Dare To Reject The Omega She Is My Luna!: Read Chapters 1-5

Only a fool looks Alpha Zavier in the eye when he speaks. You dare not interrupt him and if you’re an omega girl called Aysel, it’s best to hide. I learnt these tricks early in life. I knew not to look up, not to make a sound and to make myself invisible in the crowd of people that filled the banquet hall to celebrate the Feast of the Moon.

But I never did anything right. When asked to take a step to the left, I ended up at the right, whether I took a step to the left or not. Fate worked in reverse for me. If I sowed good, I reaped misfortune.

It was the reason why, while serving with my head down, trying to make myself smaller than my small frame, I tripped on a fair leg, my tray of wine flying from my hand and tumbling to the ground, crashing – loudly – to the floor and spilling its red content against the fair feet of the Alpha’s daughter, in the middle of the Alpha’s speech. I raised my head and caught the Alpha Zavier’s gaze and at that moment, I’d broken three of the most fundamental rules of avoiding a beating.

At that moment – when I made eye contact with the Alpha and sealed my fate – Skylar, the Alpha’s daughter, let out a blood-curdling scream, as if it took her that ten seconds of silence to process what I’d done. I’d spilt expensive wine on her equally expensive, white, floor length dress.

Her hand smacked my head to the right as an apology dropped from my lips. Then to the left, and right again. She kept smacking me as everyone stared with their mouths open at what I had done until the Alpha cleared his throat and called for order.

“That’s enough, Sky.” Alpha Zavier looked at me as he addressed his daughter, his eyes filled with deep hatred and fiery anger. I gulped, cupping my hot cheeks.

“It’s not. This little bitch ruined my dress!” Skylar cried, her sweet soprano voice raising as she hit me for the last time. “Why are you so jealous of me?” She cried yet again, dragging everyone’s attention back to the scene despite the Alpha’s call for order.

“I’m not,” I answered in a whispery voice with my hands shaking.

My eyes stung with the tears I held at bay, blurring the faces around me. I didn’t want to cry now – not now. It would only make my humiliation worse if I broke down here. I told myself I had to wait – I had to wait for them to take me out for a beating when the enforcers would give me a good reason to cry but I wasn’t strong. My lips quivered as the tears slid down my face. I blinked rapidly to clear them but they fell faster the more I blinked.

Alpha Zavier signalled something at those behind me as his daughter stumped out, pushing people out of her way as she went. Two men grabbed me from behind, dragging me out of the hall. I looked at the few people who still watched the drama unfold as the Alpha went back to his speech, a muscle twitching at the side of his jaw. Only one person watching me looked at me with anything other than scorn in her eyes as the enforcers dragged me away.

They threw me into a dark room, locking the door behind them. This dark room belonged to me. I slept here, had all my possessions – a single bag – in this room, the days I had food, I ate here and every day, I cried in this same room.

Two months ago, I spent two weeks locked up in my room and sometime in the two weeks, my food supply was cut off. I’d starved for at least five days but down here, in the cold, damp basement of the pack house, time became relative. I could have starved for one week or to days, there was never a way to be sure. Everything was dark – every hour of the day, night.

The door handle jiggled as someone tried to get in. The door jammed a lot and needed brute force to open on most days. Skylar came in with her brother and her boyfriend all wearing nasty smirks on their lips.

My eyes lingered on Skylar’s boyfriend for a minute. A few years ago, Lucien had been my best friend. I told him everything. I loved him as a best friend and more.

‘Promise me we’ll never fall apart.’ I held his hand and stared up at him the night before we started high school.

‘You’ve started with your cute sentiments.’ He kissed my nose. I pretended to hate it but it warmed my heart. ‘It’s me and you for life, Ay-babe.’

‘Me and you and Celeste,’ I mentioned my other best friend which made him laugh.

‘Whatever you say, doll.’ The sound of his laughter made my knees weak.

A few years later I found out we were mates so I tried to do something sweet for him, knowing what it’d cost me.

‘Lucien –‘ I just wanted to see him smile.

‘It’s Beta Lucien to you,’ he snapped, his hand around Skylar’s shoulder. The alpha female stared at me with indifference on her face but a spark of glee in her eyes.

‘Beta Lucien, can we – can we talk?’ I watched as he twirled Skylar’s hair between his fingers.

‘We can talk here.’ Someone behind them chuckled at his mocking tone. ‘What do you want? You’re wasting my time.’He stared at the gold watch on his wrist to emphasize his point.

