after I'd been outed and forced to live on Victrolli property, I'd been allowed a single visit from my parents. Too disappointed to face me my father had refused the visit leaving mama to be the only one of their pair to show up with open ears, warm hugs and remaining luggage. We got a full day together but before she left we'd had one chat that haunted me in my predicament. "Let me ask you, something baby..." she'd spoken, a potray of colours swimming in her glittering eyes that held a lurking sadness behind them. "Say there's a rose, you know roses right?"

"You mean those lil ol flowers I buy you every Mother's and Valentine's Day?" I fought through rolling my eyes at her when she petted me and placed my head flat on her pillowed lap.

"Yes. I want you to imagine having a bed of roses and that is withering away." tone all motherly and inquisitive. "Which do you fix. The flowers or the bed's environment?"

I remember feeling a little uncomfortable at what felt like a trick question, I answered as unsure as I felt. "Er. The bed's environment?"

I felt her nod as her energy transitioned into one of Dad's philosophical modes she sometimes adopted in dire situations. "That's correct and that's the point I hope to draft into you today because here's the thing baby. I don't know exactly what you went through in school and especially with the Alpha's son but the blame will be given to you. Unless if you change things."

"But__" I strained to get a defence in but she raised her hand with the universal stop sign. "What our young Alpha did may have left you with no option but to defy the gods' wishes. I also assume and understand that whatever you went through with him, especially in school was the equivalent of your rose bed, withering under a hostile environment?"

Bottom lip trapped between my teeth, eyes closed with unshed tears I lifted my head to face her and nodded. Wanting to convey so much but did not know where exactly to begin so I could be understood.

She exhaled softly. "Malik my son. I wish everyone could see you from my perspective, you're a doctor that graduated Summa Cum Laude. A best friend one would literally die for, a brother who inspires. Believe it or not, you're a son whose father would go to war for. You're one of my children, all of you, the echo of my heartbeat but you're the one whose beat has been thrumming hardest for a long time. That was indicator enough. Oh, baby..." She stopped herself and chorused the next words in a way that ached at my heartstrings with immense guilt. "I could see it in your eyes. How you weren't happy even after you claimed a mate, the sadness always lingered behind them. I should have..."

I rushed to stop her from going any further. "Don't blame yourself, this is all me and Him."

"Baby, in the human parents of school shooters are getting criminal charges for the wreck their kids cause. I'm not saying what you did is the equivalent, but it's up there close to it. So, let me have this moment to take responsibility for my shortcomings as a mother." she looked at me imploringly and I looked away but she continued anyway. "I knew something was wrong but your father and I summed that you were only going through puberty, we figured you would be happy after finding a mate. Then you did and somehow got worse. So we trusted that you would be happier with some independence of your own in college. You enrolled, left and we convinced ourselves that you were. You were achieving so much for yourself you'd even gotten friends with what we believed was your mate beside you but you weren't happy were you?"

"I was actually happy." I took my ma's hand in my trembling own and looked at her. "You need not worry."

"I can't help but worry Malik. Your father sees you in the corridors with Hannez, what is it you talk to him about?"

I didn't answer all I could say was, "Ma. Don't worry, it's all good I promise."

"You can't make any promises like that for as long as you keep that serpent in your ear."

And that's where we'd left the conversation my mind played on a reel the very minute doors closed after Brady gave up on me. Overwhelmed with the turnout, I spun to my right suddenly aware that I was now alone next to the witch and Mr. Hannez. My troubled heartbeat raced to a still and I stood with a gloomy darkness of wild eyes clouded by raging hot tears that had been held back for too long but now overflowed down my face. My utterly weak heart beat too fast, too loudly and too hard, assailed by an anxious feeling under which lay a loss I deserved and had had coming.

"Get up child and forget about him. He doesn't want you anymore than you did months ago or have you forgotten?" The witch more so stated than asked.

I couldn't even argue with her, couldn't speak and even though every part of my body wanted to. I couldn't run after Brady not without risking Danielle's state of being under the witch's curse.

"The Oracle will be here soon," it was Mr. Hannez that spoke. "We need to get moving."

The witch crouched over me and lifted my face by my chin, nostrils flaring as though taking scent in before she dropped me and moved to the other side of the room. "We leave in a minute. My scavenger girls will meet us there to ready him for the ritual preparation." She instructed directly at Hannez but eyes glued on mine.

