My Mate Broke Our Bond, So the Northern Alpha Claimed Me novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: A Mistake
In front of the council, Corbin calls his fated bond with Sorcha a mistake because her best friend Brianna is carrying his pup. The bond snaps, Sorcha demands the Eclipse Ritual, her eyes flare silver, and the Luna whispers that it is too soon.
"I'm sorry, Sorcha. I should have told you before today."
Corbin Ridley said it to her face, in the stone meeting hall, while the council elders watched from the benches.
Three weeks ago he had knelt on that same floor and sworn himself her mate.
Sorcha stared at him. She was twenty-two, and she had loved him since she was nine years old.
"We are fated," she said, and her voice cracked. "I felt the bond hum in my blood. How could you do this to me?"
He kept his eyes on the floorboards.
Her father let out a growl that rattled the rafters.
Her mother stood beside him, eyes flickering between green and wolf amber.
"Stand down," the Alpha said. Power rolled off him and pressed on every wolf in the room.
"My son has shamed this pack, and I am as angry as you are. We will not turn this hall into a brawl."
Sorcha pressed her fist against her chest, where a hollow ache had started.
The Luna stood at the Alpha's side with her hands folded.
Luna Margaret had spent seven years teaching Sorcha how to be Luna, and now she would not look at her own son.
Sorcha closed her eyes and breathed in to steady herself.
Under Corbin's cedar and rain there was another scent. Sweet. Floral. Someone from the pack.
She knew that scent. It had been on her own pillow every time she slept over.
The oak doors swung open.
The Beta came in with his mate, and between them walked their daughter.
Brianna Radcliffe.
Her best friend since they were six, the girl who had braided Sorcha's hair for the claiming ceremony.
Last week Brianna had hugged her on the training field and said, "Corbin's just nervous. Give him room, Sorcha. Men get strange before a Pact."
Sorcha had given him room.
Brianna stared at the floor with both hands pressed flat against her stomach.
The Alpha stepped toward the Beta and drew a sharp breath through his nose.
His eyes went white-gold with power, and every wolf in the hall bowed its head.
"Your daughter is carrying a pup," he said. His voice was almost a whisper. "My son's pup."
Sorcha heard the words, and then she felt the bond tear.
It snapped inside her chest and burned back through her veins.
Heat poured down her arms, and her knees hit the stone.
Her wolf screamed in her head.
"Sorcha!" her mother cried.
Nobody else moved.
The elders sat on their benches and watched her fall apart, and not one of them spoke.
Corbin took a step toward her.
"I was going to end it before the Pact. I swear I was."
"Before the Pact," Sorcha said from the floor. "You let me say your name at the claiming. You let me plan our whole life."
"I didn't know how to tell you."
"You told her fast enough."
Brianna flinched, and when she finally looked up, her eyes were wet.
"Sorcha, I'm sorry."
"How long?"
Brianna glanced at the Beta, and the Beta glanced at the Alpha.
"Nearly a year," the Beta said heavily. "They hid it. I told them it would end badly."
A year.
A year of Brianna braiding her hair, and a year of Corbin kissing her on the training field in front of the whole pack with another woman's scent on his collar.
Sorcha's mother knelt and gripped her shoulders.
"We take you home tonight," she said. "Any pack in the north would be lucky to have you."
"Do not threaten me with the northern packs," the Alpha said. "A severed wolf is shunned at every border."
"Even Blackmere's Alpha has not left his mountain in two years, and he will not leave it for your daughter."
"Then I will find her a roof that wants her," her father said. "Tomas Ashdown does not ask your leave for that."
Sorcha barely heard him.
The heat in her veins kept rising, and the walls of the hall seemed to lean in.
The pack's magic was pressing against her skin, and for the first time it felt like a hand pushing her out.
She had given this pack seven years of lessons, early mornings and bowed heads.
She put one palm flat on the stone, and she pushed herself up.
She stood on her own feet in front of the Alpha, the elders, and the man who had lied to her for a year.
"I'm not staying one more night as his mate," she said. "Cut the bond. Give me the Eclipse Ritual."
The Alpha's brow tightened. "The new moon is tomorrow night. The ritual leaves a mark that never fades."
"Then I'll wear it."
"Sorcha," Corbin whispered. "Don't."
She turned to him.
Something in her chest let go.
The pain, the heat and the hollow ache in her bones broke loose all at once, and power came pouring out of her.
The torches on the walls bent flat, and the stone benches groaned.
Two elders slid onto their knees.
Corbin staggered back with his eyes wide.
Sorcha felt her own eyes blaze, and she saw their light on the Alpha's face.
They were not green anymore.
They were silver.
Luna Margaret turned to the Alpha, white-faced, and whispered so low that only Sorcha's wolf hearing caught it.
"It's too soon. We were meant to have more time."
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