Frozen Bonds, Broken Heart Chapter 01
This was the third time Damon Hale had abandoned me in the Alaskan wilderness.
The freezing wind sliced across my face like razor-sharp blades, leaving nothing behind but the stench of ice and blood. Beyond the borders of Blackwood Pack, my body heat drained at an alarming rate—fast enough that even my Alpha bloodline couldn’t keep me alive for more than a few days.
And I was nothing more than the mate he had personally driven out past the pack boundary.
It started when I finally nodded and agreed to let Sarah move into our pack house. He stared at me as if I’d grown a second head, his eyes wide with disbelief. His wolf stirred beneath his skin, picking up an odd shift in my scent.
“Elena,” he said, his brow furrowing, his pupils slit thin with wolf’s wariness. “Why are you agreeing to this all of a sudden?”
He looked genuinely confused. “You swore you’d rather break the mate bond than let Sarah live with us. So where’s your fight? Where’s the cold shoulder? Why aren’t you screaming at me?”
I just smiled and shook my head. “Do whatever you want, Damon.”
He didn’t know that Sarah had pushed me into the freezing Arctic water. I was supposed to have died there. Instead, a lost spirit trapped in the ice pulled me back from the brink. The price I paid for being saved was my heart.
I couldn’t love him anymore. Not ever again.
……
Three days after I dragged myself out of the icy water, Damon finally remembered I existed.
He traveled hundreds of miles from pack territory out into the wilderness and stopped at the entrance of a rocky cave. The moment he saw me, his face twisted with irritation.
“God, Elena, are you losing your mind? You went two full weeks without sending out a single distress signal?”
I lifted my numb head. His eyes swept over my face, and he actually flinched.
“You… my God, you look half-dead. What on earth happened to you?”
“Oh, don’t be mad at Elena,” Sarah said softly, stepping out from behind him.
She reached out with practiced ease and looped her arm through my mate’s. “She’s fine. We left her plenty of supplies. She’s probably just upset that we left. You should apologize to her, Damon.”
I ignored her.
Sarah grabbed my arm anyway. The second her nails touched my skin, she dug in hard, sinking deep into the bruises already covering me. Her jaw while she strained to hold up her fake smile, her overdone effort plain to see.
“Leave her alone, Sarah,” Damon sighed, tossing a heavy wool coat at me.
It slammed square into my chest.
I was wearing nothing but a thin sweater, my limbs frozen numb, my blood barely moving through my veins.
Still, I didn’t pick up the coat.
“Seems like you love roughing it out in the wild just to make me trek out and fetch you,” he muttered. “You’re so damn stubborn.”
Enjoying myself?
My wolf let out a soft, pained whimper.
This was the third time he had left me out here alone.
The first time was a day or two. This time, it was two full weeks.
He called it a “solo trip.” We were supposed to be watching the northern lights together.
But somewhere along the way, Sarah “accidentally” took my winter coat and stood in the wind laughing at me.
“Can’t believe you can’t hack a bit of chill,” she sneered. “And you still think you’re fit to be the pack’s Luna?”
She soaked my coat in an ice-cold stream right in front of me.
I lunged to grab it back, but she stumbled backward and played the victim.
By the time Damon got there, she was shaking all over, her eyes wide with fake fear, claiming I had tried to set her up.
“You’re sick, Elena,” Damon growled, wrapping his own coat around her shoulders.
He didn’t listen to anything I said. He peeled my fingers off the hem of his jacket, his voice icy cold.
“If you aim to stay my mate, you’ll prove it by staying alive out here.”
He took the satellite phone and left me with a phone that was about to die.
What he didn’t know was that for two weeks, Sarah kept texting me.
Photos of their mess in bed. Her silhouette lying beside him. Her head tilted back to kiss him in the hot tub.
Her words stabbed into my eyes like needles: [You really thought you’d be his Luna?]
[I’m his fated mate. You’re just some girl his parents picked out.]
[He sent you away so we could be alone.]
The moment my screen went dark, I caught a faint, brittle crack from our mate bond, like a fraying cord hanging by a thread.
Now, on the drive back to pack territory, Damon looked at me with something that might have been guilt.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s drop this cold war. If you really don’t want Sarah to move into the pack, I won’t force it—”
“I agree,” I said, my voice flat.
Damon froze. “What did you say?”
“I said I agree.” I kept my eyes on the floor. “Let her move in.”
A beat of dead silence fell over the truck’s cab.
“Excuse me?” His eyes flew wide.
