I watched my mate from my bedroom window.

There he was, fixing a plate of food for the female who is carrying his pup in her belly.

I couldn't stand to go to the pack barbecues anymore, not when I was forced to witness something so heinous; The person I'm meant to be with, tending to another she-wolf, one who had his future growing inside of her.

My heart constricted as I peered out the sheer curtain of my bedroom window, watching as he attempted to make her feel at home. The looks other members were giving her was the only thing that brought me a sense of satisfaction.

The Alpha and Luna understood my need to stay away, they allowed it.

Everyone knew about us.

Everyone knew he was mine and I was his. They knew who the pregnant female was to him too.

She had been a one night stand gone wrong.

It was embarrassing at first. The night he arrived home with her in tow, the pack assumed she was his mate. Never paying her any mind, I had been too enthralled with how his scent called to me, so I approached him. I claimed him as my mate in words alone, and the small crowd erupted into cheers.

The daughter of the Beta and the Alpha's first born, we were family friends since the beginning of time. I could only discover he was mine once I went through my first shift, a night that still haunts my memories to this day.

We would make strong pups, they all said.

Then I noticed the blonde female, standing on the other side of his vehicle. She pursed her lips, her eyes becoming glassy with unshed tears. I knew right then that something was amiss.

Realization set in, my face morphing into shock.

He closed his eyes as his head hung in shame, feeling that wave of guilt coursing through his system.

Manning up, he explained the situation to the pack, but not before we had a private conversation in the driveway. That conversation left me broken, shattered, lying on the gravel driveway as he made his way inside to check on her.

He has a responsibility to do the right thing now, and I'm the one who has to suffer.

I continued to watch as he set her plate down in front of her, her brown eyes squinting as she smiled up at him with happiness. He returned the smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.

I know him. Ever since I was a baby, I've known him. That wasn't his happy smile.

That could have been me down there, eating with him.

If he had never gone to our northern allying pack this summer to train, it would be me down there with him.

He's the Alphas first born son, the future Alpha.

Every future alpha is expected to spend their summer at a different allying pack to train with the other warriors and Alphas. They do this to become a strong leader and learn all the different methods there are to being a warrior, making them a supreme Alpha.

He began leaving for the summer when he was eighteen, a year after his first shift. Future Alpha's spend their first year training with their own pack, learning from their own Alpha. This was his third year of training. There was only one more year left until he would be considered ready to take over if anything happened to his father, the current Alpha.

Now the goal of finding his mate, his Luna, had been shattered by the lust that he hadn't managed to restrain.

The one thing every future Alpha dreams of is finding their true, moon-given mate, and that was thrown down the drain for one night of uninhibited passion.

The thought sickens me to my core.

And to think, I saved myself for him, my mate.

Two weeks.

It has been two weeks since he arrived back home.

It's been two weeks since my first shift celebration, the night I discovered he was mine.

Two weeks that I've been broken inside, not healing - staying the same.

He was a full-grown Alpha male. I may be just seventeen, a juvenile, but I could see the love in his sky blue eyes the night he discovered I was his mate.

There was shock written on his face, then happiness, followed by alarm and guilt. He couldn't know what I was to him until I shifted into my own wolf, even after all these years of our families being so closely knit.

Now it was too late.

My soul shattered that night, standing in front of him as we cried together, no one around to hear our words.

He was sorry, but I was broken.

How could my mate be so selfish to have let this happen? How could he have risked this? This one moment, defining of both our lives.

I felt my vision blur, their forms becoming fuzzy as the tears welled up in my eyes. My breathing became restricted and I clutched my four-day-old t-shirt as the agony propelled itself into my chest. My heart broke, dropping down into my nauseated stomach, causing the millionth wave of tears to be released. My tears were hot, dropping down cheeks already stained with the natural saline that my eyes seemed to produce every ten minutes or so.

My heart had broken and now there was nothing left inside me to break. Every organ inside my body seemed to whither and die like an orchid that had been thrust out into harsh, cold, winter snow.

Secretly watching them, he gave her food off of his plate. That honor was meant for me. She smiled, taking his hand in hers. A shudder ran through me and I had to fight my wolf to stay down, her emotions becoming too much for me to contain.

A thick lump in my throat formed as I watched their happy display. I wondered briefly what everyone thought, but their eyes said it all as they, too, watched the exchange.

Suddenly, his eyes found mine and my breath hitched, my heart skipping a beat.

He felt me watching him.

You always feel the watching eyes of your mate. He had probably felt my eyes on him five minutes ago when I initially peeked out the window, but ignored me, thinking I would go away. The thought only made it hurt worse inside as the pain swallowed me up. My wolf whimpered inside my mind at the same time she snarled at the thought of that female who didn't belong here.