Page 4 of Dark Sold Mate

Elle turned fourteen. Still nothing.

The teasing started small. Conversations in school corridors. Giggles behind her back. “Still human, Elle?” they would taunt her.

She'd endured it. Held her head high and awaited the change that would make her feel at home.

Fifteen came and went. Then sixteen.

At seventeen, the patience of the pack had been exhausted. The taunting had now taken an uglier form. It was now bullying. They would grab her and push her down in the corridors, bump into her during training, avoid taking her to pack meetings.

And, more frequently than not, on the forefront of it had been Silas Weston.

The Alpha's son. August's best friend. The golden boy that could not do wrong in the eyes of the pack.

He'd been merciless.

Elle recalled how he had stared at her across the training grounds with a look of disgust on his face. She remembered the scathing comments that he had made to her about her weakness, her humanity, her inherent wrongness. He never touched her, at least not with his hands, but his words had carved pieces out of her soul.

The worst was the fact that he was worshiped by all. Silas Weston, future Alpha, a strong, capable man destined for greatness. When he made fun of Elle, others laughed and followed suit.

August had tried to intervene, but what could he do? Silas was his closest ally, his future Alpha. Their relationship was strong.

So Elle had endured. She had lived day after day hanging onto the belief that she would one day get her chance to prove them wrong.

Then came the day when everything changed.

Elle had been seventeen, almost eighteen. She used to go to the pack library to borrow or return some books when she thought nobody would be there. But Silas had been there, and he was lying on one of the reading chairs, as if he owned the place. Well, he actually did.

The minute she entered the room, the air changed, thickening with something Elle didn't understand.

Silas looked up, staring at her, and for once, there was no mockery in his green eyes.

Just with the kind of intensity that caused Elle's heart to race wildly.

They had looked at each other across the room. Neither speaking. The silence dragged on like a live wire until Elle felt like she might snap from the tension.

Then it happened.

The vision slammed into her. One minute she was standing in the library, and the next she was in another dimension, seeing something else—a golden thread between her and Silas binding them together in a way that was beyond the pack, beyond friendship, beyond anything Elle had ever known.

Fated mates.

Only a few seconds into the vision, and Elle dropped to her knees, holding on to a bookshelf, her mind struggling to process what she'd seen.

Silas stood up. “Are you alright?”

His voice had been different. Softer. Almost concerned.

Elle had seen him, this boy who had harassed her all her life. The vision burned her heart.

Forgetting where she was, forgetting who she was addressing, forgetting everything, the words poured out before she could stop them. “Could we be fated mates?”

Silas froze. The look on his face was no longer one of concern, but one of shock and panic.

Then he laughed.

It was mean, vicious, piercing. All the softness in his face had disappeared, and in its place was the old sneering contempt that Elle was used to.

“You?” His voice dripped with disgust. “My fated mate? Don't be ridiculous. My mate could never be a pathetic human like you.”