I stretched out flowers with shaky hands while the school watched with bathed breath. It was a secret he kept well but I’d been his best friend since we were in diapers and I knew he loved receiving flowers. He hid that part of himself because it wasn’t considered manly but he didn’t have to be manly with me.

‘I love you.’ Loud guffaws surrounded me. Tears stung my eyes when my best friend and mate joined in the derisive laughter.

“It’s time for you to pay.” Skylar smirked, pulling me back to the present. She’d taken off her ruined dress to come black combat shorts and a black long-sleeved keyhole shirt.

“On your knees,” Alpha Bethel, the future leader of our pack called, dragging me out of my flat bed. I got on my knees without protest, facing my back to him. “Come hold her, Lucien.”

“There’s no need to hold me,” I muttered. My head spun at the blow that landed on my head from behind when I dared to say anything.

“Keep quiet!” Beta Lucien hissed. He not only humiliated me in front of the entire school that day, he also rejected me that same night.

‘We can’t be mates. You’re ugly, poor and a stain on my reputation. I’d be a madman to mate with you.’ Those were the words he said to me before he rejected me.

“I won’t – I won’t fight.” I took a step back when Lucien approached me. The worst part of taking a beating was being held down by Lucien. I’d learnt to take a beating without trying to run like the other omegas did because when Lucien was involved, it meant paramount pain. He was a choker and gasping for air with a belt lashing down wasn’t pretty.

“Oh, really?” A strong hand gripped my jaw with bruising force, forcing me to look up at cold black eyes. Everyone in the Redville pack hated me but Lucien had a special place in his heart for hating me, a part of his mind dedicated to formulating many ways to torture me and make me wish I’d never been born all because I’d loved him.

“Take off your clothes then.” I blinked. Tears spilt from my eyes when I blinked. I didn’t expect that but it made Bethel guffaw. He’d become especially cruel to me after we broke our mate bond.

“W – what?” I swiped at my cheeks as the next alpha continued to laugh. I wouldn’t fight didn’t mean I wanted to humiliate myself in that way.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Lucien? Oh, so you want to see her naked?” Skylar boomed from behind us. I jerked away, Lucien’s hands falling from my face.

“Baby –“ Her yelling cut off his soft, simpering tone.

“Don’t baby me! Hold her, let’s get this over with!” Skylar’s jealousy saved me from humiliation but it made Lucien angry. He forced my head down by my neck, squeezing my neck with one hand while the other held my hands.

Bethel’s belt came down hard against my back forcing a gasp from me. The gasp caught in my throat as Lucien squeezed harder. He wanted me to die and it seemed he wanted it today. The belt came back again with Lucien continuing to squeeze the life out of me. But the third strike, I could not keep silent anymore. Choked words spilt from my mouth, falling with tears and a bit of saliva.

The belt came down faster and harder, Lucien squeezing my neck harder. My wolf whimpered, the physical pain getting to her as the men broke me.

“Enough,” Skylar commanded. Bethel didn’t stop at once. He brought the belt down three times more after that command. I’d become a mess by then. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t thrash, couldn’t beg or fight. They overpowered me as they liked and ripped me apart the way they liked.

Even after Lucien let go, I couldn’t raise myself from the table they bent me over. My body slid to the ground when my quivering legs couldn’t hold me up for much longer.

My back bled with my throat raw and my eyes were swollen. I gasped for air now that I could take as much as I needed while Bethel put on his belt and Lucien wiped his hands on my sheets.

“Next time, when you want to be unfortunate, make sure I’m nowhere near.” Skylar’s words came from a distance away, echoing faintly in my ringing ears. “You’re not only stupid, you’re also useless. Learn to stay in your lane.” She finished.

“To think they tried taking over.” Bethel laughed his loud obnoxious laughter. I curled into myself, tears sliding into my ears from the position I lay in.

“She has always wanted what I have. Nasty little thing.” Skylar clicked her tongue. “She deserves another beating just for bringing up bad memories.” I shut my eyes tight. I wouldn’t survive another beating. I wouldn’t.

“She wouldn’t make it through another beating. Look at her,” Lucien sneered. “She doesn’t deserve an easy death.”

I didn’t deserve any of this. Why did they make me pay for the sins of my people? I had done nothing to warrant this!

This was for the disrespect I dealt Skylar. How would I cope with the Alpha’s wrath when it came? I interrupted his speech and dared look him in the eye.

“Stay wretched.” Skylar crooned. She jabbed her boot into the side of my head in a hard kick that stole the light from my eyes.

‘Maybe today is the day I die’ Were my last thoughts as my world went black.

