my arm and puts me in place. I whimper, opening my mouth to plead with him to let me go, but then a really tall man suddenly bursts out of the clearing. His face gets illuminated by the fire.
And my heart stops.
He looks like . . . me.
Same blond hair. Same blue eyes. Even the same frown line between our eyebrows.
I start to shake in my spot. My body is starting to get weak. Am I dreaming? Has this day finally taken its toll on me and given me hallucinations?
Shaking from head to toe, I back away from him. He holds out his hand and signals the men to stay behind, but he himself continues to walk closer to me.
“Leave me alone,” I tell him, but my voice is so shaky that it’s no use. Nausea is rising up my throat and my vision is starting to spin. “Stay back and don’t come any closer.”
He doesn’t listen to me. He keeps getting closer. “Don’t fret. I will never hurt you. I’m just happy I finally found you. The scent . . . it tells me everything I need to know. You finally made it back to me.”
“No.” Black spots begin to dance in my eyes. I stumble back, and a wave of weakness overcomes my body. “I don’t. . . .”
The rest of my words vanish when my entire body goes slack. I’m fainting, and I know I will lose any kind of sensation any second now.
But the last thing I feel is the man catching me.
“Welcome home,” he whispers. “My daughter.”
GP： https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wonder.shero
