Heart of a Beast

Chapter 4 | Tiberius

The curse could only be lifted if he earned the love of his mate, without the effects of the matebond, before the next lunar eclipse.

Time was running out. He had no choice but to leave.

The bitter stab of betrayal in the back made him run and never look back.

He would show them. He would show all of them. He didn't need their help.

He left one night a year ago without a word uttered. They would have tried to stop him. They did, in fact, try to stop him. They chased after him for months across states, but when the snow began to fall, he finally managed to lose them.

But by then, he was so far away from home and so far north that his search for his mate was put on hold and he had to focus on simply trying to survive. Tracking her down in the snow was nearly impossible.

Isolation during those frigid winter months played with his mind and he almost gave up.

He longed to find his mate, but he also missed his family. Even with all their drama and stubbornness, he missed their company. He wished things had been different, that he could have told them, that he could have gone with Dominius and searched for their mates together.

Why hadn't his brother included him in the search? Why had he been cast aside?

He could only travel during the night, allowing the blanket of darkness to conceal his dark form. The wind was brutal, throwing snow in his eyes and freezing around his nose, howling in his ears and pushing—always pushing—him around.

After a blizzard that lasted two days and nights, he ventured out of a cramped den that he fought and killed a fox for. The land was covered in fresh grainy powder that stung his eyes when the wind whipped against his face. A full moon peeked between clouds before disappearing and darkness fell.

He wandered for hours, exhausted and achy, but his heart ached the most.

What if he never found his mate?

The ice under his paws cracked and he fell through. The bitter cold water bit into him and he howled and yelped for help.

But who would help a drowning beast?

His family couldn't help him and now he was on his own and completely alone. No one would help him.

As he sank under the water, unable to pull himself out, he felt truly alone. He stopped fighting and opened his arms to darkness.

Darkness had been his friend for years, concealing him and his curse, and darkness would swallow him up. Darkness would finish him and steal his life.

But something miraculous happened.

The full moon peeked out through the hole in the ice and touched him. Something in him snapped. Something that had been suppressed for months—years—under the brutal control of pain, loneliness, anger, fear, helplessness, and hopelessness had awakened.

Don't give up!

Despite the numbing of his body from the freezing water, he pushed and kicked his way back to the surface. The broken ice was starting to freeze up again and he was able to grasp a solid chunk sticking up and pull himself out.

The moon stayed with him as he caught his breath and forced himself to move on and find shelter to warm up in.

The thought of finding his mate pushed him on. He couldn't give up on her. She was still out there somewhere—he knew.

He had to find her. She needed him just as much as he needed her.

Even now, as this blue-green eyed female stared back at him in horror, river-water trickling down the edge of her face, soaked to the bone, her body starting to tremble despite the glaring hot sun filtering between the canopy of leaves overhead, he knew he couldn't give up on her.