“Aysel.” I curled away from the person touching me.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I refused to awaken to a world that hated me. The only thing I wanted was to sleep the sleep of death to join my parents in the world after. I didn’t deserve any of the pain and suffering that awaited me in the world of the living.

“Aysel, wake up.” My eyes fluttered open when the person shaking me refused to relent. “You have five minutes to eat before Monica comes barging in.” Celeste pushed a tray of food to me.

“I’m not hungry.” I sat up in my dark room, wiping caked blood off my lips. “What time is it?” I didn’t know how long I’d succumbed to the darkness.

“It’s morning.” Celeste brushed aside my question with haste, pushing the tray of food to me again. “The Feast of the Moon continues today. You have a lot of work waiting for you so you better eat now before you collapse doing your duties.”

It’ll be unfortunate to faint while working today yet my stomach was a tight knot that wanted nothing in it.

I staggered to my feet to change my clothes. The Feast of the Moon was a sacred and revered event held once a year. It would be folly to ruin it by showing up in a bloody dress whether I was an irrelevant omega or a powerful alpha.

Celeste sucked in a sharp breath when I took off my clothes with my back to her. There was no need to look into a mirror; I knew what she saw and I didn’t have a mirror. I felt the sting of Bethel’s belt on my back as if it happened a few minutes ago.

My teeth gnashed as I pulled on a clean black shirt, the stiff material of the cloth brushing against open injuries.

“I’ll talk to him,” my best friend vowed. I turned to her with a sharp glare.

“Don’t you dare.”

Celeste didn’t understand what I went through in this pack. As the beta’s daughter, everyone loved and adored her. She had pretty strawberry blonde hair and large, expressive hazel eyes. She was a beta, like her parents. Her parents never tried usurping the alpha. The only blemish on her person was her friendship with me.

She had an idealistic view of the world, believing that things could be better. She wanted to help me but every time she interferes, things got worse.

“He can’t do this to you! You’re battered!” Her soft voice rose in a shriek.

“He can and you won’t say anything about it.” She meant well but she had this disconnection from my reality that sometimes made it hard to converse with her.

She didn’t know what a whip felt like. She didn’t know what being an orphan felt like. She would never understand what it meant to go to bed with a biting stomach and tearful eyes after a long day of rigorous work. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to experience the things I experienced but when she made it seem as if I didn’t try enough, as if I hadn’t tried too much, I wished she would leave me alone.

Who would I tell what Skylar and her gang did to me? The Alpha lost his Luna because of my family. The Beta hated me. Who else could I turn to? Who would listen to my cries if I cried to them? My parents betrayed Redville pack and it was my fate to suffer the consequences of their actions.

“Aysel, please.” She walked up to me and took my hands in hers, her big eyes filling. “Let me help you.” I pulled my hands from her, turning to face a wall,

I needed all the help anyone could offer me but Celeste had tried enough. I couldn’t ask her to keep trying. If she confronted her brother about what he did to me, he would come back with Bethel and two belts.

“Aysel.” Monica rapped on my door. “Get out here. No one keeps you around to sleep.” She yelled from outside.

“I’m coming,” I yelled back, tying my hair.

“Who are you yelling at?” Monica bellowed.

“Celeste –“

“I can’t handle Lucien but I can handle Monica.” She squared her shoulders before marching out of the cold and damp corner I slept in. She was a good friend. I didn’t know how I would have survived all these years without her. She was the only one to stick with me through the years after my pack wrote me off.

I didn’t get to eat that day but I got to leave my room. I had only the Moon Goddess to thank for that. She made the Feast of the Moon, an annual celebration to give thanks and make merry amongst packs. For the next week, there would be a lot of food to cook, halls to mop and champagne to serve. Redville would need all the hands she could get so no one kept me locked up for long.

The other omegas complained about all the work they had to do this period but not me. They had rooms with beds to sleep on. I had nothing of that comfort. My bed didn’t qualify as a bed anymore. My room didn’t have any lighting and darkness scared me. No matter how many clothes I piled on myself, I could never escape the cold of the damp room.

Working took my mind off the many things that could be fixed in my life. When I worked, I put in all my effort, all my energy and strength so that when I finished, I went to the darkness of my room with pains all over my body and fell asleep in the blink of an eye.

“I just want to grab a quick snack! Goddess, you’re clingy!” Skylar’s soprano called right outside the kitchen as I scrubbed the pans used this morning.

