Taken (Sinful Series - book 1)

***

Alyssa

Waiting for the clock to strike midnight was painful. The seconds seemed to drag on forever. How her life turned as surreal as a scene from a book in such a short amount of time was unbelievable. Although Alyssa understood why Alpha Devon issued his command, forbidding her any communication with Karim and his Fated, she still felt betrayed by the Alpha. He was publicly choosing an outsider, forcing her best friend and Chosen into a relationship.

Alyssa had a whole week of solitude to think over her situation. Karim and Violet were paired by the fates but neither knew anything about the other. While that could be overcome by time and patience, Alyssa hoped nothing could erase all the memories and years she shared with Karim. She was still in love with her best friend, and fated or not, she wanted to have a chance with him, for the sake of their pup. A pup, he still didn’t even know about.

The uncertainty and stress it brought were not healthy for anyone, much less a growing bun. The only person who could help settle the uneasy in her stomach, was forced to court another. Alyssa had considered going to Alpha Devon numerous times, but his position on the matter was clear. He was on Violet’s side. Damn, Fates and Alphas. They were both full of shit.

It was a matter of life and death, and so Alyssa tried to circumvent the Alpha’s order with no luck. Apparently her friends sucked at charades, and Alyssa could not afford to fight off an Alpha Command. Not now. Not when her future relied on her.

The seven days felt like months long sentence, while the final seconds – like years. She had no choice but to anxiously await confirming the life inside of her a hundred times over.

So when the clock finally struck midnight, she immediately linked Karim, hoping against Fates that he had not completed his mating. The twenty seconds before his response came back were the longest twenty seconds of her life. She had just about vomited, fainted, and died from anxiety.

When did life get so complicated?

Unlike those bullshit stories, there was little hope for her.

She was certainly not ready to be a single-mom.

Karim

Whoever said love was messy got it right. There was not one love, but different kind of loves. The love for your family, the love for your friends, and love for things – like homeless puppies and kittens. And then there was Violet. Although he knew her all but two seconds, she had already managed to claim a significant piece of his heart. His heart was now beating with hers. His attempt to fight the mating pull was frankly killing him slowly. After tonight, his feelings for her were all consuming, burning, charged with tingles, and unique mushy-sweetness. He wanted to touch her, to smell her, to talk to her, and to lick her. Then do it all over again, preferably not in the same order. He wanted to experience all there was to it to their all-consuming, empowering and demanding love that came with the fresh claim on her neck.

It was easy to love Alyssa, but so damn hard to resist Violet. She was spicily sassy, then next minute compassionate, and so down close to perfect. His perfect. He loved her already.

He had been so consumed by his need to know more about Violet that the whole week passed like a blur. In retrospect, the sheer number of dates should have pointed it out. But Karim was too busy falling in love, and watching the bond strengthen with time to notice anything other than her.

His Violet.

It would only be a couple of more days before her bond with Xander dissipated completely so that she could claim Karim completely. Karim now held no resentment against her past. He had accepted it as the necessary circumstance which brought him Violet. While it could have been handled better, he had no regrets. They were where they were Fated to be.

Last night had just proven it. Karim was not a man to believe in sunsets, falling starts and all that romantic-shit he had done in the chase for some tail. With Violet, he was different. She was his all, so if she wanted flying turtles, he’d get them for her. She had been everything he had imagined, and then some more.

Life did not get any fucking better than this.

So when Alyssa mind-linked him, it caught him off guard. She wanted to meet, and he figured after all they had been through, he owed her as much. She needed to hear it from him, instead of the Alpha. It was their relationship, not Devon’s. Alyssa certainly didn’t deserve to hear it from the public announcement.

He pulled on his jeans, looking over his shoulder at the beauty in his bed. He took one breath and smirked with satisfaction, her scent was mixed with his just right.

He had every intention on surprising her with a breakfast in bed upon his return.

And if the Goddess was gracious, he wouldn’t mind getting her for desert.

Violet

Something was happening as gut wrenching pain twisted her body in a fetal position. Pulsating headache broke out almost instantaneously, as her pounding heart threatened to leave her chest. Violet cried into her pillow as realization finally settled.

That bastard!

Violet’s was mentally numb from his betrayal, while her body was bruised both by man and his will. She still found it hard to believe, he would claim another right after rolling out of bed with her. Besides who would even take a mated wolf reeking of previous partner?

Someone desperate.

Alyssa.

