The Snow Wolf's Mate

The Price of Surviving:

[POV: Hayden]

We stood breathless in the echo of our rage, locked in a stare that scorched the air between us.

Aria's chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven movements, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her eyes shimmered—not with fear, not even with pain—but something hotter, deeper.

Fury. But I didn’t back down. I couldn’t.

Not when my blood still burned with suspicion and betrayal. Not when I could still feel the sting of her secrets wrapped like thorns around my pride.

She had kept so much from me. She had lied—and even if it was to protect herself, I couldn’t unfeel the crack of that truth.

But then… She broke.

Her voice cracked through the tension like lightning splitting the sky.

“What do you want from me?” she demanded, her tone sharp and trembling. “What exactly do you want, Hayden?”

I blinked. Her words shook me more than I wanted to admit.

“Do you want me to tear my soul out and throw it at your feet? To turn myself inside out just so you can trample what’s left?”

My breath caught. She wasn’t shouting anymore, but her voice struck harder than any scream.

“You want the truth?” she whispered, fire and pain flaring beneath the surface. “Fine.”

Her hands trembled at her sides.

“Should I tell you first about how my pack—my own family, my blood—treated me like a defect from the day I could walk? That I was never enough? Always compared. Always weaker. Always less.”

She took a step forward, her voice rising. “Or should I describe how they made sure I knew I was the shame of their bloodline? The mistake they couldn’t get rid of?”

Each word felt like a blow. Not from her—but from the truth she was bleeding in front of me.

“Perhaps you want to hear how my own father started ‘visiting’ me at night? How the older I got, the worse it became? How my mother—my own mother—just looked the other way?”

My stomach dropped. Aria’s voice cracked again, and she pressed forward, her steps like thunder.

“Should I tell you how my sister used to laugh while she tried to kill me? How she nearly drowned me in the swamp during a so-called training session just because she was bored? How her friends watched and cheered?”

Her words blurred into fury, her tears spilling freely now.

“Or do you want the part where the only person I ever trusted—Cole, the man you saw with me—the person I trusted was my mate, chose her over me? Chose power over my love? Left me to rot while they paraded their bond like it didn’t matter whose life they stepped on to get there?”

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

“I had to run away. Because if I stayed, I would probably end up dead. One way or another. So yes, I ran.” Her voice broke completely now, a sob catching in her throat. “I ran to survive. And for the first time in my life, someone gave me a chance to earn something for myself. A place. A name. A reason to believe I wasn’t just a mistake with legs.”

Her arms wrapped around herself, like she was the only thing holding herself together.

“And then you—” She stared at me, eyes shining with tears and heartbreak. “You look at me like I’m still a threat. A disaster. An enemy.”

The silence afterward felt crushing.

She stood there, panting, her cheeks streaked with tears, her body shaking like she might collapse under the weight of her own words.

I had wanted the truth, indeed. But not this. Not this brutal, harrowing unraveling.

Guilt hit me like a blow to the chest.

I had forced her to bleed her story into this room. Demanded honesty and then stood like a judge when she gave me pain I never deserved to hear.

“I— Aria,” I stammered, stepping forward. “I didn’t know. I couldn’t have imagined—”

“No,” she said bitterly, wiping her face with the sleeve of her uniform. “You couldn’t.”

I tried to reach for her, tried to pull her into the comfort I had no right to offer. Something inside me ached to protect her, to shield her from everything she’d just relived for my sake.

But she stepped back.

A cold barrier returned to her face—one I hadn’t seen since the day we first met. She straightened her spine, steeled her expression, and said in the formal tone of a soldier addressing her superior:

“Am I dismissed now, Alpha?”

I hesitated. Then nodded once, too stunned to say a word.

She turned and walked out of the room without another glance. When the door closed behind her, the silence hit harder than her voice ever had.

Sirius exploded in my mind before I could even sit down.

“You fool. Idiot. You broke her!”

I dropped into the chair behind my desk, elbows on my knees, hands in my hair.

Sirius wasn’t wrong. I had been a complete asshole.

I had taken her silence and carved it into suspicion. Taken her trauma and used it like a weapon. Demanded honesty while offering none of the trust I’d expected in return.

The memory of her tears—of her voice shaking as she asked me why I believed her sister over her—gnawed at me with every heartbeat.

I had made her relive hell. And she still stood her ground. Still told me the truth, even when it ripped her open.

And I… I had just stood there. Like a goddamn coward.

Sirius growled again. “Fix this.”

But I didn’t know if I could. Or if she’d ever let me to try.