Page 36 of The Alpha King's Mate

The scent roused me first—lavender and warm bread, the smell of my childhood, of Sunday mornings before everything went wrong.

My eyes flew open.

Everyone from the mating procession had vanished. The altar, the guests, the ribbon that had been wound round my wrists—all of it gone. I was alone on a hill I didn’t recognise, grass damp beneath me, and the morning sun hung bright and wrong in a sky that had been evening only a breath ago.

The evening had vanished.

I clutched my chest.

Sorin.

Loss. Pain. Zira.

I scanned the hill, and heavy clouds began to gather at its edges, rolling in from nowhere. In the distance, a figure was growing closer, small against the grey.

Lavender and warm bread.

I knew that walk. I knew it before I could see her face.

I was on my feet and running before I’d decided to move.

“Mama,” I uttered the one broken word that had been a constant prayer on my lips.

Her slight arms curled around me as if they’d never left.

“Oh, Mama,” I sighed, breathing her in.

“My love,” she whispered, her voice trembling.“Let me look at you.”

She pulled back, and I began to sob as her face came into view. Her pallor was no longer grey or gaunt. Her face glowed with an ethereal light. Her hair was left out, rising high in a flurry of tight spiral curls.

I’d kept her worst moments close for so long that time had made me forget how healthy and beautiful she once was.

She smiled, cupping my cheek, gazing at me as if she wanted to memorise the person I’d become.

“We don’t have long, my love. This moment was always meant to come to pass,” she said, smoothing her hand over my hair.“So beautiful.”

“What? No—” I began, but paused as my mind tried to comprehend—everything.

“You descend from the first cyclical Luna. Your bond to the Alpha King has caused you to transcend the usual shifter law. This was the prophecy the soothsayer relayed.”

“But I can’t feel Zira. I… what does this mean?”

“Zira is safe and awaiting your return. You will rule and guide our kind, Aliana. You have always been an Omega. By the will of the Moon Goddess, you shall break the shackles placed on the weak. Your mate will set the standard of devotion.”

She spoke slowly, as if she knew I was struggling. She reached out and wiped my tears away.

“Our ancestors descend from the Wraith Wolves.”

I gasped at the forgotten name.

“But they carried out black magic. They forfeited their lives.”

“That narrative was created, documented and taught by the five ruling packs. It is not true.”

The history was thousands of years old. Embedded in every school.

“Why?” I rasped.