The Boy I Buried

"I came back because the Moon Goddess made me your mate."

Silence detonated like a bomb between us.

My lungs forgot how to function. The only sound was the blood rushing in my ears, deafening and disorienting. For a moment, I just stared at Rowan, hoping, begging, that I'd heard him wrong. That maybe my trauma had finally cracked me open and I was hallucinating this entire moment.

But no.

His gaze held mine without flinching, raw and intense, full of an aching truth I wasn't ready for.

Mate.

He said mate.

I staggered back, the air leaving my body like I'd been punched in the gut. My hand flew to my chest, fingers curling into the thin fabric of my shirt as if I could hold my heart in place before it shattered again.

"No," I choked. "No, no, no. You can't—Rowan, you're—"

"My mate," he repeated softly, stepping forward. "I didn't ask for it, Rae. I didn't want it either. But the bond... it's real. And it's tearing me apart."

Tearing him apart?

My laugh came out sharp, brittle. "You died. I mourned you. You left me in a hellhole and now you show up, waltz in with those haunted eyes, and tell me we're fated?" My voice cracked under the weight of it. "No. You don't get to say that."

I turned away, trying to breathe past the spiral closing in around me. My mind couldn't catch up. Every cell in my body screamed denial, betrayal, disbelief.

I had two mates already. Two.

And they'd broken me beyond recognition.

Now this? A third mate. One I buried years ago.

Rowan moved closer. "Rae—"

"Don't," I snapped, spinning on him. "You don't get to speak to me like that. You don't get to look at me like this isn't a cosmic joke."

His jaw clenched, and the faint shimmer of tears in his eyes nearly undid me.

"I didn't ask for this," he said again, quieter now. "I didn't know what I was walking into. But the second I saw you again, I felt it. That bond. Like a chain tightening around my soul."

"And you think that's romantic?" I hissed. "That's what this is to you? A reunion?"

"No," he said. "It's torture."

For a moment, everything stood still.

I stared at him, at the boy who used to carry me on his shoulders, who used to guard me from nightmares. The same boy whose body I watched burn in my mind, whose grave I visited every year.

And now he was standing in front of me. Older. Sadder. Changed.

And mine.

"No," I whispered, stepping back. "This can't be real."

But I could already feel it, the bond slithering through my soul like wildfire. It wasn't like the one I had with Killian or Aiden. This one didn't pull at my body with lust or fury.

It ached.

It wept.

It remembered everything I'd tried to forget.

"You were dead."

"I was taken," Rowan said. "By the Crimson Order. I never made it back."

His voice dropped as he reached for his shirt, dragging it up slowly. My breath caught as I saw the thick scar that carved across his side, a brutal, jagged wound that never healed right.

"They branded me," he said. "Tortured me until I didn't know who I was anymore. But the only thing that kept me alive was you. I'd whisper your name every night just to remember I had something to return to."

Gods.

I squeezed my eyes shut. The world felt like it was caving in.

Killian. Aiden. Now Rowan?

The Moon Goddess wasn't handing me mates, she was throwing them at me like cruel reminders of the love I could never have.

"Why now?" I asked, voice breaking. "Why come back now?"

"Because something's coming, Rae." Rowan's voice turned cold. "Something dark. The Crimson Order is moving. They're hunting bloodlines. Special wolves. You're not just a forgotten girl with scars anymore. You're something they want."

His words sliced through the fog in my head.

"I don't care what they want," I said. "I'm done being everyone's prey."

"Then you'll need all three of us."

"No." My voice cracked like lightning. "I don't need any of you."

A beat of silence stretched, painful and dense.

Then I heard it.

Growls.

From behind us.

Rowan went rigid. "You're not alone out here?"

I turned sharply, heart stuttering.

No. This wasn't one of the alphas. This was—

"Shit," I breathed. "Run."

Too late.

Shapes exploded from the trees, black wolves, cloaked in the scent of rot and magic. My blood turned to ice.

Crimson Order.

They'd found me.

Rowan shoved me behind him in an instant, his body shifting mid-motion, bones snapping and reshaping with a fluidity that screamed Alpha blood. His wolf form was huge, dark gold and scarred.

I stepped back, reaching into my boot for the silver-dipped blade hidden there.

But there were too many.

Five. Six. Seven.

I'd never win this fight.

I barely got the blade in my hand before one lunged, and Rowan slammed into it mid-air, sending it crashing into a tree.

"Go!" he shouted in my head through the mate link. "Get back to the packhouse!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

But he was already mid-fight, claws tearing, fangs flashing.

Then I felt it.

The pulse.

The bond between me and them—Killian and Aiden. It sparked through my chest like electricity, wild and urgent.

They felt me in danger.

And they were coming.

But would they get here in time?

A snarl tore from behind me, and pain seared down my back as a wolf caught my shoulder. I screamed, stabbing upward blindly, the blade sinking deep into its throat.

Blood sprayed.

I stumbled back, bleeding, gasping and locked eyes with Rowan's wolf as he turned to see me fall.

Then—

From the shadows, another figure emerged.

This one wasn't a wolf.

It was cloaked in deep crimson robes, silver tattoos snaking down skeletal hands.

A witch.

My stomach turned.

And she was chanting.

A curse.

"No—" Rowan lunged, but a burst of violet magic slammed into him, throwing his body backward into a tree with a sickening crunch.

I tried to scream his name, but the words never made it past my lips.

Because then the witch turned her gaze on me.

And the world went dark.