The Snow Wolf's Mate

The Monster I Fed:

[POV: Cole]

“She’s going to be Luna,” Dayana said, tossing the words at me like a dagger she knew would hit its mark.

I froze halfway through the corridor, back turned to her, fists clenched at my sides.

“What did you just say?” I asked without turning around.

Her heels clicked on the stone floor as she approached—calm, poised, venomous. “Aria,” she purred. “Your sweet little martyr. She’s to be officially crowned as the Luna of the Crimson Fang Pack. Hayden announced it publicly.”

I turned then.

Dayana’s eyes glowed with amusement, her smile sharp. “Poor Cole. All that brooding, all your secret little visits to the border. All that pining. And for what? For her to open her legs for a savage Alpha?”

“Stop,” I growled, but my voice came out more hollow than threatening.

She stepped closer, the air around her heavy with that perfumed sweetness she wore like armor. “You should have listened to me when you had the chance,” she said. “You could have had me. You did have me. And now you’re sulking because my pathetic sister finally found someone who sees her as more than a toy to pity.”

“I said stop,” I snapped, louder this time, but still she didn’t flinch.

Dayana tilted her head, mock sympathy in her eyes. “Is it hard, Cole? Knowing she never really wanted you? That the only thing you were ever good for was being a stepping stone on her way to someone better?”

My jaw clenched.

I couldn’t breathe.

Not here. Not with her.

I stormed past her without another word, shoving open the heavy doors of the estate and stepping into the forest beyond the property.

The cool air hit me like a slap.

But it didn’t help. Nothing helped.

I ran. Not in wolf form—just ran, boots pounding against soil and moss, branches tearing at my arms as if the forest itself wanted a piece of me.

Every step echoed with a word I didn’t want to think, a name I didn’t want to hear.

Aria.

Aria in someone else’s arms. Aria beneath someone else’s hands. Aria whispering someone else’s name in the dark.

And I—I—left behind. Again.

She was supposed to be mine.

We were bound by something I thought was real. I’d known her soul long before I knew her body. I’d watched her grow, seen her pain. Loved her, even when I didn’t know how to show it.

And she chose him. She gave him everything.

My breath burned in my lungs as I dropped to my knees beneath a twisted tree, fingers digging into the dirt.

“She was mine,” I muttered.

Mine.

She was never meant to be someone else’s. And that’s when I felt him.

The presence that lived inside me—dark, coiled, waiting. Rau.

His voice slithered through the corners of my mind like smoke. Cold. Cruel.

“You sound pathetic.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Go away.”

“She was never yours,” Rau said. “You were weak. Soft. And she wanted a man—not a sniveling pup who watched from the shadows.”

“She cared about me,” I said through gritted teeth.

“She pitied you.”

My hands curled into fists. “No.”

“She looked at you and saw someone she could escape through. Someone safe. Predictable. Forgettable.”

“Stop.”

“And now?” Rau laughed. “Now she’s wrapped around Hayden’s cock while you whimper in the woods like a dog that lost its bone.”

A snarl broke from my throat.

“Let me in,” Rau whispered. “Let me show you what it means to take back what’s yours. Let me burn that weakness out of you. We’ll make them bleed. Him. Her. All of them.”

“No.”

“You’re already cracking, Cole. Let me finish it.”

I could feel him—pacing behind the wall in my head. Waiting. Watching. The bloodlust curling like smoke under my skin.

I wanted to fight him.

But Goddess, I was so tired. So angry. So broken.

What if he was right?

What if everything I had believed about myself—about Aria—was just another lie I told to keep from drowning?

What if I wasn’t the good one? What if I was just too cowardly to become the monster I was always meant to be?

“You’re not a monster,” I whispered to myself.

But Rau laughed again. “Aren’t I you?”