Mate Scent

**Kaelen's POV**

I stood before the silent crowd on the porch steps, my chest heaving with every rigid breath. The icy winter wind howled through the clearing, biting at my exposed skin, but all I felt was a blazing inferno radiating from my core. I glared at the snarling faces of my pack, daring anyone to step forward and challenge me. I wanted them to try. I prayed one of the braver wolves would make a move. Bastian, my inner wolf, battered against the iron walls of my mind, viciously clawing for control. He wanted to tear throats out. He wanted to spill blood on the snow and remind everyone here exactly why I was the Alpha. I had not lost a single physical fight since I was fourteen years old, and every wolf standing before me knew that brutal truth.

"Well! Who wants to fight me!" I shouted, the raw force of my voice echoing off the dense pines.

Silence answered me. Let them call me cursed. Let them whisper behind my back about my volatile nature. It didn't matter anymore. No one was going to lay a hand on the woman standing right behind me. I would never let them cast her out into the freezing wilderness. I would slaughter every wolf in this territory before I let that happen. She was Celia. She was my fated mate. After a lifetime of hollow, agonizing emptiness, I had finally found her. There was no way I was going to stand by and watch her die.

The confirmation wasn't just an emotional feeling. It was a physical tether wrapping around my lungs. I could smell it on her. Even through the metallic stench of her old, dried blood and the bitter winter frost, her scent was undeniable. It was sweet, rich, and painfully delicious. Vanilla and cinnamon bark. The aroma hijacked my senses, coating the back of my throat and demanding my unwavering submission.

One by one, the wolves of the Silverridge Pack broke eye contact. They lowered their gazes to the snow-packed ground, their aggressive postures crumbling. The hostile energy drained from the clearing. No one was going to step up. They knew the monster I became when pushed to the edge. When this kind of primal rage took hold of me, killing became far too easy. Fearful mutters rippled through the crowd as they began to look at one another, slowly turning their backs and shuffling away toward their wooden cabins or disappearing into the surrounding tree line.

Deep within my chest, Bastian let out a rumbling huff and settled down, satisfied by their submission. The immediate threat was passing. I shifted my gaze toward the edge of the porch, searching for Declan. The cowardly Beta was already gone. He had slipped away into the shadows the second he realized I was ready to rip his head off. I narrowed my eyes at the empty space he left behind. I would deal with him later. He needed a harsh, physical reminder of what happened to wolves who dared to challenge my authority the moment my back was turned.

The lingering scent of vanilla and cinnamon wafted over my shoulder, pulling my mind directly back to the agonizing moment I first found her. It was just a few days ago. I had been patrolling the desolate riverside, the freezing wind whipping at my face. Then, that glorious smell hit me. It seized my throat and dragged my massive frame to a sudden halt. Bastian seized control of our shared mind. We shifted without a second thought, bones snapping and reforming into heavy fur and muscle in a fraction of a second. My wolf was frantic, pacing the icy banks as our deepest, most primal instincts screamed a single, desperate word.

*Mate!*

It was a violent, earth-shattering desire. It dug into my bones, possessing me in a way I had never experienced in my entire cursed life. I tracked the scent frantically through the brush until I reached a small clearing by the riverbend.

There she was. A pale, fragile body half-submerged in the freezing currents. She was barely covered in soaked, filthy rags. From the edge of the tree line, I froze. I sniffed the cold air, terror gripping my heart as I wondered if she had already drowned. Then the metallic tang of blood hit my nose, mixing with the vanilla. It was the exact scent my soul had craved for a lifetime, yet it carried the heavy stench of death.

As the pale winter sunlight filtered through the barren branches, it hit her soaked body, casting a horrific trick of the light. For a breathless, agonizing second, I saw a corpse mangled by phantom scars. My eyes registered a gruesome gash ripping from her wrist all the way up her forearm, exposing the stark white of bone beneath. Her leg twisted at an unnatural, sickening angle, looking shattered. Worst of all was her neck. A gaping, jagged wound stretched across her throat, making it look as though someone had nearly decapitated her from the left side.

She looked broken. Deflated. Dead.

My heart stopped beating. The world tilted on its axis. I stood frozen in the snow, the devastating realization crushing my chest. I had found my mate, and she was already gone.

But then, a miracle happened. The water rippled. She moved.

Her small frame shifted in the shallows. She pushed herself up slightly, her head bobbing side to side as if she were fighting off heavy dizziness.

I shifted back into my human form in an instant, not caring about the freezing air against my bare skin. I sprinted toward the river, plunging into the icy water to drag her out. I scooped her limp body into my arms, clutching the desperate hope that I had found her in time. She convulsed, coughing up river water before her eyes rolled back and she passed out against my chest.

She felt so frail, practically weightless in my grasp. But as I pulled her close to my chest, the horrific vision from the shoreline shattered. Up close, the phantom scars and the exposed bone vanished. It was some kind of strange illusion. But the reality of her injuries was still a nightmare.

The gash on her arm was real. It was swollen, angry red, and seeping a thick white pus. It was lethally infected. The kind of infection that killed strong wolves, let alone someone this starved and fragile.

For a brief, fleeting second, her eyes had fluttered open. Vivid, striking purple irises locked onto mine before the darkness claimed her again.

I inspected her neck. There was a sharp, bleeding cut right under her left chin. It rested in almost the exact same place as the old scar on my own face, though hers didn't crawl up toward her cheek. A wave of profound pity and righteous fury washed over me. I had to bite down on my own tongue to stop Bastian from taking over and howling his grief into the sky.