He led me out the door into a safari vehicle but I was far too distracted to pay attention. I'd lost all hope, slowly slipping away from reality and mentally shuffling through my memories for the single most defining moment in all of my life. Where there was a sign for me to heed but I couldn't settle on anything. I couldn't have ever taken Brady seriously. How could I when I recalled all the past hurts I'd endured growing up because of him and his friends? Guided by Hannez I fell into a seat, head buried in my hands. When one of my other earliest memory played in my head of the time I'd made it to the playground where the older kids played at.

I could remember myself at ten or maybe eleven looking forward to getting my shot at congratulating Brady on a cool summersault. He'd done the previous day in his wolf form at combat practise my twin sister had snuck us into. I could remember how I'd taken to hiding in a dark corner the next day. Bidding my time for when I could catch him alone because I was crippled with a fear I knew all too well. Fear of being ridiculed by him, his friends and other kids. This was years before I'd known he was my mate but like a charge, I felt as though I'd die if I didn't extend my compliments to him. So I stood alone like a loser, bothering my fingernails and counting down the number of retreating backs. I knew I'd rather be humiliated by him alone than his entire posse and their own. I watched as they all retreated which had me smiling happily and breaking into a sprint toward him when he was finally alone.

Again, I was ten maybe eleven and failing all my werewolf physical classes so by the time I reached him I was red in the face and out of breath. So out of breath, I couldn't get my recited words out as he kept asking me to repeat myself. But I couldn't get any words out, eyes wide with hard heavy pants I was a pathetic mess in front of a Blue Blood. So he told me this and tried to order words out of me but the more he tried forcing it the more, I couldn't take his Alpha command. Which upset him, inciting him to spew words I wouldn't forget the feeling of on me then soon he was joined by two of three best friends. Who'd raced to protect their Alpha and give his authority reverence at my outlay?

It hadn't been physical but that hadn't been the worst of it - after the friend group mocked me and chased me home. The next few days were spent watching them in horror as they spread lies about my terrible case of severe autism around school and town. For a year friends dropped me like flies as all kids in middle school believed the lie. Until it got back to a trained teacher who debunked the lie but at that age, the damage had already been done.

"We're here now darling," the army green-coloured vehicle had come to a stop in the middle of a forest. "Drink some water and come with us we need much of your warm blood." The witch kissed my forehead with a mother's affection, I couldn't feel.

"I can't do this anymore to him." I pleaded under my breath, hot tears seeping down my lips. "Is there any other way I can repay you?"

"He doesn't love you, he's under duress." Jenna titled her head and narrowed her serpentine eyes at me in a way that showed a smile lurking behind them. "You reek of my nephew but don't think that will change anything. You don't like him, you could never love my nephew either, you're too good for him and I'm your saviour don't you see?"

"I could love him." I sounded pitiful, "I think I already do."

She pet my head in a stroke my mother had done to me all those haunting months ago. "Dear. I understand your hesitance but you need to understand that love is a state of mind to which you need to step out of now. Here drink this..." her tone embraced a warning tone as she handed me a glass.

I received it but was far too weak to drink it.

"You need to drink the water dear. This ritual must be done with celerity if you want Brady to live after I'm done with you."

Too spent to fight, I drank and almost immediately ceased the crying but fell in and out of a gradual consciousness. Where images of my life played before my eyes as a group of five dark robbed figures marched over to lift me out of the vehicle. I was half aware of seeing them drag me to the centre of an ash-marked area. Our pack's Oracle stoically watched them from the sidelines as they mumbled something that resembled a Latin prayer. I convulsed, blacked out and when I came to, it was to a scene of me in the centre of a river. In the evening, fully dressed but held upright by the magic of five naked girls with an abyss of all black eyes.

As the boundary between wakefulness and sorrow dissolved I convulsed again, blacked out and found myself in a foreign bedroom. The door to which was guarded by what I could only guess was a male witch. The first day it happened, he'd called on the black-eyed girls, who made sure I was fed and allowed a shower before I'd sleep and wake up to another cleansing. The routine of it went on for a week, maybe even weeks where my consciousness played on a loop. Until the last day, when the boundary between wakefulness and sorrow stretched once again just in time for me to find myself suspended in the air by magic. Jenna at the point of my feet, my pack's Oracle at the point of my head hands lifted in the air as she announced loudly. "The gods have spoken. The bond may be broken."

The girls around us sang praises and Jenna's heels dug into the ground as she approached the Oracle. "That took entirely too long. What were their exact words, Mabel?"