My heart leapt to my throat, my hands freezing in the murky water I used in a scrubbing the pans. My mouth went dry and my eyes flew all over the place, jumping from the window near me and an open, empty cupboard beside me, looking for a way to get out or get lost.

She couldn’t see me!

Before I knew it, tears flowed down my cheeks with my hands shaking in the water.

Her feet drew nearer and in a last minute of desperation, I darted into the open cupboard, pulling it close behind me.

Breathing turned difficult. Sweat congregated atop of my brows as I hid inside the dark cupboard, flinching when her footsteps got into the kitchen. I didn’t dare breathe for fear of my breathing being loud enough to put me.

I rubbed my hands at the back of my neck, my skin heating. Tight spaces terrified me. They made me dizzy, made my hands tingle and my legs lock. The small, dark cupboard closed in on me causing full body tremors.

I clutched my knees to my cheek, closing my eyes and rocking back and forth in the little space the cupboard afforded me. My lips quivered, salty tears falling into my open mouth. I gasped but pressed a hand to my mouth when the movement in the kitchen seized for a second.

My brain focused on her movements, forcing me to hold my breath to listen to her prance around the kitchen. At that time, she stopped before the cupboard I hid inside. I forced my knuckles into my mouth to stop a whimper of fear.

“What is that awful smell?” She snickered. My eyes tightened, my body stopping the jerky, rocking rhythm. “Too good to answer?” She was talking to me but I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to remove the hand I stuck into my mouth to keep silent – to hide from her.

“Have fun in your new cell.” My hands wrenched out of my mouth in a split second.

“Skylar, please –“. A gasp escaped my lips. Her response came as a derisive chuckle.

“It’s cosy, isn’t it?” She laughed. Her footsteps grew faint as I pushed at the cupboard door bolted from outside.

“Skylar! Skylar, please!” I pushed at the door, the world swimming around me, the darkness rushing to consume me. “Please don’t do this to me.” Small spaces terrified me. Oh goddess, please. “Skylar, please, don’t leave me! Don’t lock me in.” I screamed for her but even as I screamed, as the world closed in around me, I knew she already left me in the small cupboard space.

I gasped many more times, my head swelling.

“Skylar!”

I positioned my shoulder against the wood of the cupboard door, banging against it with all the strength in my tired body while screaming her name until the door broke. I dove out of the cupboard, my chest heaving, only to see meet Alpha Zavier stirring a cup of coffee.

“You can’t let them win,” I repeated my mantra in my head as two men held me down while a third lashes at me. The wounds on my back never healed. I didn’t go a week without being introduced to one or more new ways of torture. I’d developed a high tolerance to pain and to keep me down, Redville pack got more creative in their methods.

“They won’t break your spirit.” If I proved deeper, I’d find my spirit in shambles – what was left of it – but my mantra kept me going. The Redville wolves used me as their lab rat – the victim that they tested out new methods of torture on.

“I’ll be strong.” These words repeated in my head, a steady mantra that lived with me for the past eleven years.

Eleven years ago, my parents betrayed the pack. I had friends and a good life until they ruined it. They wanted more. My father wanted Alpha Zavier’s position and he went for it. My mother never learnt not to support her mate so through it all, through the secrets, the going about behind the pack, the infiltration of the Alpha’s circle and the subsequent attack, she supported him. I’d been nothing but a nine-year-old whose parents turned traitors.

They didn’t even get to rain down fire and brimstone as they planned. A close friend – a man my father promised would be his Beta at the end of the coup – chickened out at the last minute and went running to Alpha Zavier. He played double-agent for my father and Alpha Zavier but really, all his loyalty shifted to the Alpha. He didn’t believe my father could pull it off so thanks to him, the mission failed before its completion.

My mantra couldn’t help me this time. The chants in my head, the desperation to hold on to something, to find a bit of inner strength so I didn’t break, failed me that day. It had become too much. This, heaped on everything else I endured since yesterday, went past the mental barrier I struggled to keep in place all these years.

They’d broken me.

It was my worst fear coming to bitch-slap me. I tried to keep a part of myself, hold on to a bit of strength so I didn’t come off as a loser like my father but it ran in my blood. I couldn’t succeed. Whatever I did had to be wrong. Everything I laid my hands on failed.

It was the truth.

A truth I ran from for eleven years. A truth I welcomed now. If it didn’t get better for eleven years, it wouldn’t get better now. I’d never lead a better life. I’d let them win. I couldn’t be strong and they’d won before I even joined the game.

“That’s enough.” Alpha Zavier called. The sounds of whips coming down one at a time stopped. It became obvious then that they weren’t the sounds filling the room. No, those were my screams, my pleas and apologies because while I tried to be strong in my mind, I failed to be strong in reality.

