FREYA
My heart sinks as I watch Xander and Knox wave me goodbye from the pack house porch.
I told them to stay. To not come with me to the airport.
The way I’m feeling right now I just might break down crying if I had to say goodbye in public.
I’ve had the most intense forty-eight hours of my life and I want to leave with happiness and the sight of my males in front of my future home embedded in my memory.
I hold on to that image as Javier drives me to the airport. Sensing my need for quiet he thankfully doesn’t engage me in conversation but I see his eyes checking in one from time to time with a smile. Clearly reporting back my state to his Alphas.
The flight back to Crystal Moon is on time and uneventful and I’m home by lunch.
I have zero plans on how I’m going to tell my family but Xander’s advice was to let them bring up the obvious and go from there.
I like his plan.
Neo and Sebastian’s house is full to the brim with a hoard of screaming girls running through.
“Aunt Freya is here!” Someone screams through the house as I step in and am bombarded with a multitude of hugs and kisses.
“Oh my goodness did someone have more pups while I was gone I’m sure there’s more of you than before.” I laugh over the blonde heads of my nieces and meet my twins twinkling forest green eyes joining us in the living room.
“Hey sis!” I call making my way over to her.
“Wow, you got big!” I smile as she rubs her swollen belly.
“I’m so ready for these girls to get out.” Eva grimaces as I rub her huge stomach.
“Damn I didn’t realize how big you’d get with twins.” I stare in surprise.
Seeing her like this is in some ways surreal because I know I’m looking at exactly what I’d look like if I was pregnant. She’s beautiful, glowing, and happy. It’s all I want for myself.
Feeling deep emotions welling inside of me I pull her into a hug.
“I’m so happy for you. I know I’ve never really said it before but I’m glad things worked out for you and Dante. He makes you happy and that’s all that matters. I’m sorry for all the shit I gave you over him.”
Eva pulls back staring at me with tears and surprise in her eyes.
“Oh my Goddess. What’s happened?” She looks me over and I see the realization in her eyes as she scents me.
The smile that crosses her face rivals the sun.
“Freya! Did you meet your mate?” she squeals pulling me to her and sniffing through my hair.
“Shhh,” I hush her as a tiny blonde head runs streaking past us shrieking at the top of her lungs.
“Aunt Freya found her maaaattttteeeee!”
“Holy Fuck, Eva!” I whip my head around panicking as a dozen girls start jumping around me excitedly. This was not how I planned the news to be shared.
“Aunt Freya said a bad word!” another squeal resounds and the back door flies open.
My older sisters Arabella, Delilah, and Belinda come rushing in excitedly followed by Cordelia with a baby on her hip, and a very pregnant Neo.
“Okay girls everyone out on the deck go see your fathers!” Arabella orders in her firm Luna voice and after some grumbling the girls leave.
“Freya, you look good. And smell…happy.” Belinda, the subtle sister days,
“She smells fucked, finally popped that cherry.” Cordelia chuckles bouncing her baby on her hip.
“Cordelia!” Eva scolds while my other sisters gwaff and laugh, settling around me filling the sofa chairs.
I bury my face in my hands, my nerves tighten as six pairs of eyes land on me with intense unsettling focus.
Not since the day Gage rejected me have I been under this level of scrutiny. It’s usually the other way around. My sisters are the ones with intriguing love lives, heats, pups, and every drama possible under the moon. I’m usually the one that feeds everybody when shit hits the roof.
“Anyone hungry?” I stand, my instinct to run to the kitchen kicking in.
“Sit your butt down and spill.” Neo orders with a raised eyebrow over sparkling sapphire eyes. Such a short pregnant, bossy shit, but I cant ignore my Alpha when she tells me what to do.
With a huff, I sit and find Eva’s eyes for comfort. She smiles at me happily.
“Oh come on Freya, this is great news, stop torturing us, who is he? When did you meet and why the hell hasn’t he marked you yet!” Her questions fly at me and with each one my heart sinks.
Nervously I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and focus on my twin. I can’t handle the rest of the right now.
“He’s not my second-chance mate,” I confess, then hold my breath as silence descends across the living room.
“Goodness, all the drama for a hookup, come on leave her be, at least she’s living her life at last.” Belinda, ever the peacemaker, pipes up sensing my unease.
“Is that what it is Freya, just a hook-up? No judgment. You’re a grown female, unmated, free to do what you want.” Neo adds astutely her eyes drawing me in. It’s impossible for me to lie or hide anything from Neo. She’s my Alpha, and she’s always been honest with me, never pulls her punches. I know that if there’s something I need to hear, Neo will lay it out straight for me.