The girls paused celebration, Hannez started gathering items off the ground and my heart clenched painfully against my chest.

"The same message from a week ago," The Oracle replied, "The boy is a Theta assumed to be a Beta. Nothing surprises them, they expected this outcome and there are only two roads this could go. The risk is yours to work with or surrender Jenna. So here we are once again, which is it? And please remember you have a son counting on you."

"I'll work with anything that gives me what I want," Jenna fumed, rage licking at the ends of her hair. "And never bring up my son again, none of you has the right to. Not since you threw me into the belly of hell."

The Oracle hummed looking chastised and looked away.

Silence followed and in it I took my chance to croak out a question, "What happens to Brady?"

"Why should you care?" Jenna challenged but the Oracle kindly replied. "Your wolf will be transferred to him once it's taken from you. So to ensure that even in your absence, he will reign as the rightful heir of the pack with the other half of his soul beside him. It won't be like the actual thing, but it will do just fine all things considered."

Like a terror-rising storm Tyler came into view from almost nowhere, "Or you can change your mind, you still can."

"My nephew or your best friend," Jenna seemed not to be surprised by his arrival, but her tone worked to dismiss Tyler's idea by reminding me of my priorities. "Which is it dear?"

Face down, I chose Dani with a heart full of incomprehensible guilt.

Jenna gloated, laughter loud, arms wide in a show of proclaimed victory. "See? Anyway, what took you so long Ty? You know I don't like to wait."

"None of your fucking business witch." Tyler supplied rudely but diplomatically at the same time. "We're just here to take him for his farewell visit."

"Without my explicit permission first?"

Tyler measured her with indignant eyes, "Yes. Because who the fuck do you think you are?"

"The gods gave me permission so don't try to be clever. If you try anything I will strike you where it hurts most and don't forget I know where or who that is. So make certain I will have my ward back before the day ends." Talking to Tyler and referring to me, that's all she said before she left. Mr Hannez trotted behind her like a hungry pet.

Tyler rolled the sleeves of his leather jacket up as he advanced closer to me. On reflex, I protectively lifted my arm up over my head squeezing my eyes shut. Waiting for the first impact of his fists to land on me.

"What the fuck?" Tyler cussed "Hiding from a punch that's never coming?"

Behind him, Evan chided, "Because heaven knows you deserve worse than a beating and if I had it my way I'd let the witch keep you, but ey you have a bossy sister."

As though on cue, Malia emerged from the trees and stood on one of the fallen logs. She brushed a lock of dark hair behind a pierced ear with a machine gun upon seeing me and sighed a whisper of relief and sentiment. She clutched her gun under her arm and jumped from the large log as she ran to meet me halfway. "Malik," My twin wrapped her arms around me and sniffed my hair as I did hers. "Malia." I cried.

"The witch. I've heard rumours about her. She's dangerous and she's manipulating you. A mating bond can't be broken."

"It can be, the gods allowed it."

Malia's eyes grew large with surprised disbelief and a pang of sadness I had to hide my eyes from. As I further explained, "Our Oracle even confirmed." I sniffed the tears away with the sleeve of my shirt. "the gods allowed it, it's happening. And there's nothing I can do anymore, I did this myself and to him."

"You can't accept it, it could be a test from the gods. To save you from hell." She sounded like she believed this. "One thing about the gods, sometimes they are unpredictable."

"I have to," tears streamed down my face. "Dani could die and she's completely innocent."

"How can I help?" I could tell she meant it and desperately too.

"I sinned so bad Malia you don't understand. I'm afraid that if I do anything more then something worse will happen and then Brady and nobody. Not even you or Mateo will ever forgive me or understand me. Or... or, oh my gods, I'm finished."

"If you refuse to accept the gods' offer to break the bond surely Brady will revise his thoughts on you."

"Would anyone? In his shoes would anyone? Would you?"

She fidgeted without an answer.

"Right. It's better this way." I was so scared, "I don't have another option, do you have something?"

Silence.

From behind us, I heard Evan ask me. "Did those two even explain to you how the bond is broken?"

"I'm sure he didn't even ask. Anything with the promise to hurt Brady shines like gold to him." Tyler said "Right mate?" he smiled dryly at me.

"Brady will be fine, you heard the Oracle speak..." I defended without end.

Malia hugged me and spoke in my ear, "Let's go home for your farewell."

I held on to her tight and whispered, "I need a favour. Please?"

She nodded without hesitation.