Forsaken Mate

Forsaken Mate Vasilisa Drake Copyright Copyright © 2023 by Vasilisa Drake All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Contents Dedication Map of Moon-Ghost Pack Lands Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Chapter XXVIII Chapter XXIX Chapter XXX Chapter XXXI Chapter XXXII Chapter XXXIII Chapter XXXIV Chapter XXXV Chapter XXXVI Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author Find Vasilisa Dedication To anyone who has been scared of something and done it anyway. Chapter I I’d been looking forward to today for over a decade. Tonight, specifically. Tonight was the Choosing. A strange name, since there was no choice, only the hand of fate to push you forward. A day wolf shifters in all packs looked forward to. Though few perhaps for the reason I did. But first I had to get through the day. You’d think that today being “The Most Important Day of Our Lives as Young Shifters” (according to my mother, pack elders, teachers, and anyone else who discussed the Choosing) they’d give us the day off from school. Heck, even a half day. But no. It was our last day as youthful pups, so I was currently enduring sixth period lit like any other day. At twenty years old, as a human, I would’ve at least had the freedom to skip class in college. The Moon-Ghost pack didn’t work like that, so instead, we were treated to an extended period of high school. It was hard to give a damn. After tonight, I prayed there would be no need for me to return to our pack classes. I counted down the hours. The ceremony would take place under the light of the full moon when it reached its apex at nearly midnight. It would be about three hours’ travel to get there, the pack leaving at nine to converge with two neighboring packs. It was rare, but fated mates were sometimes found in other packs. Better to have that sorted out immediately than deal with soul-torn, star-crossed lovers. Maddox, our alpha, had made it clear at the last pack meeting that no shameful behavior would be tolerated at the Choosing. No weakness could be shown to our enemies, even if we weren’t at war. I’d learned early on not to show weakness. My enemies were never far. “I bet her fated mate is a skunk,” one of the bitches—it’s not sexist if it’s literal, right?—was saying behind me. Sabine. Never mind the fact we all had super hearing. The male next to her laughed. The teacher ignored it. I tried to as well. “Better anything than one of the males here,” I snapped under my breath. It didn’t matter that I was quiet—they heard me. Usually, I could resist responding. It only made it worse for me to provoke them, but what difference would it make today? Sabine’s snarl was a lot louder, earning a growl from the teacher. She grew silent, but I didn’t doubt she was seething. The Alpha ruled the pack with iron teeth, and no matter how much time she spent cuddling up to the alpha’s son, Jett, disrespect for pack elders wouldn’t be tolerated by juveniles. But that would change tonight. I would find my mate tonight. I refused to consider otherwise. If my mate was in another pack, I’d join before the moon set. With all the cruelty in this world, that was the single kindness: fated mates were respected and never separated. I’d be lying to say I understood every aspect of the mysticism. Maybe I’d understand it better if I’d ever seen the love between fated mates up close. But I hadn’t. My mother never found her mate. Because of that, how I came to be was a sordid secret. Something my packmates had thoroughly enjoyed speculating about. It didn’t matter. All I cared about was getting out of Moon-Ghost. I refused to believe fate would ever be cruel enough to tie me to someone from this pack. There’s no running away from your pack. You’re born in it, you die in it—die for it sometimes too. “No one in this pack would take her, anyway,” Sabine mused when the teacher stepped out of the room for a moment. “Just like her mother,” the male next to her said with a chuckle. Jett. Sabine was a petty threat. I could’ve withstood her taunts, maybe, but when Jett joined in as the alpha’s son—and likely the next Alpha of Moon-Ghost—it let everyone else know it was open season on me. I snarled, my self-control utterly frayed when it came to my mother. “Oh, don’t worry,” Sabine said sweetly. “I doubt you’ll even be able to keep up. You’ll probably stumble on a stone, your pretty red blood running over that disgusting fur until some animal eats you for dinner.” There it was. The real reason I was less than nothing to my packmates. I kept my eyes pinned on the whiteboard at the front of the room. The two kept trying to provoke me, growing bolder while the teacher was out of the room. Freak. Defective. Shameful. Failure. Glorified roadkill. I could’ve perhaps survived the indignity of my shameful birth if I’d been strong, if I’d blended in with the pack. I stood no chance at blending in. Wolf shifters came in strict monochromatic colors—dark coal, mottled gray, even the shining white of the Alpha line. When I shifted, the dark auburn of my hair was preserved in my fur. Normally, physical traits like that had no bearing