KARA
'I shouldn't have come.'
The thoughts kept repeating in my mind as I watched people having fun. Some dancing, others engaged in alcohol and other stuff that made me not feel like I belonged here, but still, I needed to be here. Jackson wanted me to come because tonight was meant to be the night we would truly become one, and that's what matters to me right now.
The longing to finally become his mate forever.
I was lost in thought when it suddenly hit me, an excruciating pain scorching through my body. I felt my knees almost giving out as the pain took over my entire body. My hand clutching my chest as the excruciating pain tore through the mate bond. Around m,e, bodies kept moving to the beat of the music, oblivious to the fact that I was dying inside.
What the hell?
What the fuck is going on with me?
This wasn't normal because the bond with Jackson was supposed to feel warm and comforting, like my safe haven, but this… this was all wrong. This felt like betrayal wrapped in thorns, shredding me from the inside.
Another wave crashed over me, and I gasped. My wolf, Alia, was howling in pain and distress.
It suddenly struck me that something was wrong, something was very, very wrong.
My eyes scanned the crowd, desperately searching for Jackson because he had told me he would meet here in ten minutes, but it was more than ten minutes and I couldn't see his tall frame anywhere in the pack clearing.
The bonfire party was in full swing, wolves from our pack and neighbouring territories were drinking, dancing and celebrating the full party, and Jackson had organised it all to surprise me, and yet he was nowhere to be seen.
The mate bond pulled, tugging me away from the party, far away from thr light and laughter and deeper into the dark woods.
'No, please, no… please don't let it be what I'm thinking', I kept praying as my legs moved on autopilot, carrying me away from the safety of numbers.
Tears already blurred my vision because somewhere deep down in my head, I knew what I was going to find, and deep down, I wished it was just an instinct.
I stumbled through the underbush, following the bind that now felt like a strap around my neck. Branches tore at my new dress, the one I had bought specially for tonight because Jackson had said it made me look beautiful, but now `i doubted that it was true because I wasn't feeling anything anymore.
The pain intensified with every step I took, and so did the sounds I heard earlier.
Moaning, grunting and skin slapping against skin, and I felt my breath caught up in my throat. A part of me hoped and prayed that I was wrong and that it might be some people from our pack or neighbouring pack making out in the woods, but reality struck when I came face to face with my worst nightmare.
Jackson had Nadia pressed against a tree, her legs wrapped around his waist, her perfectly manicured nails raking down his back as he pounded into her with brutal intensity. Her head flung back in ecstasy, her mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure.
His best friend… his fucking best friend.
"Jackson," I whispered, but the word came out strangled.
They didn't hear me, they didn't stop. He gripped her hips, the same way he had gripped mine just two nights ago when I had given him my virginity, when I had trusted him with everything I had.
"Fuck, Nadia," Jackson groaned, his voice thickened with pleasure, "you fucking feel so much better than her."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
"Told… you," Nadia said between moans, "that little virgin didn't know what the fuck she was doing. She probably just lay there like a dead fish while you did all the work."
They both laughed while Jackson's dick was buried deep inside her.
Alia snarled, desperate to tear them both apart, but I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't do anything but stand there and watch my mate… my supposed mate fuck his best friend while mocking me.
"Goddess, the sounds she made," Jackson continued, his rhythm never faltering, "like a Whiny little purple, so fucking annoying."
"And she actually believed you loved her," Nadia added with a cruel giggle, "she fucking believed you when you said I was just your friend. Stupid bitch."
"She was easy," Jackson grunted, "desperate for attention, for someone to want her. The alpha's overlooked stepdaughter, so grateful that someone finally noticed her."
Each word was like a dagger, twisting deeper into my chest.
"How much longer are you going to string her along?" Nadia asked, tightening her legs around him.
"I don't know, she is getting way too clingy. All that 'I love you' bullshit," he thrust harder, making Nadia cry out, "but she is so pathetically devoted, it's almost sad, she would probably let me do anything to her."
"Use her and lose her," Nadia suggested breathlessly, "That's what she deserves for thinking she could keep someone like you."
A twig snapped under my foot, and Jackson's head turned to my direction, his eyes locking with mine and for a split second… just one… I thought `i saw guilt flash across his face, but then he smirked. He actually fucking smirked at me while still buried inside Nadia.
"Kara," he drawled, slowly pulling out and setting Nadia down, neither of them bothered to cover themselves up, "I didn't expect you to find us so soon. We were hoping to go a few more rounds first."
Nadia turned to face me, adjusting her dishevelled hair with a satisfied smile, "oh good, I was wondering when you would figure it out. Jackson and I had a bet. I told him you would catch on within a week, but he said you were too stupid to notice, and I guess he was right after all."
My throat closed up. I couldn't speak; everything was happening so fast that I couldn't process it.
"Awwn, look," Jackson said while pulling on his jeans with calm, "she is going to cry… that's so adorable."
"How long?" I finally choked out.
"How long have we been fucking?" Nadia laughed, "Since before he even noticed you existed, sweetie. You were just… entertainment."
Jackson walked towards me, and I stumbled backwards… too slow because he caught my arm with a tight grip, and I whimpered in pain.
"Let me spell it out for you since you are clearly too dense to get it," he said, his voice dripping with disdain, "you were a mere game… a bet, actually. Nadia bet me that I couldn't seduce the Alpha's weird stepdaughter and take her virginity within a month, and I fucking did it in three weeks," jackson said boldly and I could feel thr ground tilted beneath my feet.
"T-the mate bond? W-what about the mate bond?" I whispered.
"Fake," he shrugged, "I mean, you are not actually my mate, Kara. i just told you that so you would spread your legs faster, and it worked like a charm."
