Maya's POV

They say that the O’Conners were cursed because one of our ancestors took away a witch's boyfriend. If I remember correctly Great Aunt Anna told me that it was when our family used to live in Salem and right before the witch's hunt ‘Damned rotten luck’ she’d always whisper because if the witch hunts would’ve happened just a few weeks earlier we wouldn’t have been stuck with this damned cure. Great Uncle Charlie wouldn’t have left her with two children to run away with a human, Cousin Delilah would still be able to speak, my brother wouldn’t be so cold and always alone and my father would still be with us.

If it wasn’t for that bloody curse I would have had a happy family and a chance to have my mate.

The O’Conner’s curse. To be betrayed by your fated mate, to be left, abandoned, rejected by the one who was fated to be your everything. I didn’t believe it when I was younger, that was until dad… then I saw how mum became cold, hardened by everything. Luke had been next, my sweet big brother who meant everything to me, I don’t think I know him anymore. Mum passed the law a few weeks after my brother's “incident”… that’s what we called it as if saying her name was as wrong as saying ‘Voldemort’. Everyone in the Alpha family was forbidden to find their mate.

When I turned eighteen I told my mum that I wanted to find my mate and that I wasn’t going to follow the damned rule because why should I be the acceptation. Why should I be protected, I’d rather love and fail than never to actually know how it is.

“I’m doing this for you. For us… I’ve lost your brother I can’t lose you too. This is for the best Maya,” My mother had said when we had fought once more on it. It took eighteen failed running-away attempts and one drowning incident for her to finally say yes. But Susan O’Conner, my mother, Alpha to the Phoenix Blood pack had always been cruel in her rulings, even more so on me. ‘I do it because I love you’ she’d always say when she gave me a harsh punishment or when she denied me a normal childhood.

Her conditions for letting me find my mate was as follows

First, Mum was to make me a wolf-less omega, there aren’t a lot of Alpha females and any unmated mate would easily leave their mates for a chance to reproduce with an Alpha female. Good genetics they say. My mum just sees it as enough motivation for my future mate to get pregnant and run away with my pups. Having me smell like a wolf-less omega makes sure that my mate isn’t after my genetics and womb.

Secondly, if I find him and he eventually accepts me that I am not allowed to tell him which pack I’m from until he accepts to come back home with me. I think that was her alpha side talking, The Phoenix Blood pack is the second largest and strongest pack in the America’s. The largest is the Shadow Crescent Pack in Europe which keeps to itself. Honestly, I could get any male to mate me just by saying where I came from. The more power a pack has the more secure it is.

The final condition was I had to be banished from the pack, I had to sever all connections to my family and life in the Phoenix Blood pack until the curse is broken. I think this was her way of saying I don’t want to watch you die because we do. The males in our family tend to handle rejection better than females, they mostly wither away and die. Maybe she doesn’t want to know when I die. I still can’t stop the dark thoughts that maybe she’d be happy to get rid of me. What if I die she wouldn’t mourn me but she’d stay ‘You stubborn girl I told you so.’

But that was months ago and now I was somewhere in Europe in the middle of a territory that I didn’t know and a damned compass that just wouldn’t work. My wolf kept yelling at me to let her take control and get us out of here but I had to be a wolf-less omega and that means not changing. I mean I could do it, easily but she’d know Susan O’Conner always knows. My wolf whined again and bashed the dammed compass on a tree.

“Will you let me do this, we are not lost I just need to focus and I can’t do that when you’re whining and growling inside my head like a damned Feral rogue,’ I hissed out loud finally having enough of my wolf’s tantrum. Only just after I’d scolded her I realized that she hadn’t been talking about the compass and that there were eyes watching us.

Eyes of wolves watching me through the thick foliage. And that should scare me that did scare me but not more than the Man staring at me a few feet ahead. A man whose eyes made me tremble with hope and desire, a man who I knew was a stranger but felt like an old friend. Blue eyes that held an unreadable expression that I desperately wanted to unravel like a reader turning the pages of an epic love story to know what’s next.

He was what I had been searching for.

“So it’s you.” He said, his baritone voice sweet and hypnotizing and in my head hearing his voice felt like walking through the forest in late autumn with the wind caressing my hair…perfection.

Yes I’m your mate and I love you already that’s what my wolf was shouting in my head but my answer came out not as commanding and exciting but rather like a four-year-old who’s been caught stealing cookies.

“Yes,”

“Hmm,” he hummed as he slowly walked towards me, “You smell odd”

“I’m an Omega,”

“And a rogue,” he growled, his eyes sharp and piercing, his finger just a few inches away from my chin, and I dared not move. I wanted him to touch me, I wanted to feel it all, the sparks the bond, just one touch. But he pulled away.

“You smell more like an Alpha,”