MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS

NIA

I was driving to Ironcrest pack and absolutely spiraling in my own head about how my gut had been screaming at me for fucking weeks that Cole was back to fucking that bitch Lila, but I kept being in complete denial like the stupid pathetic idiot I was.

This was exactly the same goddamn way he used to act when he was secretly seeing her three years ago behind my back like I was some joke. Always sneaking off at night like some fucking thief. Disappearing during the full moon with bullshit excuses and being all shady and secretive when I asked simple questions about where he was going.

Why the actual fuck do I even love Cole?

Seriously, someone needs to explain this to me because I genuinely don’t understand my own brain.

He clearly no longer treated me the way he used to before he met that manipulative bitch Lila who wrapped him around her perfectly manicured finger. But before her, before she sank her claws into him and poisoned everything, he was a genuinely sweet boy. A kind one who actually gave a shit about me.

When we were younger, just kids really, he was the one who patiently taught me to stand up for myself and also to stand up to Ryker when he was being an insufferable asshole to me. It started off as simple friendship, nothing romantic, but I found myself drawn to him more and more as the days and months and years went by.

Maybe it was because we had so many things in common that bonded us. We were both orphans with no real family and no real home who somehow found a home here at Gravemoon when most packs would have rejected us. We both were ranked pathetically low in the pack hierarchy because we had no wolves of our own, which made us basically useless in everyone’s eyes, so all that shared trauma and pain made us form a deep unbreakable bond.

Or so I thought.

It turned sexual the night I turned eighteen when Cole became my first and only man I had ever had sex with, and every single time we fucked I thought stupidly, naively, that he would be my forever.

Until he started sneaking out at night about years later.

And I finally realized the painful truth that he loved Lila and was fucking her behind my back while still sleeping with me.

I was so angry because I had waited patiently for years for Cole to make us official, to claim me publicly as his, but he kept giving me absolute bullshit excuses about wanting to become Beta first without distractions and I kept fucking him anyway like the desperate fool I was.

Why? Because I was crazy stupid desperately in love with him and didn’t know how to stop.

I pulled up to the Ironcrest pack entrance and there was a lot of loud howling echoing through the trees from deep in the territory. I sighed heavily, knowing immediately this was mating night under the full moon when everyone fucked like animals.

Fuck my entire life.

I sat there in my car staring at the guarded entrance and asked myself out loud, "What the fuck are you even doing here, Nia? If you see Cole with Lila, what are you going to tell him? What’s your brilliant plan? Cry? Beg him to choose you?"

I had no answer because I had no plan. I was just acting on pure jealous instinct.

Then a tall man dressed entirely in black who was standing guard at the entrance approached my car and tapped sharply on my window.

I rolled it down nervously.

"What are you doing just sitting here in your car?" he asked, looking at me strangely with suspicion.

"I’m just—" I started.

"The mistress has been waiting for you for over an hour," he interrupted. "You’re late."

I stared at him completely confused, my brain not processing. "I’m sorry, what? I think you have the wrong person. I’m not—"

"Just follow me," he interrupted again, clearly not interested in my explanation or protests.

I wanted to explain that I was just here to maybe catch Cole cheating on me, not for whatever this mysterious meeting was, but he was already walking away expecting me to follow without question.

I complied because at least I would be going inside the territory, which was what I wanted anyway to find Cole.

But instead of leading me toward the main house like I expected, he started making his way through what looked like an underground entrance hidden behind some thick bushes and trees.

My mind immediately started spiraling again because I have seen this played out before.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. What if he’s a serial killer? What if this is how I die?

What if he’s an organ harvester and I’m about to wake up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney? What if this is a human trafficking ring?

Why the actual fuck did I follow this strange man underground? Am I actually this monumentally stupid?

Yes. Yes I am.

We walked down a dark narrow hallway that smelled like earth and stone and he suddenly stopped and handed me a black masquerade mask.

"Put this on," he commanded in a tone that left no room for argument.

I took it from him with shaking hands. In my mind I was screaming at myself about how monumentally stupid I was being right now following a stranger underground to put on a mask.

This is how people die in horror movies, Nia. This is exactly how.

Then he pointed at a heavy wooden door at the end of the hallway. "That’s the room. Go in."

He turned and walked back the way we came, leaving me standing there completely alone in the dimly lit hallway.

I stood frozen for a long moment, staring at the door like it might bite me.

The sound hit me first before I even opened it. Moaning. But it wasn’t just one person moaning. It was multiple voices, overlapping and echoing, a chorus of pleasure.

Oh fuck. Oh no. What the fuck is this?