Punished By The Moon Goddess

KAIDAN

My body remained locked against the cold hardwood floor. I could not twitch a single muscle. My eyes were shut tight, yet a blinding luminescence pierced right through my eyelids, painting the darkness behind them in a searing white glow. We called it The Goddess’s Invocation. Shifters often performed the sacred rite under the heavy light of a super moon, flanked by Sybil or other powerful sorceresses to anchor the magic. But true alphas possessed the raw, untamed power to summon the Moon Goddess alone. I mastered that dangerous rite at seven years old, just days after my first shift. My brothers learned it five years later. Since that childhood milestone, I never had a reason to invoke her name. I never wanted to see her face, especially not after she ripped away the one person who mattered to me. Other alphas summoned her to beg for divine blessings or to boast about their bloody war victories. I wanted nothing from her.

There was no super moon tonight. I had not spoken the ancient words.

Yet she was here.

Her blinding presence hovered right above my mattress. Her skin was stark white, her hair a flowing river of ice that defied gravity. Raw rage radiated from her ethereal form, pressing down on my chest like a physical weight.

"I gave you a mate. A divine mate. What did you do, Kaidan Thorndrake?" Her voice echoed inside my skull, vibrating through my teeth. "You dare to murder your mate?"

"I refuse to accept that human as my mate." I ground the words out through a clenched jaw.

An agonizing vice clamped around my heart. I gasped, unable to hold back a sharp wince.

"You have no option. You will accept her."

"No, I refuse to—"

Invisible claws gripped my throat. My tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth. I choked, thrashing against an unseen assailant. Her authoritative tone paralyzed my wolf. The beast inside me went dead still, cowed by the sheer magnitude of her fury.

"Kaidan Thorndrake, son of Victor Thorndrake and Rhiannon Varrick, hear your sentence for the crime of attempting your mate’s life." She floated closer, her dead-white eyes piercing my soul. "You must earn her love before the next blood moon. Failure means the permanent loss of your alpha status. It means the loss of your life. You will be erased from memory. To those who knew you, it will be as if you never existed."

The invisible claws tightened around my windpipe.

"Furthermore, for as long as she hates you, you will endure intense physical pain. It will be tenfold the agony you just subjected her to. This curse will break only when you earn her unconditional love."

I woke with a skull-splitting headache. A suffocating pressure crushed my heart. I dragged a desperate breath into my lungs, but the invisible vice only tightened around my ribs. It felt like a massive boulder rested right on my chest.

Memories flooded my throbbing brain. The strange moon in the sky. Finding the fragile human. Sybil’s ridiculous proclamation about a divine pairing. My desperate, drastic measure to sever the magical bond before it could ruin my life. I remembered the exact sensation of my hands closing around her throat. I remembered watching her struggle fade into stillness.

I pushed myself off the floorboards. The second my boots took my weight, the curse activated. Agony exploded in my chest with such terrifying force that I stumbled forward. I grabbed the front of my shirt, gasping for air as the celestial warning echoed in my ears.

*Tenfold the agony you just subjected her to.*

I survived the magical backlash of the severed bond, but the Moon Goddess doomed me to something far worse. I was supposed to make that worthless human love me before the next blood moon, or I would vanish into nothingness. I would suffer this relentless torment until she gave me her heart.

I refused to accept this celestial doom. I would never bow to a curse, and I would never beg a weak human for affection.

I fought the agonizing pain wrecking my body. My muscles screamed in protest, burning with a phantom fire. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the torment, and forced my way toward the heavy oak door. I threw it open and staggered out into the massive hallway of the princes' quarters.

An ear-splitting scream shattered the morning silence.

Down the long corridor, two doors swung open in unison. My brothers stepped out of their respective suites, their heads snapping left and right to locate the source of the sudden noise. My gaze bypassed them. I locked eyes on the tiny figure barreling down the hall.

Cassidy.

She survived. She was unharmed. The divine intervention ripped her from the edge of death, leaving no trace of my violence on her delicate skin. Yesterday, she was a cowed, terrified mouse who trembled at the mere sight of me. Today, she charged forward like a wild animal. She stared at me with a blazing hatred so intense it squeezed the vice around my heart. The pain flared, blinding my vision in rapid flashes of white heat.

I hated her enough to step forward, bash her head against the stone wall, and finish the job I started. I wanted to end her life and be done with this nightmare. But the celestial agony rendered my anger powerless. My arms felt like heavy lead. My knees trembled under the crushing weight of her resentment. Every step she took toward me sent fresh waves of torture radiating through my veins.

"You… you… you tried… you tried to, you…"

Her mouth opened and closed again and again. She stammered, unable to form the actual words of the accusation. She could not force herself to say that I murdered her.

Ryk rushed to her side. He reached out, attempting to gently guide her away from the center of the hall.

"Calm down, Cassidy. Tell us what happened."

She ignored him. Her blistering gaze remained trained only on me. The sheer force of her fury slammed into my chest, a physical blow that robbed me of breath. It felt like jagged glass grinding against my heart.

"I didn’t ask to be mated to you! I don’t even want you. You are despicable. I hate you just as much as you hate me. I am human. I have my own dreams and my own life ahead of me. Yet you treated me like worthless dirt. You treated me like something filthy!"

Tears spilled hot and fast down her pale cheeks.

Every single word she screamed shattered my defenses. The mate bond amplified her hatred, funneling it right into the curse the Moon Goddess placed upon my soul. Stripped of my physical control, I began to sink toward the hardwood floor. The deep humiliation of this divine punishment burned the back of my throat. I was an alpha, a Thorndrake, a lethal predator who commanded respect and fear. Now, I was crumbling before a weeping human because a goddess willed it. I hated every single second of this degradation.

"I do not care about this mate bond. I am leaving."

She turned on her heels, presenting her back to me.

In that exact instant, the full, crushing force of her hatred hit me like a massive tidal wave. It forced me to my knees. The impact rattled my bones, but the external pain was nothing compared to the internal devastation. My vision blurred into a murky haze of gray and black shadows. My body shattered from the inside out, consumed by an excruciating fire that melted my nerves and stopped the blood in my veins. I looked up one last time, watching my brothers' worried faces morph into indistinct shapes.

This was my new reality. I realized the brutal truth as the world faded into a silent darkness. I would burn in this blinding pain for as long as she hated me.