Who’s wouldn’t cry if they got beat up every day? Who would endure as I had? I’d exhausted my strength. I’d cry and beg and feel sorry for myself as I tried not to. When Skylar asked me to kiss her feet, I would fall on my face and slobber all over her feet. When Lucian asked me to take off my clothes, I would rend them in a minute.

What good was resistance? What good had keeping my spirit brought me all this while? They broke me. They won. I didn’t have it in me to care anymore.

They left me in the cold cell room with me huddled into myself. The pain in my back warmed me. Blood trickled out of it to soak into my clothes, Tears didn’t stop streaming down my cheeks. My nose was blocked with snot that ran down my chin.

I closed my eyes wishing everything would stop. I tried running away once and the torture I endured when they found me was not worth the initial excitement I had of freedom.

Hell itself had to be better than this pack. The devil must be nicer than Alpha Zavier. He hated me. Oh goddess, how he hated me.

I looked too much like my father for his sins not to reflect against me. I think when he looked at me, he saw the person who stole his world – killed his mate.

‘I wish I hadn’t killed your father,’ he once said to me. ‘I should have kept him around to make him see what I’d do to you. To deal with him more than I could ever do to you.’ Hatred didn’t begin to describe what he felt for me. He loathed me, anchored me – he spat on the ground I walked on and hated the air I breathed.

The sounds of approaching footsteps made me break out in cold sweat. When the key to the dungeon cell the Alpha kept me rattled, I closed my eyes, a chill going down my arm and spreading goosebumps.

Back so soon?

He’d kill me this time and I would welcome death with open arms at this point.

“Goddess, it stinks in here.” I froze even more when I heard Lucien’s voice.‘I would welcome death with open arms but he would make death even more painful.

Lucien, as hard as it may be to believe, had been my friend. As a child and even after the pack ostracized me. Everything changed a few years ago in an unfortunate turn of events that I wished never happened.

“Keep your voice down. She may be sleeping.” When I heard Celeste’s voice after his, some of the knots in my stomach loosened. I didn’t dare move as the pain on my back and sides intensified with every small twitch of a muscle.

“What did they do to her?” Was that pity I heard in Lucien’s voice? It couldn’t be. This man made my life worse by simply being in the same room as me.

Skylar would come for my head if she found out we were in the same room without her present. Half the curses I endured from this pack that didn’t come from the Alpha came from him or his gang.

I hated him.

More than I did the Alpha. He’d been my friend. I’d convinced myself that he loved me but his betrayal stung.

“We’ll get you out, Aysel.” I flinched from Celeste‘s touch on my face. Everyone felt like my enemy in this state, even my best friend.

“How do we get her up without aggravating her injury?” I heard her ask Lucien.

How would he know? Why would he care?

“I’ll carry her.” From my weakened state, from deep within a mind hazy and delirious from pain, I knew nothing good could come from him touching me. I didn’t want his hands on me. I didn’t want him near me. I didn’t even want him in the same cell as me!

“You’ll have to be careful.” Celeste took a step back. All their movements registered from a faraway land, a land I didn’t inhabit with them.

“What could she have done?” He whispered. He’d come too close to me. I felt him reach out a hand but halt when I started to shiver violently. I didn’t have the strength to run but I didn’t want him touching me.

“The same thing she did to you. You held her down while Bethel belted her just yesterday.” Celeste didn’t sound impressed with the softness of his voice.

“That’s - that’s different. It was only six strokes we gave her.” Six? It felt like something between twenty and a hundred. Six!?

“Whether it’s six or sixty, you’ve been a part of this. You’re only helping her because I’m blackmailing you so don’t try sounding as if you’re a saint here!” Her sharp voice pierced my eardrum. “The lot of you are disgusting. You, your stupid girlfriend and your stupid best friend. I hate all of you!”

“Leave Sky out of this. You don’t know what she’s suffered.” I didn’t want them fighting in my cell. I had enough on my plate without adding loud sibling spat that they would make my fault again.

“Fuck you and fuck Sky. She’s using you but you’re too blind to see.”

“She loves me.”

“You’re just her shiny boyfriend. She doesn’t give a damn about you but that’s your business. I’m here for my friend. Let’s get her out before Alpha Zavier returns.” Celeste ran her hand through my hair again and I felt myself being pulled up. I gasped as pain bit into my skin from numerous open wounds.