Nadia leaned over, her nakedness on full display, "You should have seen your face when he said he loved you. So fucking trusting, damn so naive, and you made us laugh about it for weeks. You are fun to play games with, and I would love to do it again another time," she added.
"All those sweet texts? Copy-pasted from the internet," Jackson chipped in, "the dates? Forced as hell. The sex? Honestly, the worst I have ever had. You fucking lay there like you didn't know what to do, which, let's be real, you didn't."
"Please," I breathed, tears streaming down my face, "please, stop."
"Why? You need to hear this," Nadia said, circling me like a predator, "you need to understand that you were never special, and never really wanted. You are just the awkward little girl playing dress-up in a world where you don't belong."
"And your stepbrothers only tolerate you because they have to," Jackson continued, "the pack thinks you are a joke, and me? I got exactly what `i wanted from you, and now I am done," he said before releasing my arm and stepping back, his expression turning cold.
"I, Jackson Miller of the Nixon pack, reject you, Kara William,s as my mate."
Even though the bond was fake, the words carried weight, the magical declaration severed whatever connection we had built, real or imagined, and the pain was excruciating, and I collapsed to my knees, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
"Oh, and Kara?" Naida crouched down to my level, her smile vicious, "The whole pack is going to know by tomorrow morning about how the desperate little stepdaughter got played by Jackson and how she gave it up so easily for someone who never gave a shit about her."
Their laughter echoed through the clearing as I knelt there on the ground, broken, bleeding and utterly destroyed.
I didn't know how long I stayed like that; it could have been minutes or hours, but eventually my survival instinct kicked in, and I stood up, forcing my shaking legs to move and eventually bursting into a run.
I ran blindly, stumbling and falling and getting up again as tears streamed down my face, branches tearing at my skin and clothes. I didn't care about the pain from the cuts; all that haunted me down was their words as it chased me through the darkness.
Alia whimpered; she was wounded in ways that went beyond the physical. Everything I had believed, everything I had felt were all lies, a fucking cruel joke at my expense.
I pressed my oalm against a tree trunk, trying to breathe through the pain. My phone buzzed in my pocket, it was probably Gavin, or Hunter or Tristan wondering where `i was. The thought of fscing them, of having them see me like this, made fresh tears spill over.
They had warned me about Jackson, they told me her wasn't good enough for me, but I had not listened, I was too caught up in the fantasy of being chosen, of being loved.
Fuck, I was so stupid.
I needed to shift, I needed to let my wolf run until this pain transformed into something else… something like revenge ir anything else.
As I prepared to strip, I caught a scent on the wind that made my wolf surge forward despite her wounds.
Three distinct scents.
Pine and smoke. Leather and rain. Sandalwood and something darker… more primal.
My stepbrothers.
What were they doing out here? They never came to these parties because they thought of kt as too wild, and too beneath them as the Alpha heirs of the Nixon Pack.
I was lost in my wandering thoughts when something struck me, I couldn't be seen this way, or they would go angry and tear Jackson to shreds.
I should run home, avoid them and hide until I could paste on a smile and pretend my world had not just been destroyed but something pulled me forward, something deeper than thought or reason.
I crept through the underbush, following those intoxicating scents until it stopped in front of a small waterfall and under the moonlight were three massive wolves, eyes glowing like stars. Storm grey, burning amber and frozen blue and my breath caught.
The silver wolf with storm-grey eyes was Gavin, large and commanding, and every muscle defined even in wolf form. The black wolf with amber eyes that burned like hellfire was Hunter, sleek and dangerous, ready just coiled violence. The dark grey wolf with ice-blue eyes was Tristan, silent and intense, watching me with predatory focus.
They should have been surprised to see me stumbling into their clearing with tear-stained face, and bleeding from a dozen scratches with my dress torn and my heart shattered, but they weren't.
They just stared at me with an intensity that drove the air from my lungs, that made heat pool low in my belly despite everything that had just happened, and then I felt it.
The bond… not the fake one Jackson had created with lies and manipulations, but a real bond. A bond with the three of them, which was solid and unbreakable, thrumming with power and possession and with something that felt dangerously close to obsession.
No!!
This can't be happening!! Not now, not after what I have just been through and definitely not with my stepbrothers.
"You are my mates!" I said before I could stop myself, the words tasting like salvation and damnation all at once.
Gavimn shifted first, his powerful body rippling as he took his human form. He stood there naked and unashamed as his storm-grey eyes raked over every inch of me, and then I noticed his jaw clenched with barely contained rage.
"We have always been your mates, Kara," he said, his voice rough with something that sounded like hunger and fury mixed, "we have just been waiting for you to feel it too."
Behind him, Hunter and Tristan shifted as well. Three gorgeous and dangerous men surrounding me in the moonlight, all naked, and watching me like I was a prey they had been tracking for far too long.
"How long?" my voice cracked. "How long have you known?"
"Long enough," Hunter growled, taking a step closer, his amber eyes flashed with violence, "long enough to watch that piece of shit put his hands on what is ours."
They had known all this while, they fucking knew that I wasn't Jackson's mate and yet they had let me fall for him anyway, they fucking watched me give him my virginity and let me believe his lies.
"Stay the fuck away from me," I breathed, even as my wolf surged forward, desperate for their touch, for something to fill the gaping wound Jacson had carved into my chest.
Gavin's smile was slow and predatory, promising dark things, "run if you want to, little mate, but you will find we are much better at hunting than Jackson ever was."
Tristan had not spoken yet, but his ice-blue eyes tracked my every movement and my every breath. And when he finally smiled, it was sharp enough to cut through my soul.
"And unlike him," Tristan said softly, but dangerously, "we always keep what is ours."