The Unmarked Mate

Chapter 17

Hi, thank you for going this far into this book. I hope you enjoy the story so far. A rather long chapter for today. Just a warning, paragraphs 10 to 15 are about sensitive subjects, so I want to issue a trigger warning about domestic abuse, physical violence and sexual assault on a woman. If these topics may affect you , skip these paragraphs of the letter. Your mental health should always go first. Enjoy this new chapter and don't hesitate to let me know what you think.

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Dearest Kenna,

You have long asked me to tell you my entire story, what brought me to the Moon Stone Pack and what made me leave. I know I have told you a few bits here and there but never the whole truth. I didn't tell you before because I tried very hard to bury all of this, in the furthest part of my memory. But I have grown, and I believe, at last, I'm ready to share this entire story with someone. And who better than you? I'm not sure of what I've let slipped up over the years so this is all there is.

My father was Richard Warwick, Alpha to the Crimson Moon Pack. My mother was a Lycan. Her name was Amelia Belladonna. She was from the South of Europe, she had black hair and black eyes like mine. She was a beautiful Mediterranean woman with a dark skin and enticing smell. That's what I remembered most of her, her comforting smell when she cradled me into her arms. I don't really know how they met, she was travelling, and they mated. She left her Lycan bloodline for my father. Her family was not really accepting of this union. You are a Lycan yourself, you know the contempt of some of them for werewolves, even an Alpha. My father feared she would not be accepted as a foreigner and a Lycan, so they never told who she really was. But in time my mother was celebrated as Luna, a just and powerful woman. Then I was born. They showered me with love. I was to have the happiest of childhood with two parents who loved and respected each other.

A few years after that, when I was five, my mother was pregnant again, but the pregnancy was difficult. I heard them argue. Since the beginning my father thought she shouldn't keep it. He had a daughter, and it was enough. He hated seeing her in so much pain. But she insisted on keeping the baby as she wanted to give him a son. He argued again and again that he did not care about having a son, he wanted her above all else, she and I were enough for him. But she was a stubborn one. So, he respected her choice. The night the baby showed up, there was a storm. Yet, her screams were louder that the lightning itself. I was in the packhouse with my father's Beta, his mate and their son Liam who was my friend. I was used to be looked after by them; as I spent so much time with Liam, his parents had become part of my family. My father never told me what happened, but my mother died giving birth, and the baby died as well. My father stayed in the room for the remaining of the night and the day after that. He cried and mourned the loss of his wife, of the love of his life, of the mother to his dearest daughter. Then he brought me to her for me to say my goodbyes. He held me when I cried and we buried her, alongside the baby, the sibling I never knew. It took me some time to understand that I would never see her again. I think, somehow, I expected her to come back one night and kiss me on the forehead as she had done every night before I went to sleep since I was born.

For years, my father was a good Alpha to the pack, respected and loved by all. He never committed to anyone else. He took care of his pack, and he took care of me. He raised me, he trained me personally for combat, and he taught me everything he knew. When I was old enough, he would bring me at meetings, at negotiations, he introduced me to the mayors of the human towns on our territory and to the Alphas of the packs we would communicate with. He was grooming me to be the Alpha of the pack, mated or not mated. He did not care that I was a girl, I was his daughter and his heir.

Liam and I grew the best of friends. Our parents were overjoyed, he could me by Beta, or better still my mate. When we turned seventeen, nothing happened, he wasn't my fated mate. But we did not care, he was still gonna be my Beta. One night, after our seventeenth birthday, we sneaked out of the packhouse and went to drink wine by the lake. We were a bit tipsy, and we had sex. It wasn't love, well at least not that kind of love, but it was simple yet beautiful. I wanted to experience that with him at that moment under the moonlight. Nothing never happened again, and we returned to being the best of friends. All the teenagers' stupid things one does with their friends, I did them with him. And when his little sister got a bit older, she joined us. Liam and Maisie were the sweetest siblings, they would argue and fight all the time and still party together afterwards. They were my family. Their parents and my dad were always chasing us around. But they loved that their children were so close. This would also mean a strong Beta and Alpha bond when it would be our turn to run the pack. I couldn't wait to find my mate so that we could all be friends together. I was young.