Chapter 3 Mate killer

I stared at Alpha Ryle with tears filling my eyes again. A knot was forming in my chest, and it was so tight. Too tight.

"Let her go," he said to the soldiers who didn't have any intention of letting me go until he gave the command.

I was left on the ground as he turned his back on me, his soldiers following suit until they reached the part of the field that had been set aside for his pack.

People stared at me with so much disgust, almost as if I decided to do all of this on my own.

"I always knew she was cursed."

"Do you think she would have killed him if there were no witnesses? He was clearly in so much pain that he could have died."

The more they whispered without trying hard to be discreet, the more I got motivated enough to get up on my own and leave. I couldn't stay there anymore.

"Who knew the Moon Goddess could make such a mistake? I mean, even if he didn't react to her, why would she be mated to an alpha?"

Those words stuck with me. The woman was right. The Moon Goddess couldn't have made such a mistake, right? Perhaps this was just the work of whoever placed a curse on me. Maybe the Moon Goddess couldn't do much but watch.

I got off the ground, feeling all eyes on me as they watched me leave in silence. There was a lump in my throat that didn't seem to go down even as I swallowed it down. In fact, it only got worse from there.

As soon as the small cabin I called a house came into view, the tears blurred my vision.

"This is unfair," I said to no one in particular. "How..."

I didn't think I had ever heard of anyone whose mate reacted to their touch with so much pain. I had overheard people talk about how their touch with their mates created a shock, but it was apparently a good shock. I wanted to feel that. I felt nothing, and he...he felt way worse.

"Why would you do this to me?" I questioned, sliding down the door when I was finally in the confines of the living room.

The Moon Goddess had to be watching. She was the most powerful being I'd heard of. If this wasn't her intention, she could have found a way to stop it. She didn't. That only led me to believe that this was all her.

"What did I do to deserve this?" I asked, choking on my own tears and finding it impossible to breathe.

I didn't know how long I sat with my back against the wall, crying until I had dried up everything in my eyes and they felt heavy enough for me to fall asleep.

~

"Mate killer."

I had moved on from the girl who was cursed and who killed her parents at the age of five to a mate killer. Everywhere I went, the whispers followed like a shadow I could never get rid of.

Just the way they didn't care whether I heard about it before, they didn't care now. This time, I could argue that they were even louder with it. Bolder, too.

"Hey!" I heard a voice call out as I bathed in the river under the light of the new moon one evening. I knew who she was calling out to, but I didn't bother looking in her direction. I could hear her and her friends just fine.

"Do you think her hearing is also not up to that of a wolf's? I mean I wouldn't be surprised since she doesn't have a wolf," one of the friends said, causing everyone else to giggle.

I could hear them. I had the senses of a wolf. I could run faster than average. I could hear up to a mile. I could do as much as they could. I just couldn't shift.

"In that case, why don't we go say hello?" The girl who seemed to be the leader of the clique suggested.

As soon as I heard them approaching, I got out of the river and hurriedly put my clothes on. Unfortunately, they stood in front of me before I could make a run for it.

"Why are you in such a hurry? We came to say hello," the girl said, crossing her arms. "My name's Brenda. You're Arya, right? The...mate killer."

The way she said it sent such a hot surge of anger through my veins, I was so close to moving and holding her by the neck, but I soon figured that I was outnumbered. If I did anything to anger them, they wouldn't hesitate to kill me.

"I'm not a mate killer. My mate is very much alive. He only rejected me," I corrected her, knowing fully well that she knew that but not wanting to remain silent.

"Well, I'm not the one who started the name calling. I'm pretty sure I heard it somewhere. Nicknames have a way of sticking around here. You should know that. But I'm curious. If you didn't kill your mate, why do they call you the mate killer?"

She knew why. I could tell from the sly smirk on her face and the way her little chuckle betrayed her as she asked that question.

"I don't know," was all I said as I turned around and attempted to walk around them and be on my way.

I stopped in my tracks when she took her hand out and grabbed my arm. She squeezed so hard that I had to hold back a yelp.

"Where are you going, Arya? I'm not done. You know, before people started to call you a mate killer, you were called the girl who murdered her parents. Is that true?"

"I didn't kill them!" I fumed, causing her to fake a gasp.

"Oh, don't get all angry at me now. What are you going to do, kill me like you did them?"

She was testing the waters. She was trying to get a rise out of me. That was what I had to remind myself as I looked down at the ground instead of her face. I couldn't get angry. Not now.

Before I could say another word, she let go of my arm and gave me a menacing greeting. "Have the best night, Arya. You never know when karma might strike and it could be your last night."

I shot her a glare for a second before leaving and being thankful that it didn't go south.

I rushed back to the house and sat in the cool living room. Winter was drawing closer by the day, and it would soon get unbearably cold with me alone in the house and lack of proper heating, save for firewood that I would have to get by myself.

I blinked back the tears that were brewing behind my eyes and went into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea when I found the back door open.

"What..." I trailed off when I saw the small dining table in the middle of the kitchen. Written on the tabletop in the blood of what I only hoped was a deer caught in the woods were the words MATE KILLER! YOU'RE NEXT!

The tears I had been fighting back didn't hesitate to flow as I grabbed a cloth and the last few drops of homemade dish soap I had to wipe the table. I was caught between being extremely annoyed and being sad.

I didn't do anything to deserve this treatment. None of this was my fault. Not my parents' death. Hopefully not for the way Alpha Ryle reacted when he touched me.

"What now?" I snapped, tossing the cloth against the table as my one act of showing my anger as I heard a knock on my door.

I headed for the door, ready to tell whoever it was off if they were there to bully me, but my heart sank when I opened the door.

"Arya Ross," he said, his voice an intimate whisper and his eyes a golden hue as if he was about to shift.

"Alpha Ryle."