Karim’s mark on Violet’s neck burned, and itched to no end. There was no relief despite the cold shower spray she aimed at it. Stumbling out of the shower, Violet grabbed a towel, icy fingers shakily wrapping the cotton around her torso.

Violet forced herself to make the next five steps to the vanity, hesitating to look at the mirror. She was afraid of what she already knew her reflection would show. Violet had seen it happen far too many times in her life in Shadow Waters. It always started the same. Uncontrollable itch, then pain and scalding heat, as her body got rid of the incriminating evidence of a claim in the next week.

Gagon’s minions took choice mates only to discard them when someone new and exciting came in their lives. That was the were-crisis and now it had made her its unwilling victim. A victim who was not ready to accept she was cheated out of her fated mating.

Sad. Pathetic. But still so gut-wrenchingly painful as her heart continued to pulsate in her chest. How she was still conscious, she did not know. Frankly, she did not even want to be alive. What was the purpose of holding on when her whole world ceased to exist?

She had no mate.

No reason to live.

But the next breath came relentlessly, prolonging her torture, reminding her heart was still beating. As the next one followed, she knew, against all odds life continued. She was still alive.

Bruised, rejected and broken, but undoubtedly alive.

While hearing the words of rejection helped extinguish the hope, thus accelerating the separation, Violet didn’t need the audio version to recognize it. The signs were all there. He had chosen another and unlike their mating, his was now complete.

Alyssa had won.

Violet’s life was left burning on the sidelines. Ruined. She would never have the piece of her heart she had dedicated to him, her mate, her everything. She wanted to believe he did feel something for her, that he did not just use her body. But in the end of the day even the best of reasons were going to be just that – excuse of his poor judgement. Violet didn’t need any excuses. She needed her mate. She desperately wanted to love, and be loved in return. That was the essence of her whole life. Life that was now discarded as trash.

The Fates were supposed to be kind, and giving. Not the fucking bastards that only took and took from her. It was not fair. But then again life had never been fair to her. From the cradle to now she had lost and given her all in the name of her Love. Her mate.

Yet, her mark was festering, rejecting her as his mate. The skin would shortly peel to expose muscle, healing painfully slow, yet without a trace of scar. Nature did not condone two separate marks done by a single shifter. One would inevitably fade away, freeing the shifter to choose their own fate. The only impediment was by the time a shifter was ready to move on, they were too broken to even consider mending their heart. They were eagerly starring at the darkness berserkness brought from within. Gagon’s solution to this hindrance was to mate the rejected shifter to another in hopes the new mating bond would substitute the broken. Experience told her it only worked once. Then the minds were too shattered to even be capable of forming a bond. Their only future was that of an Incubator.

Violet had held back from marking Karim, out of respect for Xander. She did not want to afflict pain to the only soul who had showed her compassion. Xander’s body was slowly disintegrating the one-sided marking, her claim on him weakening with every day. Just as the unidirectional blood transfer, from him into her, she felt his bond and emotions, while he displayed her mark. It was nature’s way to ensure the full completion of the mating. It took one moon cycle for nature to dissolve it this way if the ritual was not completed. Violet owed it to Xander for all of his kindness.

While her mark on Xander had played a part in Karim’s rejection, she was thankful he still had it. Ironically, it was the very same claim on Xander that reduced the physical pain from the ultimate rejection of her Fated. Her body was not completely shattered from pain, just numb and bruised. While her skin blackened with every single minute that went by, preparing it to peel off in the next couple of days, her mind was replaying her life like a movie, searching for a way to justify what had happened.

Her mind wondered back at Karim. How could he just roll out of her bed to claim another? Alyssa must have been desperate to accept an already claimed shifter in her bed. While he wasn’t fully mated yet, it was a formality. Nobody really claimed someone during climax without the will to complete the mating. Even when Violet had marked Xander, it wasn’t in the high of it all. It was out of necessity and nauseatingly disgusting as she recalled, but needed. The only explanation of Karim’s action was to punish her for marking Xander. Did Karim’s stupid male Ego demand him to turn tables on her, and show her what the mark on Xander’s neck had done to him?

Stupid, stupid male!

There were no more tears to cry, her eyes were but dry wells. There were no more moves to make, no more conversations to have, and no more chances to give. She had given him her all, only for Karim to toss it right back in her face. She was mad and hurt not only by his decision but with the way he had handled it. He didn’t have the guts to look her in the eye, and tell her what he was planning. He had chosen public humiliation for her punishment, as if she hadn’t had enough of it. She sighed and tied to calm her aching heart.

