Prologue
***KARA***
My eyelids slowly fluttered open and I groaned as I felt a sharp ache at the back of my hand. I tried to rub my head, but a sharp pain bit into my wrists that restricted the movement of my hands.
The pain snapped me out of my half-conscious state and I hissed in pain. I huffed a tired sigh and looked around, but I could barely see anything. It was dark, but I could determine I was in a kind of barn or cottage, and it was occasionally wobbling to the left and right as if the wind was going to knock it over.
My nostrils were filled with air that strongly smelled like the earth and I could hear rain falling heavily outside. I stood up and looked at the ropes used to tie my red, bruised wrist. They were soaked with Wolfsbane so they burned my wrists so badly at any slight movement I made.
"Perhaps, we should find cover and wait for the rain to subside," I heard the voice of a man outside the cottage I was in.
"We're so close already, we can't stop now and he is already in expecting us" another voice replied. My mind was being torn apart by confusion and curiosity.
Not only was I having a severe ache in the back of my head and burning pains in my wrists and feet, but I also had no clue about what was happening. I had no idea where I was or how I got here.
I took a few steps forward carefully, watching out for the rope that tied me to the wall of the cottage so I would not push its limits. There was a small window and I wanted to look outside.
Just as I got to the window, I stretched past the full length of the rope and the pain from the Wolfsbane burning my skin with a sizzling sound almost made me cry out loudly, but I bit my tongue so I wouldn't make any sound and alert the men outside that I was now conscious.
I slowly lifted my hand and carefully pushed the window open. I stuck my head out a bit and looked around to see rain falling in torrents on green fields and we were moving. Fast.
My goodness. I was so shocked and I almost gasped as I realized I was neither in a shed nor in a cottage, I was in a moving carriage. And I had no idea where the destination was or where I was being taken, neither did I know who the men I heard earlier were. All I knew was that I had to run and escape.
My eyes flickered around the carriage, scanning the floor until I spotted a piece of broken glass. Perfect.
The rope binding me to the wall was too short for me to reach the broken glass so I sat on the floor and lay flat, stretching out my leg to reach for it. I grunted silently, using every bit of strength in me to reach for the glass.
The carriage suddenly jolted me and tilted to the left just as my leg touched the glass, causing the glass to slide across the floor to the other side of the carriage.
Frustration, I let out a silent sigh and turned to the other side, pushing out my legs away from my body to reach the glass. Finally, I grabbed the glass between my toes and pulled it towards me, a silent hiss escaping my lips as the glass pricked my large toe.
I ignored the pain and kept pulling it closer until my hands could grab it.
I hurriedly started cutting into the ropes tying my hands quickly, scared that anyone could show up to check on me at any time. The rope finally snapped and I tossed the glass away, standing and running for the door.
Immediately, I pushed the door open and jumped out of the moving carriage without hesitation. I fell with a heavy thud to the floor, splashing in a puddle of water and grunting in pain.
Thorns pricked my palms, bruising them, and the mud stained my dress.
"She jumped out! Stop the carriage! Stop it now!" I looked over my shoulder as I heard the shout and saw a man poking his head out from the front. I immediately got up on my feet as the carriage stopped moving, and ran as fast as my legs could carry me while panting in the pouring rain.
Continually glancing over my shoulder, I ran with a man coming after me. I got distracted by the looming danger behind me and I didn't look where I was going so I tripped over a root and fell to the ground. My palms cushioned me before I could face-plant the muddy water on the ground, but it still splashed on my face.
I whiffed my head around quickly and crawled back as the man caught up with me.
"Get up you bitch!" he yelled and grabbed my shoulder roughly with his nails digging into my skin through my thin fabric as he pulled me up.
As I got pulled up, I packed a fist full of mud in my palm, and I suddenly threw it in his face to cover his eyes. The attack threw him off balance and in that momentary distraction, I pushed him and he fell over.
He let out an almost funny sound of anger and frustration as he wiped the mud off his eyes, and I immediately picked up the pace to run away from him.
All of a sudden, I heard something whizz right past my ear and I jumped a bit as I saw an arrow lodged itself in a tree. I froze immediately, it was so close and could almost touch my ears that it could have killed me "Alpha-" Someone stuttered behind me and I gulped nervously, slowly turning around as I knew there was nothing else I could do if I wanted to live.
I looked up slowly to see a man ride towards us on a horse with the hooves of the horse creating splash sounds in the wet ground.
It was a young man with a tall dark hair and lips so red, they deeply contrasted his pale face. He was wearing a long silk purple rope and his green eyes glimmered so brightly. He had this beautiful, yet terrifying aura to him.
He stopped the horse as he got close to me and he climbed down.
A familiar feeling I had not more than a day ago kicked in and I felt a cold shiver down my spine.
His bright green orbs were fixated so intensely on me and I suspected he felt it too. Although I hoped and prayed silently within me that he wouldn't, I watched as that four-letter word I once loved but now feared escaped his voluptuous red lips.
"Mate."