“I’m so sorry.” She kept whispering until they somehow got me on Lucien’s back. I still trembled, my tremors now accompanied by soft whimpers. I feared Lucien would drop me despite his hands clasped on my thighs so I tightened my hands around his neck. This could be another cruel joke of his.

"We'll get you home."

I loved Lucien once. Along with Celeste, he’d been my best friend. His parents always quarrelled with him to stay away from me but he never listened to them. Things started to change when we entered high school six years ago. As we are older than Celeste by a year, it left the two of us as high school friends and Celeste still in middle school.

It was around that time his infatuation with Skylar began. She’d been the hottest girl in our high school. I didn’t blame him for abandoning our friendship and choosing her. They made a golden couple – the Beta’s son with his mop of curly black hair, lean muscular build, and long legs and the Alpha’s daughter with the perfect figure eight and shiny long hair.

Lucien couldn’t be friends with me while dating Skylar who hated me from childhood. She abhorred me even before she had a reason to. I let him choose his girlfriend before me but he wouldn’t let me go. He gave me false hopes that ruined what little reputation I had amongst my peers.

“Are you okay?” I could only nod at Celeste’s question while her brother cleaned my wounds. I assumed Skylar sucked out all the niceness in him through one of their many public kisses but he proved me wrong by coming to my aide and patching me up.

“These will scar.” He sounded disturbed.

Scars were nothing new to me. Scars decorated my back in their numbers, a map of whips, belts, canes, and everything else I’d been beaten with. The scars on my back were nothing; the scars on my mind were a telling of the pain that would never fade. I could cover my back and pretend I had nothing but smooth skin behind me but my mind lay bare to me, a constant agonizing torture.

“It doesn’t matter.” I pulled away from his lingering touch.

“Careful.” He stopped my sudden movement. “I don’t want the wounds reopening. You should stay still so Artemis heals you in time.” He threw out my wolf’s name as if we were friends, as if he knew her and liked her – my wolf, the omega that he couldn’t stand being associated with when he became the king of our high school, becoming even more popular than the future Alpha in the pack.

He cleaned my wounds with the care of a friend, applied cream to my stinging back, and bandaged the wound then he got ice for the slight bump on my head from where Skylar kicked me yesterday.

He may be feeling deserving of appreciation after all he did but I couldn’t find it in me to thank him. He started this. He held me down yesterday with brute force yet he wanted to act as my saviour today.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked, turning to face him while ignoring the bite of pain from my movements.

“Can you give us a minute?” He turned to his sister who stood with her hands folded, her upper back leaning against a wall with her legs crossed at the ankle.

“I’d rather not be alone with him.” Turning to my best friend, I made sure she saw that I didn’t want to be left alone with my bully. I would have no interactions with Lucien if I had my way.

“If you do anything funny, I will castrate you.” She wagged a finger at her brother, pushing off the wall.

“Celeste –“ I didn’t have the strength to glare but I managed one.

“Hear him out, Ay.” The traitor left me alone in a room with the bully.

Celeste always wanted me to give people second chances. Even when it was obvious they only approached me to have a laugh, she wanted me to see the good in people and give them as many chances as necessary for them to show me a side that didn’t get me kicked or verbally abused.

I’d given Lucien the most chances in life. He used to be my best friend but he chose Skylar, my arch-nemesis over me. He humiliated me in front of the entire school, set my diploma ablaze when I managed to graduate, and joined his friends in bullying me. He didn’t join in at first but after a while, he started to enjoy it. He had a wicked look in his eyes when he looked at me, and derived a sick pleasure from shoving me and pulling me down every time I found my balance.

I’d first trust a venomous snake before I trusted Lucien again.

“I’m breaking up with Skylar.” I burst into laughter at that. I laughed so hard that I feared my closed injuries would start bleeding again.

“Can you break up with her?” I asked, still gasping from all the laughter.

Play me once, shame on you. Play me twice, shame on me.

He’d used this same line against me a few years ago. He became nice to me all of a sudden, out of nowhere, sparking gossip in school then he told me he was breaking up with Skylar. I’d been so happy, so naïve, so foolish. I foolishly thought I was getting my friend back but if I knew the humiliation waiting for me after that, I would have known from then that I didn’t have a friend in Lucien. Not anymore.

“I’m doing it. I can’t be with her anymore.” I saw the sincerity in his hazel eyes, marvelling at how one man could be so deceptive. No trace of insincerity lingered in his eyes. He held my gaze like a man with nothing to hide but behind his sincere eyes lay a wicked heart that could contrive the most wicked of thoughts. Lucien could smile while stabbing you to death and looking like he didn’t want to hurt you at the same time.

