Alpha's Prophecy

Chapter 31

Jake

"Jake, it was consensual." Tom screams out as my fist hits his cheek. I would have thought  he'd realise that the lying is only going to make me keep punching him but no. The guy must really love pain. 

"Yeah, she just begged you to mark her?" I yell back at him, disgusted that he would think I'd buy that lie. "You, of all wolves, know how violating it is to be marked unwillingly."

Tom had been a victim of black magic when a she-wolf from his pack had cast a spell over him, making him believe that she was his mate. It wasn't until after they'd marked each other that she revealed the truth to him, she wanted to take down his pack.

What happened to Tom served as a warning to the rest of us, how vulnerable we were to being attacked from within. Together, the surrounding packs in our region created laws to prevent non consensual markings upon wolves, with death as the ultimate punishment for those who commit the crime. Tom pushed for this law to be taken seriously by all packs, which is why it surprises me that he had now marked Emma without consent. 

"Jake, she's my mate." He argues, blood smeared across his cheek. 

I should hit him again, just for making such an absurd claim but I decide that the truth would create a harder blow to his deception.

"That's impossible, Emma wasn't assigned a mate." I inform him smugly, raising my fist back but stop myself when I see his face twist with a look of confusion. 

"I don't understand." He mutters to himself, ignoring the threat of being plummeted yet again. "I smelt her wolf, the strong scent of fresh, juicy strawberries and the attraction between us was magnetic. I've never felt a pull so strong before."

What he's describing is typical of the early stages of the mate bond, before marking. I remember Emma did say this morning that she had named her wolf Berry, after her favourite fruit. 

"You could smell her wolf?" I question him, letting my guard drop. I get off him and help him up from the floor and as I do I notice the fresh, open wound on his neck. He's been marked by Emma.

"The scent was so strong, I know your pack harvests fruit to sell in town so I thought it was just freshly picked strawberries but then I laid eyes on her." His voice becomes whimsical as he gets lost in his own thoughts. "The most gorgeous woman I've ever seen. I didn't mean for it to go as far as what it did, so quickly but I couldn't I stop myself."

The more he explains himself the more I'm beginning to believe him but it still would be impossible for Emma to have been assigned an existing wolf as a mate. Tom's mate would have been assigned to him by the Moon Goddess when he was born. 

"Tom, look, Emma being your mate is just impossible." I tell him, feeling the gut wrenching pit that grows inside of me. Tom and I were a lot alike, two alphas without mates, which is how he was so easily taken under the spell of a witch and now I'm going to have to break it to him that what he thought was finally his chance of finding the one, just can't be. 

"Why? Because she from another pack?" He fires up at me, getting angry. "Jake, the Moon Goddess has often assigned wolves from near by packs as mates, it's what keeps our alliances strong."

He makes a very valid point, our packs have grown stronger because of mate bonds that were assigned and if I was him I'd be thinking that this was the case too but it's not.

"Tom, Emma wasn't born a wolf." I break it to him gently and watch his heart break before me. He knows, just from that one sentence that she isn't his mate. 

I explain the whole story to Tom, from the moment Emma arrived here, finding out that Hannah and Emma shared a body, that it was my dad who organised the kidnapping of Hannah but her own mother helped and how Hazel and Kayla performed a spell to seperate the two souls and that the Moon Goddess had created Emma as a wolf.