THE AWAKENING

Serra startled at the sudden appearance of the old crone, Iona, disappointed that it wasn’t Tieran who’d found her in the garden. It’d been their favorite spot together and she’d hoped that Tieran would remember and find himself there.

“Child you waste your anger and your tears. The situation is beyond you,” Iona said, her wrinkled face neither sympathetic nor warm as she delivered her counsel.

Serra hated the old woman. If it hadn’t been for her constant screeching about that damn prophecy, then perhaps she and Tieran would be hand-fasted by now and she’d be the one carrying his pup and not that cursed witch-whore Cassandra. “Your bitterness oozes from every pore. It will destroy you if you don’t take care.”

“Shut up, old woman. I neither asked for, nor care for, your advice. Leave me.”

“Cassandra is the Prophesied One. Not you,” Iona continued, undeterred. “You risk your soul threatening the Gods’ will.”

“You and your silly prophecy! Who knows if it’s even real? All I see is a woman who managed to pull the wool over all your eyes, pretending to be something that doesn’t exist. Tieran was my Alpha. Mine! And she took him from me. She doesn’t deserve him. She doesn’t understand our ways. I was raised to be his woman. Me! And now where am I supposed to go? Thrust from the only home I’ve ever known…why? I think Tieran has been tricked into thinking he must forsake me for her. Deep in his heart, he still wants me. I can feel it.”

your path was not with Tieran. It is your own folly that you ignored my counsel. Now you must lie in the bed you’ve made. A good match will be found for you when the Mother Goddess deems it. Perhaps

I’m not his True Mate?” she

you are not a breeding female,” Iona answered simply. “You cannot

Serra’s eyes. “I could’ve been. You don’t know that for sure.

never bear pups. It grieves me to share this

ancient woman almost as much as she hated Cassandra. “Get out of

tend to your grief, Serra;

torn in two by feelings

deeply in love. And then…that dirty whore had appeared out of nowhere to threaten everything that