Another girl would be fooled but like I said, I would be a big fool to be played a second time by the same words from the same mouth that deceived me all those years ago. Skylar made sure to corrupt the smallest atoms in his body, leaving behind nothing of the boy I used to know

“Why can’t you be with her?” I played his game. The more he spoke, the less likely I was to fall asleep in his room.

Skylar would flay the skin off my back if she found out I’d been with her boyfriend, alone and in his room, no matter the circumstances. She’d hurt me more if she found out I slept here.

“I like someone else.” A wry smile pulled up the side of my lips.

“It’s none of my business if you like someone or if you break up with Skylar,” I snapped.

Wicked. The lot of them. Evil, heartless people without a drop of kindness in their blood. He and Skylar and the Alpha’s son.

“Don’t you want to know who I like?” The hopeful light in his eyes died when I brushed off his attempt at cordiality. Too late. I hated the lot of them. I wished them all the evil in the world, cursed the ground they walked on and the air they took into their lungs.

“I don’t care.” He slumped forward. His new acting skills made me laugh. “Remember when you held my neck yesterday and tried to strangle me to death? Fun times.” I smiled at him.

If he knew the magnitude of pain I endured from his hands and how it damage me, it would make him smile – make him happy. I wanted him and his gang to be miserable till the day they died.

“You don’t know how hard it is watching you suffer. If Skylar knows I’m starting to like you again, she’d come after you. I don’t want that. I’m trying to protect you in the little way I can even if you hate me for it.”

As an omega, I connected to people’s emotions. The emotions leaking off him were negative – sad and anxious. I paid no mind to them. They could be faked.

“You don’t have to watch me suffer.” I smiled at him. He returned my smile with a pained one of his. “You can turn your back and pretend it isn’t happening as you did all those years ago.” His shoulders fell at my harsh words.

Now and then, Lucien had the bright idea of repentance but it never lasted long. I wouldn’t be made a fool again.

“It’s not –“

“And you never liked me, Lucien. You rejected me and I accepted your rejection.” If tears filled his eyes then, I didn’t care. I didn’t look and it wouldn’t have bothered me if he fell on his knees and rolled around in pain.

I might even laugh.

I hated Lucien and wished him the most rotten luck anyone on earth could have.

Not wanting to stay in his room with him for even a second more, I kicked my legs out of his bed, soldering through the pain as I walked out.

The next day was the last day of the Feast of the Moon. The day all hell broke loose in Redville.

“What is that noise?” Monica asked for the tenth time while I washed the dishes used for the morning ceremony.

The Feast of the Moon would come to an end this night with a pack run and an initiation into the pack for those that mated into the pack within the last year. Every werewolf able to shift was expected to honour the Alpha’s Call at the first sight of the full moon. Alpha Zavier would howl to call his pack and those who could, would rend their human forms and gallop into the woods for the final ritual of the Feast of the Moon. The rest of us stood outside with our faces raised to the moon, praying for a successful initiation and the opportunity to partake in the next Feast of the Moon.

“What noise?” Claudia asked, pausing her washing to listen.

Omegas didn’t have as good senses as other wolves. We were the weak links in most packs, valued only for our empathy and service. Monica as a Beta could hear sounds hundreds of miles away but we the omegas could barely hear what went on a few feet away from us if we didn’t listen.

“It sounds like a stampede.” Monica frowned. The other girls in the kitchen paused at that. It was still early evening so it couldn’t be the Alpha’s Call that caused the stampede.

As a latent wolf, I had worse senses than all the other omegas so when one after the other, their ears picked up the sound of people rushing away, I still couldn’t hear anything. My senses were as bad as a human’s as a latent wolf- a shifter with a wolf trapped within.

I didn’t hear the sound of the chaos until it entered the pack house. A true stampede. People were running, yelling, doors slammed here and there, rattling the pack house. The other omegas in the room were frozen along with me as our pack mates fled from goddess knew what.

“What is happening?” A girl beside me asked the frozen room. It pulled Monica out of her frozen trance.

“Continue working. I’ll find out what is going on.” She closed the door behind her as she exited the kitchen on legs that quivered. Without her supervision, the kitchen turned into a chattering room.

“How cruel can she be?” Claudia asked, shaking her head with her hands propped on her hips. “If we were under attack, she’d leave us to wash dishes while everyone fled to safety.”

“I’ve never heard of a pack as cruel to omegas as ours. What are we? The sacrificial lambs?” I went back to washing the dishes before me as the other girls chattered amongst themselves.

