On the Day of His Shift Ceremony, My Son Died

I had heard that the moon goddess laid curses upon some wolves before, but never had I ever thought that I just happened to be one of the wolves she had cursed.

Alpha Jaxon and I were never meant to be mates, yet the moon goddess had decided to play a cruel joke on both of us by making us fated mates.

For the first time in years, Alpha Jaxon, my son, Enzo, and I were going to leave the house together but now that I look at things again, I have come to see how I might have been too hopeful. Alpha Jaxon hardly spared his son and me so much as a smile or even a look of encouragement.

The silence was becoming too much to bear already, so, I cleared my throat. “Alpha Jaxon, it’s your only son’s shifting ceremony today. Don’t you have any words of encouragement to say to him by any chance? He is your heir and the next destined alpha of this pack.”

Immediately the words left my mouth, I began to regret them. Alpha Jaxon halted in his steps and pinched the bridge of his nose before he let out a frustrated sigh. He offered our son, Enzo a look, before he even bothered to look at me. “You know what, Catherine? You can handle this all on your own. Something came up and it’s extremely important, so I need to leave. Immediately.”

“But-”

Alpha Jaxon placed a hand in the air, making me pause as he turned to look at Enzo. “You’re my son. You have my blood. Just try to remember that and whatever you do, don’t mess this up for me,” he scolded his eighteen-year-old son in a clipped tone before turning to walk away.

My initial instinct was to stop him and beg him to at least stay for a few moments longer, but I knew that it wouldn’t change anything.

It never worked in the past.

Ever since Alpha Jaxon had left us at home earlier, Enzo had gone quiet. All that could be heard between us was the weight of Jaxon’s absence and the low tune of the music that the driver played in the car. Playing with the hems of my dress, I looked up at the boy with sandy blonde hair sitting in front of me. “Enzo, you know that your father loves you, right?”

Enzo scoffed, his blue eyes becoming slightly darker as he did so.

“He doesn’t love me or you! He only loves that slut, Julia! And I’m sure that he’s with her, right now,” he spat, each word coming off icier than the last.

I wished that I could say something to counter Enzo’s argument, but even I knew that Enzo was a hundred percent correct. The only person that Jaxon loved in this world was some dumb brunette named Julia and as much as I wanted to ignore it, I could never. Jaxon made it almost impossible for either his son or I to forget how much Julia mattered to him.

The man didn’t love us.

Swallowing a thick lump down my throat, I tried to change the topic, but before I could utter a single word, the car came to a halt. The sudden stop in movement shocked us all and our driver stepped out first to see what had happened. When minutes had gone by without our driver returning, a sense of foreboding grew in my chest.

Terrified and confused all at once, my son and I stepped out of the car and the moment we did, I began to regret my actions almost immediately.

Outside the car were three shirtless men with blood-covered hands and our lifeless driver lying close to them.

“Rogues!” my wolf, Starla, yelled in my head and I nodded.

I was ready to bargain. Fight. Do anything that could possibly free us from the situation we were in. However, before I could do so much as make a move, Enzo stepped forward. “What do you want?!” He yelled at them and from the way they all looked at him, I could tell that my son had just aggravated them even more.

Without a thought in the world, I shifted into my wolf form, charging at the rogues, knowing that the most important thing was to protect my son. I fought with all my strength but even in my rage, it seemed as though I had forgotten about all possible outcomes that could play out in a fight like this.

One of the rogues had managed to escape me and when I least expected it, he dug his sharp claws right through my son’s chest. A toe-curling scream interrupted my fight with the other two and that was when I saw the damage that had been done to my son.

With my rage taking a new dimension, I used the last bit of energy in me to kill off the rogues before making my way back to my son. His eyes remained wide and his clothes soaked with blood. The last thing I heard him say was “I love you mum” before I shifted quickly and rushed to drive him to the pack hospital.

The constant howling of my wolf in my head made it hard for me to focus, yet I was able to take Enzo to the pack hospital quickly.

Pacing around the hallways of the hospital, I tried to mind-link Alpha Jaxon as many times as I possibly could, but each time I did, I failed to receive a reply. So, I resorted to doing things the old-fashioned way and called him.

Luckily for me, he picked on the first ring, but the voice that came through the phone had me wondering if I was truly cursed by the moon goddess at birth. “Luna Catherine, what do you want?! Alpha Jaxon is busy!” Julia’s shrill voice greeted me.