Page 1 of Plus-Size Sold Mate
Chapter 1 - Sera
I haven’t looked back since I started running. If I risk, I know I’ll falter, and if I do, they’ll find me.
The smell of fresh rainfall still clings to the grass and trees, stirred up with my every rushed step forward. The slick pine needles make my boots slide each time I move downhill, forcing me to spend extra precious seconds being more mindful.
My legs feel like they’re full of lead, and my lungs burn unlike they ever have before, leaving an iron taste in my dry mouth, but none of those things are good enough reasons to stop. Not when so much is at stake.
I don’t know where I am anymore, but the trees have changed, and the air is saltier than it had been, which means Wraith Peak is long behind me, exactly where it should be.
All of this would be easier if I could run like a wolf, in the form that should be as natural to access as breathing.
But I’ve never had that luxury. Instead, I run as a girl born wrong. A shiftless wolf who has never successfully connected with that side before.
Even now, after enduring that truth my entire life, it still claws at me. It guts me to know I might never experience something so primal and innate.
Though that doesn’t mean I’m completely defenseless.
Pulling from a place deep inside my chest, buried beneath shame and carefully placed wards, magic hums beneath the surface. It’s coiled tight and waiting, always silently longing for the chance to be let out.
I’ve always wished I could free it and allow that part of me to take up space, but I can’t. Not while magic is forbidden here.
I may not know a lot about it, but I do know powers like mine have been outlawed for generations after magic users and shifters nearly tore each other apart over it. Even if an island offering the perfect cover for exactly that would be an ideal place, I still can’t be my complete self here. Despite having my shift sacrificed for being able to wield magic, it’s something I can’t embrace.
To the humans occupying the Willow Island, there are no shifters, and there definitely isn’t any magic. They see only an isolated island, old forests, and a ferry that runs twice a day from Coldreach to the mainland.
They aren’t supposed to know what I am, and I can’t ever let them see.
But in times of desperation, like this, I let my power seep into my limbs in careful, measured bursts. It’s enough to strengthen my muscles and to ease the burning in my chest to keep me going, but not enough to flare or cause any damage. I’ve fine-tuned it enough not to leave any signatures behind either.
Pulling in a deep breath, I let that warmth flood me, savoring the relief while it lasts, and I keep pushing.
No matter what it takes, I have to reach the wharf before the ferry leaves in the morning, even if that means running all night.
If I can cross into Coldreach and blend in with the humans and shifters long enough to board the ferry, then I can disappear somewhere in the mainland and get as far away from Wraith Peak and Dawson as possible.
There, nobody will know who or what I am, and nobody can try to use me.
As easy as the plan sounds, I’ve been drip-feeding myself magic for hours, and by now, it’s starting to flicker in protest. My body was never meant to channel this long without rest, especially on the first try.
My foot catches on a root, and I stumble, needing another little burst to keep me upright, but it only makes my usage strain more.
As my stamina wanes, I slow to a jog, chest heaving in an attempt to recuperate.
I know that every time I stop, I lose precious distance and time I’ll never get back again, but I’m running on fumes now. The trees have started to thin, and with more and more rivers and streams popping up, I know I’m getting close. I just have to keep going. If I don’t, then Dawson’s wolves will catch me, and I don’t even know what kind of punishment would be waiting for me.
The thought of him is enough to make me squirm and for my skin to grow cold.
Wraith Peak wasn’t my birthplace. In fact, I wasn’t even born on the island to begin with. My original pack lived on the mainland, and while things started out as normal as they could for a young wolf taken in by a nice couple, it soon dissolved the moment my first shift was delayed. Though most assumed it would come to me eventually. When my peers used my inability to shift against me, and my foster parents felt embarrassed by my deficiency, I felt so ostracized that I had no choice but to leave. I figured the island would be my best shot at starting over, until Dawson came along.
I tried to tell Dawson he wouldn’t want me the day he found me, but he insisted it didn’t matter. He tried to soften meup with his understanding, empathetic tone, only for him to turn around and take me with him by force.
So I spent the next few months enduring him and the rest of the pack. I started out as a curiosity to them, assuming I was just a strange kind of shifter, but Hayes, his son, was the one to uncover my abilities first.
Even as I push through the trees, feeling the sting of pine needles scratching my cheeks, I can see his face in my mind.
He looks just like his father, but more youthful, with eyes that seem to have never softened once in his life. As expected, he has all the arrogance and aggression typical of an unchecked Alpha’s son in him.
His scrutinizing gaze always made my skin crawl, but it only got worse when he noticed how much faster I’d heal than I ever had business to. He noticed how I’d perk up during the sparring sessions he forced me into, or the tasks he ordered me to do, all meant to break me.
