Denied by Destiny: Trapped in the Shadows of the Mate Bond

- Cleo -

How is this even possible, how does Alora know Alpha Than. Not just know him...judging by how loved up they look in this photo, they were once a couple.

I can't help but bring the photograph closer to my eyes, for as long as I have known Alora she's always seemed to be fighting against something, always a hidden sadness.

I knew she didn't grow up with Kaia, I just assumed that they had both a past they didn't want to relive...but if this was her past...

"She was my mate."

I shriek with shock, his voice startling me from the doorway that I drop the frame.

I hadn't even noticed him watching me..

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were there..."

"It's fine Cleo."

"No, I shouldn't be in here.." I reach down, picking up the photo frame and placing it back on his desk, moving towards the door.noveldrama

He has just caught me creeping in his office, I can feel the pricky hot rash of embarrassment rise up my neck onto my face. I had been beyond rude, who snoops in an alpha's office. I feel so ashamed.

I frantically try to go past him but he blocks me, his hand raising to slow me down.

"I said to make yourself at home. You were just being inquisitive." Why wasn't he mad at me, his calmness about this was if anything...too calm.

"I was looking for you, I would never dream of stepping into an alpha's office without permission. What you must think of me." My hands move up to my hair, running my fingers through my long blonde-freshly-washed locks. "Cleo, I promise you, I don't mind." He closes the office door behind him, before moving towards his desk and taking a seat on his chair.

His fingers skim across the top of the silver-plated frame before he moves it, re-angles it to how it was before.

I take a step forward, my hands resting on the back of the chair on the opposite side of his desk. I had so many questions, but the first one was how can Alora be his mate.

"I'm confused, how is Beta Alora your mate? You told me your mate was dead."

"She is dead to me." His teeth flash as the words exit his mouth.

His fingers that were readjusting the photo frame are now clenched into a ball on top of his desk. He was angry at the memory of her, angry at what must have happened between them. "What happened?"

"She rejected me, so therefore she is dead to me." He seethes out, his teething gritting together.

He's hiding it through anger but I can see the pain that still manifests beneath the surface, it has been slowly eating away at him for all this time.

"She was forced to pick between me and her sister."

"No." I gasp out.

"Yep, and then your parents sided with my own brother..."

"You have a brother?" I was so perplexed by his admission at having a brother that I overlooked the way he sounded resentful towards my parents.

"Hector..."

What...

"Wait, Hector is your brother?"

"Yes, you didn't know.."

"No......" I'm starting to understand that the reason I hadn't heard of Alpha Than, why I didn't even know I was related to him...runs far deeper than I could have ever realised. Then I remember what Dad told me..

"Hector is half human."

"Yes, my father was with a human before he found my mother, his fated mate. Hector lived here but then he decided he didn't want this pack, that he wanted something that was solely his.

He wasn't willing to share. He left after he tried to convince Alora that she was his mate...she was too young to feel the mate bond

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between her and me, so she believed his lies. Then....it got too

much for her and she tried to kill

herself."

I can feel my mouth has dropped open by this revelation, I'm so busy trying to process this information that I let my jaw hang...I too stunned to function right now. "No..." My voice sounds like a strangled gasps, I never knew Alora tried to end her own life.

“Then she found Kaia, a sister she never knew she had. A real family. Kaia manipulated Alora, twisted her against me...even made Alora reject me so that she could have her for herself."