Chapter 1 Bait

Veil.

Today is my sixth anniversary with my mate, Alpha Ryder of the Ghostriver pack. However, instead of celebration, I'm wallowing in pain as I watch the scene before me.

A scene I'm forced to watch with omegas holding me down like a prisoner and laughing at my misery.

Ryder is on our matrimonial bed, making out with omegas.

My cheeks drench with tears, and my wolf whines at the pain he's causing us.

"Ryder...please. Stop!!!" I cry, struggling for the omegas to release me.

"Shut up, bitch!" Leila, his beta's daughter, barks, sending her fist to my cheek. The slap stings so hard my vision blurs for a minute. "Didn't the alpha instruct you not to speak!? Who do you think you are to defy him?"

"She thinks she's the Luna..." Another omega echoes beside Leila, laughter in her voice. "She doesn't know she's nothing but a mutt."

Ryder laughs at their words, continuing his actions with the omegas.

I don't understand why he's doing this to me.

I've been so supportive of Ryder ever since I abandoned my pack to be with him. The Ghostriver pack was nothing but a crumbling, wretched pack in our world, but I helped him rebuild it to what it is today.

I sacrificed my bond with my old pack, my money, everything just to please Ryder, and yet he's never valued me.

Ryder has been punishing me in the worst ways imaginable, always forcing me to watch him bed other women despite knowing what it does to my wolf.

He's made my wolf weak, and yet he verbally abuses me for having a weak wolf that doesn't match his strength as an alpha.

More tears rush down my face in a frenzy as I hear him pounding and ejaculating in another omega.

"Why, Ryder?" I sob, forcing the words out. "Why do you keep doing this to me!?"

"I've done everything just to make you happy. I've abandoned my family for years as you demanded..."

"I helped you rebuild your pack and yet..." The pain cracks my voice, making me trail off.

"Please...stop. Stop hurting me. I beg you..."

Sweat beads on my forehead. My head dangles aside as my pulse begins to fade.

I can barely feel my wolf.

I'm hoping Ryder will listen, that he'll stop. Instead, laughter is the response he gives me.

He rises from the bed and walks to where I'm forced to kneel, smirking.

"Stop hurting you?" He sneers, his brown eyes glinting. I nod slowly through my tears. "Why would I do that? You and your pack are the reason I lost my parents..."

I look up at him in shock, my mouth dropping open.

"That useless, impotent alpha your mother married killed my parents and left my pack in ruin..." he scoffs, tsking. "And those asshole stepbrothers of yours called "Three devils" ridiculed me, thinking the world belonged to them..." he laughs harder.

I flinch when he crouches and claps my chin hard, his fingers digging into my skin. He bores his eyes into me, snarling. "Your worst mistake was ever thinking this mate bond will make me fall for you, Veil. It took me years to find a way to ruin your pack, and you...you were just the right bait."

No...

He can't say that.

I've loved Ryder from the very moment I found out he's my mate.

It didn't matter that we're from rival packs or that I was disobeying my mother's husband, Alpha Moon. It didn't matter that my Stepbrothers were against it. I just wanted to be with my mate, and I eloped with him when everyone least expected it.

"Every day you're here, Veil, you'll pay for what they did to me. What's the best way to do that than to punish that stupid wolf of yours that chose to bond with me?"

The omegas' laughter deafens me. Unrestrained tears plummet from my eyes.

This is too much.

This pain.

This punishment for a sin I didn't commit.

It isn't my fault that my mother married Alpha Moon as his fourth wife, and I became a part of the family that made him suffer.

"Ryder...please. I didn't do anything. I'm innocent, I swear. My mother..."

"Shut up!" Ryder howls and hits me on my belly. The impact makes me wheeze, and my head reels.

I land on my back, squirming in pain on the floor. The omegas force me back to my knees, and Ryder holds me by my hair, making my scalp burn.

"You've always been naïve, Veil. What were you expecting? That I'll treat you better after what that wretched polygamous family of yours did to me and my pack? They claimed all that was mine. They left my pack poor, my people dying..."

My body trembles seeing the cold, dangerous look in his eyes.

His wolf is about to surface, and if it does, the punishment worsens. I've had Ryder's wolf throw me out through the window during one of his alpha haze, a moment where his senses are clouded by his pheromones. It's a moment of complete rage.

I spent one month in the infirmary, trying to recover from the injuries. With my wolf weak, my natural fast healing ability has become almost impossible.

Now that his wolf is surfacing, panic surges inside me.

"Now, I've gotten almost everything back, thanks to you. So it's time I make you feel what I experienced. You'll watch me please my omegas, and you'll do nothing..." his eyes glow, fangs slowly starting to bare.

He rises back to his feet, eyes still pinned on me.

"If you so much as blink, Veil, I'll make sure to lock you up in the dungeon forever."

My throat parched, I nod as laughter echoes in the background.

I watch through my tears as Ryder pulls Leila forward and claims her lips in front of me.

My wolf groans in pain, the mark on my neck scorching my skin.

Ryder takes her, praising her and cursing our bond.

I heave, my chest constricting.

When he pulls away from Leila, I almost think he's done, but it's as if the universe is mocking me for having hope, no matter how small.

Ryder pulls Leila into his chest and bares her neck.

Oh no.

He can't do that

He can't mark another woman when he's still mated to me. It's going to kill my wolf entirely.

But he does it anyway.

I watch my mate mark Leila. Instantly, fire races through my body. My belly knots.

"Ry...der..." I croak, feeling it, the last breaths of my wolf.

As if that's not enough, Ryder's voice ripples through the room. "Tonight, before these omegas and my chosen mate, Leila Havenwood, I, alpha Ryder Widow of Ghostriver pack, reject you, Veil Nightsaw, as my mate and Luna."

"No!!" I howl at the pain that lances through me. It's the worst of all the pains he's put me through.

Fated mates aren't supposed to reject each other because of the chances of one dying.

In this case, the outcome is already clear. With my wolf gone, I'm nothing. Just a weak, pathetic wolfless girl who was betrayed by the man she loved. The mate given to her by the moon goddess.

The wave of dizziness hits faster than I anticipated, and as my breath further slows, my vision gives way to darkness.

It's over, I echo in my mind at the crushing reality.