I lean back on the sofa, with a deep breath, I speak.
“He’s not my mate. But he wants to be. He’s asked me to be his Chosen.”
A chorus of protests fills the living room before Eva growls.
“Shut up and let her speak!” Silence descends faster than led bricks and Eva huffs staring my sisters down and they sit quietly.
I look at her gratefully but Neo stands with her hands held up.
“Freya, I didn’t want to tell you this now, I was hoping we could discuss this later but you can’t accept any offer to be a Chosen.”
A deep sense of foreboding sinks into my gut as I look at my sister.
“Why Neo? What’s going on?”
“It’s the Genesis Bill.” she begins almost apologetically,
“What? No, the bill is not meant to be applied retrospectively, and I accepted Gage’s rejection so it doesn’t apply to me. Right?” I say looking around as my sisters look at me sadly. They clearly know something I don’t.
“We just got the message early this morning. We thought the King was revoking the Genesis bill but we were wrong. He wanted to make stronger amendments to it. Any rejected who has not already found their second-chance mate or taken a Chosen will have to trial the mate bond for three moons before the bond can be formally broken.”
Ice bleeds into my veins.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head, anger and rage building in me.
“No. Neo. I wont do it. I will not go to Gage. I don’t want him and he doesn’t want me.” I glare at her, crossing my arms across my chest to warm the chill from my limbs.
Neo paces across the living room floor, her hand on her back supporting her large belly, frustration, and anger seeping from her.
“He does Freya.” She drops a bombshell of atomic proportions.
“What?” I blink as she stands in front of me, a hand running through her thick chocolate hair.
“As soon as the King sent the amendments through to the Council I got an email from Gage. He wants the trial with you.”
I stand furious, rage coursing through my veins.
“No fucking way Neo. No. I don’t care what happens I’m not going to do it.”
“Sit!” Neo orders flashing her eyes at me.
“I don’t like this as much as you, but the amendments don’t stop there. Initially, when I wrote the bill I never added in repercussions for not adhering to the bill. It was just a draft remember? But the Bill struck a chord with the King, he’s pushing for a return to wolf traditions. He wants to see stronger packs and fated mates are considered the best combination of pairings since the Goddess has made the pick.”
I throw my hands in the air in frustration.
“Well clearly she doesn’t get it right all the time, she certainly messed up with Crystal Moon, we’ve go so many rejected by useless cowardly mates.” I spit angrily.
“It does work out when the effort is made Freya, Dante and I are an example of what happens when the bond is given a chance,” Eva says softly,
“Yeah well that’s because he fucked you and claimed you before the rejection was set! That never happened for me, I don’t want Gage!” Eva looks at me stricken and I feel only a small sense of guilt before the rage returns.
“Freya, stop. You need to hear what will happen if you don’t go through with the trial.”
I look at Neo angrily.
“I don’t care what it is, I won’t do it.”
“You will lose everything, Freya. All your assets will transfer to Gage if you refuse and vice versa. You don’t have to accept him as your mate if in the end, you don’t want to, but you are required to make a real effort. If you don’t he will get Howler.”
I feel my world crumbling around me, tears of rage I can’t hold back streaming down my face as I feel the noose tightening around me.
“This is all your fault Neo. You and your fucking Genesis Bill. I hate you.”
Gasps echo around the room as I storm out unable to bear the madness anymore.
I slam the door behind me and shift shredding my clothes, disappearing into the familiar woods. Hela pushes us on, feeling the same anger, frustration, and helplessness.
This is a nightmare. A fucking nightmare. All I want to do is run all the way back to Crescent Ridge and disappear into Xander and Knox’s arms, where I’m safe. Where I don’t have to deal with a useless fucking Alpha who doesn’t know what he wants.
Xander and Knox have always been certain. Their certainty for what they want for us has been my safety net, my protection. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want Gage.
And yet deep inside me, inside Hela, a resonating fear grows. The mate bond is something almost impossible to resist. I’ve seen it over and over again with my sisters.
Neo couldn’t escape Sebastian no matter how much she avoided him and ran from his love.
Eva couldn’t escape Dante, even when he almost destroyed her, the mate bond overcame every obstacle possible.
I’m terrified the mate bond will take me unwillingly to Gage. It will take me away from the wolves I already love.
Without a doubt, I love Xander and Knox with every fiber of my being.
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