I still didn't understand the witchery that made me see scars that weren't there. But the blood spilling from her open wounds was real enough. I had to get her home. And I had to fight the darkest, most feral urge rising inside me.

As I lifted her smaller, lifeless form, her scent overwhelmed me. She smelled delicious in a strange, primal way. The proximity to her bleeding wounds stirred a cursed desire in the back of my throat. My fangs ached. I wanted to lean down and take a bite. I swallowed hard, forcing the monstrous urge down into the darkest pit of my stomach. My desire to protect her was stronger than the curse urging me to taste her blood.

*Who is she?* I wondered as I carried her through the deep snow. If her blood smelled this overwhelmingly inviting, could she possibly be a she-wolf from Clan Mercer? But that made no sense. The Mercer clan lived within the Ironhold Pack, nearly a thousand miles away from this frozen wasteland. Why was she out here, battered and broken?

I leaned closer to her face and caught a faint, bitter scent wafting from her nose with every shallow breath. Wolfsbane. Someone had poisoned her. I tightened my grip on her shivering body. Even as she lay limp in my arms, I couldn't shake the phantom image of her covered in those horrific scars. Illusion or not, someone had pushed her to the brink of death.

"Who did this to our mate?" Bastian snarled in my mind, pacing furiously against his mental cage.

I brought her straight to my cabin. I laid her freezing body on my bed and immediately ordered my housemaid, Greta, to strip away the soaked rags and change her into dry, warm clothes. Once she was safely wrapped in heavy blankets and I no longer had to look at her emaciated frame, I finally allowed myself to truly look at her face.

She was breathtaking. Her small chin sloped into a delicate nose. Her full lips parted slightly as she breathed, and I couldn't resist reaching out to brush my thumb lightly over her bottom lip. I desperately wanted to see those vivid purple eyes open again. Her damp hair fanned out over my pillows, a rich blue-black that shimmered like a starry night sky.

For days, I never left her side. Whenever she stirred in her sleep, I was there, tilting a cup to her lips to help her drink water and the foul-tasting elixirs the pack doctors provided. They told me she had lost a dangerous amount of blood. The cowardly pack doctors had even suggested amputating her infected arm. They stood in my bedroom, trembling, warning me that slicing the limb off might be the only way to stop the infection and save her life.

I refused. I barred the heavy wooden door, trapping them inside. When they tried to inspect her wounds, putting their unwanted hands on her frail skin, Bastian raged inside my mind. My jaw locked. My fangs extended. My wolf wanted to rip their arms off and throw their bleeding bodies out of my cabin. I forced the beast down, grinding my teeth, knowing she needed their medicine. But I refused to let them touch her again. I commanded them to stand back and instruct me from across the room. From that moment on, I handled every bandage and every single drop of medicine.

I carefully tended to her wounds. I spread the healing ointment over her infected skin, my hands gentle despite their size. I wrapped fresh white bandages tightly around her neck and arm. Then, I sat beside her bed, watching her chest rise and fall. I had expected her werewolf healing to kick in, but it was painfully slow. I blamed the lingering wolfsbane I had smelled on her breath.

With every hour that passed, Bastian grew more restless. I pushed down my own aching desires, terrified that I was going to lose the mate I never thought I would find.

As I sat in the dim, flickering candlelight of the cabin, my dark thoughts drifted to my cursed existence. I had been banished from Clan Thorne when I was only ten years old. They threw a child out into the merciless snow, expecting me to die an early, agonizing death. I carried a cursed lineage, and they believed I could never survive without the blood of the Clan Mercer she-wolves to sustain me. By their ancient laws, I should have lost my ability to shift back into a human form. I should have deteriorated into a mindless, feral beast and roamed the freezing woods until I starved to death. I was supposed to be a forgotten tragedy.

Instead, I survived on pure spite. I grew into a lethal rogue, fought tooth and nail for every scrap of territory, and built the Silverridge Pack from the ground up. I became an Alpha despite the blood rotting in my veins.

Days bled into nights. Slowly, the thick infection in her arm began to recede. Her fever broke. And as her health improved, the scent of her blood grew stronger, intoxicating me even more. Whenever I brushed her lips with my fingers, she would frown in her sleep and turn her head away.

Then, the moment finally came. She woke up.

When those purple eyes locked onto mine and we finally spoke, my heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Bastian surged forward, howling out to her she-wolf, desperate for the mate bond to snap into place.

But nothing happened.

There was no spark of recognition in her eyes. Her wolf gave no answer. It was as if she couldn't feel the bond tying our souls together. It was a crushing blow, but I swallowed the disappointment. I told myself she was still weak. I had to be patient. Once she fully healed, she would feel it. She had to.

But patience was not in Bastian's nature. My wolf roared in the darkness of my mind, furious and bloodthirsty.

*They stole our mate away. If we ever find who did this to her, we will tear them up!*

I agreed with him. I was going to find out the truth of how she ended up bleeding in that river. And then, I was going to hunt down the bastards responsible and paint the snow with their blood.

The memory faded, snapping me back to the icy reality of the porch. The last few members of my pack disappeared into the tree line, leaving the clearing empty. The silence was heavy, but the threat was over.

I let out a low, vibrating growl into the cold air.

"No one will fight me? Then she stays."