Farewell to My Fated Lover

In the seventh year after I broke my fated mate's heart and he went abroad to study, he finally returned home with his new fiancée to meet his parents.

On that exact same day, the hospital finally pronounced my seven-year battle with Core Degeneration a failure. I was sent home to wait for death.

Seeing me sitting in a wheelchair on the street, supported by my mother, a mocking smile appeared on Kaelen's lips.

"It’s been seven years, and you've fallen so low you can't even walk?"

Listening to his disgusted voice and smelling the Alpha pine scent I once loved so much, I panicked, hurriedly yanking down the sleeves of my coat to hide the dense, ugly needle marks on the back of my hand.

"It's nothing. I fell and broke my leg, that's all," I lied quietly.

Kaelen sneered, pulling a beautiful Omega woman,Sloane, closer to his side. She smelled exactly like I used to—vanilla and rain.

"Since you're so free," he drawled, his eyes cold, "I'm getting married soon. Why don't you be Sloane's bridesmaid?"

I just smiled calmly. "No thanks. I'm going somewhere very far away soon."

I patted my mother's hand, signaling her to push me home quickly.

I knew if we stayed even a second longer, I'd break down and cry right then and there...

By the time we got into our apartment, I was completely drained. I barely managed to transfer from the wheelchair to my bed before a sharp knock echoed from the front door.

The heavy, oppressive aura of an Alpha Elder seeped under the door. Vivian Sterling. Kaelen's mother.

My mom let her in, her face tight with suppressed rage. Vivian walked into my bedroom. She looked at my frail, dying body, a flicker of guilt crossing her eyes.

"He's back," Kaelen's mother said flatly.

"I saw him," I rasped, coughing into a tissue.

Seeing her standing there, the past seven years collapsed in on me. I was eighteen again. The same sterile hospital smell. The same devastating diagnosis: Core Degeneration. A death sentence for a werewolf.

Kaelen's mother had barged into my hospital room back then. She dropped to her knees, crying, begging me.

"He got the Oxford offer, Bella! He's going to be the greatest surgeon, the next Alpha of our pack. If he knows his fated mate is dying, he’ll throw his entire future away just to stay by your side. You have to let him go. Break his heart, so he leaves."

And I did. Kaelen's mother told me to use Jasper, a Beta who had always harbored a quiet crush on me.

We staged it perfectly outside my building, right when Kaelen was walking home. An embrace. A kiss.

Kaelen's Alpha pheromones had exploded, suffocating and wild. He charged, shoving Jasper back with lethal force, and grabbed my wrist. His thumb pressed painfully into our fading mate mark.

"Tell me he forced you, Bella," Kaelen had choked out, his eyes desperate. "Tell me. You rejected him years ago. Why now?"

Stuffed full of scent-suppressants, I looked Kaelen dead in the eye and delivered the killing blow. "I'm tired of being tied to you. I want out."

Jasper had stepped up, shielding me. "I've waited for her for years. She's choosing me now."

Kaelen refused to believe it. For a week, he tore the city apart. He interrogated our mutual friends. But they stammered, looked away, and lied. He pinned Jasper against a brick wall at school, crushing him with Alpha pressure, but Jasper took the beating and repeated the same lie.

Then came the photos. Vivian hired someone to take pictures of Jasper and me leaving the library, angles manipulated to look like we were sneaking off to a motel.

Kaelen burst into my apartment one last time. He looked wrecked. He smashed a vase against the wall, begging me to tell the truth. And I, burning from the inside out with a dying core, looked at him and said, “Yes, I fell in love with Jasper.”

He left the country the next day in a blind rage.

And I began seven years of absolute hell. Chemo. Bone-crushing pain.

"Bella." Kaelen's mother's sharp voice snapped me back to the present.

"They are getting married next month. I need you to keep your mouth shut about what happened seven years ago. And I need you to stay away from him. Ok?"

"Please don't blame me, Bella. I really have no other choice. Sloane was his classmate at Oxford. They match perfectly in every single way. I just... I really don't want to see such a perfect marriage ruined."

Her eyes swept over my frail, trembling body. "You're dying anyway. So, can you please just avoid seeing him for a while? It's not like you're in any condition to be going outside, right?"

"You... you've gone way too far! I never should have let you in! Get the hell out of my house!" my mom suddenly screamed, stepping between us.

"Mom, stop," I whispered, grabbing her trembling hand.

I looked past my mother, straight into Kaelen's mother.

"I won't tell him. I will take the truth to my grave. It won't be long anyway."

Kaelen's mother let out a breath of relief. "Thank you, Bella. It's for the best."

"But," I cut her off, my grip tightening on the bedsheets. "I will not hide from him."

Because I couldn't. I couldn't just never see him again.

For seven years of agonizing treatments, there wasn't a single second I wasn't thinking about Kaelen. When the pain of my decaying core became unbearable, I survived by clutching an old photo of us until my knuckles turned white.

Through dozens of surgeries, there were times my heart stopped in the ICU, and I just couldn't wake up. It was my mom, standing by my hospital bed and screaming herself hoarse, that brought me back.

"Bella, did you forget? You said you were going to survive! You said you’d go to Oxford and tell Kaelen the truth! If you die now, you'll never see him again!"