Page 8 of Fat Betrayed Mate
Tomorrow, I'll be the enforcer. The protector. The right-hand who puts pack before everything else.
Tonight, I'm just a man standing in an empty cabin, wondering if the threats circling our borders are any match for the danger that walks through our market square with lavender-scented hair and eyes that won't meet mine.
The moon climbs higher, and I let myself remember for just a moment more—her laugh, her touch, the promises I made and broke. Then I close the curtains on the past and prepare for a future that suddenly feels far more uncertain than any hunter's camera or angry crowd.
In two weeks, the lottery bowl will hold her name among twenty-two others.
And I'm terrified that fate isn't done with us yet.
Chapter 3 - Fiona
I've been dreading this evening since the letter arrived two weeks ago. But no amount of dreading it has stopped it from coming.
The Hollow looms before me, ancient oaks and maples forming a natural cathedral around the sacred clearing where generations of Silvercreek wolves have gathered for ceremonies, celebrations, and—tonight—another cursed Mate Lottery. The setting sun filters through autumn leaves, painting everything in a deceptively romantic golden glow that makes my stomach turn.
I'm deliberately late, slipping between the trees as Elder Victoria begins her opening address. Better to blend into the shadows than stand exposed in the circle of eligible females already gathered at the center of the clearing. Twenty-three of us in total, though I recognize fewer than half after my years away. Some faces I remember from high school—girls who whispered behind my back about my curves, my quietness, my strange human father who never attended pack functions.
"The Mate Lottery is our most sacred tradition," Victoria intones from the raised stone platform where the pack leadership stands in ceremonial formation. "A gift from our ancestors, guiding wolves to their destined partners when they might otherwise never find each other."
I resist the urge to snort. Some gift.
My eyes drift unwillingly to the row of pack leaders behind Victoria. Dominic Blackwood stands tall and proud, his Alpha status evident in his stance alone. Luna stands at his side, her fingers laced with his, her expression thoughtful as she surveys the gathering. And there—Thomas, positioned at Nic'sright hand as befits his rank. Even from here, I can see the tension in his shoulders, the careful neutrality of his expression.
Does he want this? The question bubbles up against my will. Did he request the lottery, hoping to settle his future with some suitable female? Or is he as trapped as I am by ancient traditions that care nothing for broken hearts and bitter history?
If it were up to him, who, of all of us gathered beneath him, would he choose?
"Fiona," a soft voice whispers, and I nearly jump out of my skin. Ruby Mulligan has materialized beside me. "I didn't think you'd come."
"Not like I had a choice," I murmur back, eyes fixed on the platform. "They made it clear what happens to eligible females who miss the drawing."
Ruby's expression darkens. "Still. It's not fair."
I don't answer. Ruby knows only fragments of what she’s implying—what the pack's efficient gossip network has pieced together over the years. Nobody knows the whole truth. Nobody knows about Maisie's father, or why I really fled Silvercreek six years ago.
"Just stay beside me," Ruby whispers, squeezing my hand briefly. “Luna made it through hers. If it’s one of us, we will too.”
Her kindness threatens to crack my carefully constructed armor, so I nod stiffly and return my attention to Victoria, who has moved to stand before the carved wooden bowl that holds our names.
My mind drifts as she repeats the ancient blessing, a prayer to ancestors who have long since returned to the earth. I remember the last time I stood in this clearing—my mother's funeral, fifteen years ago. I was eleven, watching flamesconsume her body as my human father stood stiffly beside me, not a tear on his face, one of the only times he’d ever willingly entered the territory. He'd never loved her wolf, had married her despite it, not because of it. When her illness finally took her, part of me wondered if he felt relief.
"Her animal nature was always destructive,"he'd said afterward, his voice flat as we drove home in silence."It's what killed her in the end."
I'd known even then it was a lie. My mother's wolf had been gentle and playful—nothing like the monster my father had painted. But six months after her death, when my own first shift came, his cold disapproval transformed into something harder, crueler. Every time my eyes flashed with the wolf or my shift rose to the surface in his presence, his lips would curl with disgust.
"You have a choice, Fiona,"he'd say."You can be better than the beast."
Victoria's voice pulls me back to the present.
"As tradition dictates, I call upon the wisdom of our ancestors to guide my hand."
The Hollow falls silent as she reaches into the bowl, her ancient fingers stirring the folded papers. Twenty-three names. Twenty-two chances for reprieve.
My heart pounds so loudly that I'm certain everyone can hear it. I calculate the odds again: less than a five percent chance, surely fate wouldn't be so cruel, surely—
Victoria withdraws a slip of paper with theatrical slowness, unfolding it with gnarled fingers. Her silver eyes scan the name, and for a fraction of a second, something like surprise flickers across her face before she schools her expression.
"Fiona Wright," she announces, her voice carrying through the clearing.
