The Alpha's Regret: Chasing His Runaway Mate

"Put it on," my stepbrother Brendan commanded, his eyes cold. He was forcing me to wear the silver bracelet his fiancée, Chloie, had bought to mock me. "It will burn me," I pleaded, clutching my wrist. "Stop acting like a fragile human," he snapped, his Alpha tone vibrating through the room. "Do not be ungrateful to your future Luna. Build a tolerance." Under the weight of his command, my trembling hands clasped the metal. The smell of singed hair and cooking skin filled the air immediately as the silver seared a ring into my flesh. Brendan watched my agony without a flicker of remorse, then turned to leave with Chloie, leaving me sobbing on the floor. He was my fated Mate, the boy who once took a dagger for me, but now he called me a "defect" because I hadn't shifted. He destroyed my childhood treasures in a trash compactor, paraded his lover in front of me, and told the pack I was a diluted bloodline who would break under pressure. He thought I was trapped, a weak Omega with nowhere to go. He thought I would stay and watch him marry another woman in three days. But he didn't know I had a secret burner phone hidden under the floorboards. Or that my biological father, the Alpha King of the rival Sunfire Pack, was sending a private jet for me. On the night of the Blood Moon, right before he was crowned King, I didn't just run away. I mentally grabbed the silver cord connecting our souls and snapped it. When the crushing pain of the severed bond hit him in the middle of his speech, he finally looked for me. But I was already gone, ready to awaken the legendary White Wolf he never deserved.

Chapters

Chapter 4

Jayde POV:

The silence in my head was a relief.

Disconnecting from the Mind-Link was rebellion. It was for traitors and ghosts.

Ten days left.

I carried a black trash bag toward the incinerator. Inside were my childhood treasures. Stuffed animals. Dried flowers. And a wind chime made of small bones.

Brendan had made it for me when he was fourteen. His first kill. He'd drilled the holes himself.

So you can hear the music of the hunt, he'd said.

Now, it was dead weight.

I rounded the corner and slammed into a hard chest.

"Whoa."

Brendan steadied me. Sparks-the Mate Bond-zapped my skin through my sleeves.

He pulled back like he'd been burned.

"Watch it," he grumbled. He looked stressed. The Alpha weight was heavy.

"Sorry."

"What's that?" He nodded at the bag.

"Trash. Cleaning out my closet."

"Finally getting rid of that hoarding pile?"

Hoarding pile.

"Yes."

He grabbed the bag. "I'm heading past the chutes."

"No!" I reached for it.

"Don't be ridiculous."

He opened the industrial hatch and tossed it in.

Crunch.

The compactor activated. The sound of shattering bone and snapping string echoed up the shaft.

My wind chime. Crushed into a cube of garbage.

Brendan dusted his hands off. He didn't know. He didn't care.

"Mother wants you in the ballroom. Seating arrangements."

I stared at the closed hatch. Something inside me finally broke.

"I can't."

"Excuse me?" The Alpha tone crept back in.

"I don't care where they sit," I said, meeting his eyes. "I don't care about the napkins or the flowers or your damn coronation."

Brendan stepped closer, looming. "Watch your tone, Omega. You will serve."

"Serve," I repeated. "That's it, isn't it? I'm a prop."

"You are family," he growled. "Stop acting like a victim. You have food. You have my protection."

"Your protection?" I laughed, a dry, hollow sound. "You just threw my protection down a garbage chute."

Confusion flickered in his eyes. "What?"

"Nothing." I stepped back.

"Jayde," he called out as I turned. "Chloie says you've been... distant. Disrespectful."

"Chloie says a lot of things."

"Be nice to her. She is going to be your Queen."

"She's your Queen, Brendan," I whispered from the shadows. "Not mine."

Continue to next part