He exhaled heavily, rubbing the back of his neck as he recalled the memory. “Eventually, I began to think maybe my mate was gone-dead before we could ever meet. It happens sometimes. So I went to my father and told him that if I couldn’t find my true mate, I would choose one. My pack needed a Luna, and I needed a partner I could trust.”
His eyes flickered toward Kathy then, full of both affection and regret. “My father agreed. We decided it would be Kathy. She was my friend since childhood, the daughter of my father’s Beta, someone who already knew the demands of leadership. It made sense.
We didn’t tell anyone-not even Elaine. But Kathy began her Luna training. We worked together every day. For a while, it felt like the right path.”
Kathy gave a small, bittersweet smile, though tears glistened in her eyes. “We were together for about a year before Elaine came home from college. She had changed so much. She looked older, wiser… but still had that spark in her eyes that I always admired.”
Roselyn listened quietly, her heart twisting with conflicting emotions.
K Chapter 74
“And just as Elaine came home,” Kathy went on, “Michael left for his Alpha training. I followed him, since I was preparing to become Luna. We were gone for two years. Two long years away from our pack, away from Elaine. When we came back…”
Kathy paused, taking a shaky breath. “I was already with pup.”
She looked down, her hands trembling slightly. “We planned to announce everything-to tell everyone about the pup and about our decision to become mates. But before we could.”
Kathy’s voice cracked, her tears spilling freely now. “Elaine and Michael found out they were mates.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Even the air seemed to still. Roselyn’s breath hitched in her throat. Darius glanced at Michael, his eyes narrowing slightly but he remained quiet, letting them continue.
Kathy wiped her tears, forcing herself to go on. “Roselyn, believe me when I say… when I saw Elaine’s face that day-when she realized Michael was her mate-she was glowing. I’ve never seen her so happy. Her joy was pure, like all her pain and loneliness had vanished in that instant.
And despite everything, despite what it meant for me, I was happy for her. How could I not be? I loved her. She was my sister.”
Her voice broke completely then, and she covered her face with her hands.
Michael’s voice filled the silence that followed, low and heavy with regret. “That night, I was supposed to talk to Elaine-to explain everything. I wanted to tell her that Kathy and I had already made a commitment… that she and I-” He stopped, his throat tightening. “But when I saw her, when I looked into her eyes and felt the bond between us, everything changed.
The pull was… overwhelming.”
He looked down at his hands, his voice barely above a whisper now. “The mate bond is powerful, Roselyn. It’s not something you can simply ignore. My wolf-our wolves-they were ecstatic. After years of searching, we finally found what we had been longing for.
And Elaine felt it too. I tried to fight it, I swear I did, but… in that moment, reason disappeared. I lost control.”
Kathy turned her face away, silent tears sliding down her cheeks.
Michael’s shoulders sagged. “If we had met earlier, before I chose Kathy, before all the secrecy, maybe things would have been different. Maybe none of this would have happened. But we made mistakes-the first of which was not telling the pack from the beginning about eeping it quiet would make things my decision to take Kathy as a cho easier. Looking back now, I can’t even remember what was thinking.”
He shook his head, anguish clear in his eyes. “Every decision I made back then was the wrong one.”
Added to the library
& Chapter 24
The room was silent for a long moment. The weight of their confession hung between them like a thick fog.
Roselyn could feel their sincerity-the deep sorrow in every word. It wasn’t just regret; it was years of guilt, of sleepless nights and unspoken pain.
“I know you’re telling the truth,” Roselyn said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “I can feel it. Every word you’ve said carries your regret. But that doesn’t erase what Elaine went through. It doesn’t change the fact that she suffered because of all of this.”
“Yes, Elaine suffered. We all saw it, we lived through it,” Kathy said softly, her voice trembling as memories flooded her mind. “And the worst part was… we were never given a chance to make it right.” Her eyes clouded with guilt and grief.
She could still remember the way Elaine’s face crumbled when she found out about her and Michael’s mating. The anguish in her sister’s eyes was something that would haunt Kathy for the rest of her life.
They had all witnessed Elaine’s devastation. Her pain was raw, uncontainable-a wound that spread like wildfire. And knowing that they, the very people she trusted most, were the cause of it-it destroyed them. But they couldn’t show it. They weren’t allowed to.
They had to pretend that everything was fine, that the Alpha’s decision was just and necessary.
Goddess, Kathy thought bitterly. The pain of not being able to stand by her sister’s side, of not being able to protect her from the heartbreak, was unbearable. Elaine had always been her protector, her confidant, the one who stood between her and the world, even though she is younger than Kathy. When Kathy was scared, it was Elaine who fought for her. When she was lost, Elaine guided her.
And yet, when it was Elaine’s turn to need someone, Kathy had been forced to turn away. That guilt had become her shadow-always present, always whispering that she had failed her sister when it mattered most.
“What do you mean you weren’t given a chance to make it right?” Roselyn asked, her brow furrowed. Her tone was calm, but her eyes reflected confusion and a hint of disbelief.
Michael exhaled heavily before he spoke, his shoulders sagging as if the weight of years pressed down on him. “The previous Alpha-my father, Alpha Efrein-was set in his ways. He believed the future of the pack depended on strength, stability, and appearances. When he found out Kathy was already pregnant with my child, he demanded-no, he ordered-that the mating proceed.”
Roselyn’s eyes widened slightly, but she stayed silent, allowing him to continue.
“We told him the truth,” Michael said, his voice breaking slightly. “We told him that I’d found my fated mate. That I couldn’t, wouldn’t, be with Kathy anymore. That Elaine was my fated, chosen by the Moon Goddess herself. Kathy even agreed-she was willing to step aside, to raise our pup without forcing a mating bond that shouldn’t exist.”
He ran a trembling hand through his hair, his expression one of exhaustion and regret. “We thought that if we could just explain it, if we could tell Elaine ourselves, she would understand. She was strong, selfless. She would’ve listened. But my father… he forbade it.
He alpha ordered us to remain silent. He said the pup, the pack’s future, came first. And that disobeying him would bring ruin.”
Michael’s voice lowered, heavy with remembered pain. “We had no choice but to watch her break. To see her heart shatter because of us.”
“And my father,” Kathy said bitterly, her voice rising as her emotions cracked through the fragile composure she’d been clinging to. “The Beta-he didn’t do anything! He followed his Alpha without question.”
Her tone turned sharp, almost trembling with fury. “How could he just stand there and do nothing? Both his daughters-his own blood-needed him. We needed his protection, his support, but he just stood there like a stone. He didn’t fight for us.
He didn’t even try. He just bowed his head and followed the Alpha’s command. How could he do that?!”
Her voice echoed off the walls, thick with rage and anguish. Michael reached over, gently taking her trembling hand in his, grounding her as tears welled in her eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to regain control of herself.
“My father demanded our cooperation,” Michael continued quietly. “I pleaded with him to reconsider-to let us handle it differently. To let me and Elaine at least speak before any decisions were made. But he refused. He wouldn’t even explain why.
He just said it was for the good of the pack.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.