Her conscious was clear. She had given him her all.

But it didn’t make it hurt any less.

Violet

Panting.

Panicking.

Suffocating.

Those paled in comparison with what Violet currently felt.

Males were nothing but despicable pigs! She had lowered her guard, trusted the mating pull, and took things for granted. She had expected Karim to take some time to eventually see the truth, and to forgive her for marking another. There was nothing romantic with Xander, hence she had only used the man to get out of her prison, to get to Karim. But Karim, he had not only cheated with Alyssa since knowing Violet, but now had done the ultimate disgrace.

How naive must she had seemed in his eyes after last night? She had believed things were finally better, lied to herself that all was behind them, and they were together.

How wrong... How utterly wrong she had been. She wondered if he even thought about what this would do to her? No, he hadn’t thought about her. He was a selfish bastard. That was all he was. She was nothing but a pawn to him. A pawn he played with, then discarded when he was bored with it.

‘Foolish, Violet. You fell right into it,’ Violet’s thoughts raced.

He had played her so well. From his anger and jealousy, through the stupid dates melting the ice between them, to their mating – he never promised her his love. Violet read into his gestures deeper than she should have, allowed the bond to take over, when her mind should have been vigilant. But for Goddess sake, he was her Fated. Their love and bond was supposed to overcome everything and everyone.

Well, apparently not.

Violet was offended, hurt and felt used. This was not how she imagined the day after her mating. Her mating was anything but the nauseating romance, and as the morrow came, soberness settled. They hadn’t used protection.

Shit.

The mating pull had clouded her judgement, and Violet had made the stupidest decision ever – to rely on nature to take its course.

Stupid, stupid.

She had allowed her heart to beat before her mind thought, and now this was all on her. Not on him. On her. He had washed his hands with her, hiding behind the mating bond of another. On her. Because she had not waited. On her. Because she had rushed.

Violet accepted her role at losing her fated mate, and tried to process his betrayal. But she could still not wrap her head around just how low did you have to go to accept someone else’s mate in your bed when he clearly reeked of his prior mating? That right there was what was wrong with the situation.

The Were-society had gone down the drain, and right into the sewers. Violet couldn’t believe that even this far south, there was always a she-wolf desperate enough to forgive, to forget, and to compromise herself for a male. No solidarity. No sisterhood. No feminine power. Every bitch out for herself, carving her own piece of the pie.

Hell, hadn’t she been in the very position? Violet sighed. It wasn’t a matter of morals, or blaming someone else. They were all liable for their choices. Even Violet hadn’t been immune, forgiving Karim for his hooks up, trying to be understanding enough that his infidelity was her punishment, her choice’s consequence dished by the Goddess because she had dared to mark another.

Violet had chosen to be the better person, to take one for the team, to be forgiving and loving, while she should had run straight for the hills.

No, better yet the beach. Violet had never felt the sand between her toes, and the warmth kisses of the sun. That should have been her goal, not devoting her life to a mate she dreamed about yet barely knew.

There was no Goddess. As no Goddess was cruel enough to dangle mates in front of a she-wolf, then to take them away! There was no Fate. It was just a fucked up world, where everyone was out for themselves.

He had taken his pleasure, tried in his Fated. When he was done, he had proclaimed her defective; discarding her as yesterday’s trash. Violet’s hand moved over her stomach.

She was divided. She wanted to have a piece of him, no matter how pathetic it sounded even to her brainwashed mind. Luckily, her wolf was silent. She couldn’t take even an ounce of sarcasm. The sound-minded side of Violet warned her heart not to bring a possible pup in this mess.

Where mates mated almost immediately after knowing each other, how did her mating become so complicated? Violet could not wait days, possibly weeks not knowing if she had a decision to make. Even if she could, she doubted she could make a decision. Paralysis by analysis. That was going to be her doom.

Violet had wasted years on hopes of a mate. She was not about to condemn an innocent to waiting for love, or recognition from a parent obsessed with another family.

He had made his own choice by mating another, not even sparing a thought about her and their possible future. She did not owe him a thing. It was time to make a new choice and accept its consequences. Again. For better or worse, the choice was hers.

She was simply done. The realization shocked her already torn heart.

Her body was her temple, and she was a fierce priestess in need of some Devil’s Claw.