I may be an omega like them but I was also a traitor and my wolf hadn’t made an appearance for the past three years. They didn’t consider me a part of them. In fact, some of them, like Claudia, joined the pack in bullying me.

While the girls chatted amongst themselves, I heard a voice from outside. As the kitchen was downstairs and I stood facing a window while washing, I heard the panicked voices outside the window before the other girls did.

“Yes, Prince Valens.” One man whispered in a hushed voice. “A hundred of his wolves just breached our borders.” My heart stopped.

Prince Valens. The Alpha Prince. The last wolf of royal bloodline on the entire planet. The name parents used to scare their wayward children.

The Alpha Prince was the last child of Queen Valencia and King Thomas, the last rulers of werewolves. The prince was cursed to wander the earth with his people so for the past century, he conquered packs and expanded his territory in search of the person to break his curse.

The last we heard of him, he hadn’t even been on our continent but then he wouldn’t be Prince Valens if he didn’t surface when least expected.

“Are we prepared for him?”

What pack was ever prepared for a takeover by the Cursed Alpha Prince?

In the last hundred years, he’d laid claim to close to fifty packs. His army grew, with the members of his pack who were cursed alongside him conquering as he did.

Eat your food or Prince Valens will come for you.

Even children learnt to fear him at an early age – The Prince who would destroy the world to break his curse.

“The warriors in the south borders have fled.” The people outside continued to discuss. “The encroachers are gaining fast on us. No, Silas, we are not prepared.”

“Alpha Zavier?”

“In a meeting.”

“What are you peeping at?” I turned to see Claudia leaning over me to peep out of the window where the two enforcers had been discussing. They turned at that moment to see me, having been lost in their panicked conversation. “Were you eavesdropping on the enforcers? Why, you sly devil.” Claudia gave me a stinging smack which she disguised as a playful jab as she giggled.

“What were they saying?” Another girl piped up from behind us. I looked behind me to see everyone staring at the interaction between Claudia and I. Half the other girls already disregarded Monica’s instruction and ventured outside and as expected, they didn’t return.

Who would come back to washing plates when the Alpha Prince himself had invaded?

“Prince Valens has breached our borders,” I muttered, rinsing my hands of the soapy liquid I used in washing the dishes. All the girls stared at me with wide comical eyes until Claudia burst into loud laughter, slapping her hand on my shoulder as she doubled over. I wiped my hands on my apron, and prepared to take it off.

“Prince Valens? Really now!?” She laughed, straightening. The other girls joined in on her laughter, convinced I was saying nonsense. “Not the Boogeyman?” The girls laughed louder as I took off my apron.

“Do you still believe Alpha Valens exists?” One of the girls cried in laughter.

“What of Santa?” Another chimed in.

The kitchen door burst open and Celeste flew in.

“Aysel!” She gasped, rushing over to me. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She wheezed, then her eyes fell on the other girls. “What are you all still doing here?” She screeched. “Did you not hear the Cursed Alpha Prince and his pack are here?” The laughter on all their faces died a quick death. “The whole pack is going underground.” It explained why none of the other girls returned.

Celeste dragged me out of the kitchen while the other girls still processed her words.

“What do you think they want?” I asked Celeste as we ran to the stairs that led to the pack’s underground safety for times of war. A time that we hadn’t seen in years.

“We won’t be waiting to find out.” Celeste dragged me as we went, faster than I could dream to be. “Alpha Zavier won’t let him take over like that and we can’t be here to see that fight.” I shuddered at the urgency in her voice, straining to keep up with her fast pace.

In one day, a peaceful life could flip on its head and turn into a chaotic one. Reality became what we never expected.

The Alpha title has been in Alpha Zavier‘s family since the founding of the Redville pack. He would not let it go without a fight. The Alpha Prince would win. He’d been conquering since the days of his youth, the days before his curse. Alpha Zavier stood no chance.

I whimpered, the wolf in me who still owed allegiance to her Alpha no matter what a douche he was, sad at the fall of our pack.

I heard howls that quickened my footsteps. Even if I wasn’t a wolf, I knew the sound of those that belonged to my pack. Their howls were familiar to me but these weren't. They weren’t cries of war – just an announcement of those arriving to run the show.

When Prince Valens took over a pack, he ruled for a few months to a year, assigned an Alpha in his pack to lead in his absence, and took the rest of his men to find another place to settle.

An Alpha cursed with the spirit of a wandering wolf.

“We’re here.” I took a breath when Celeste stopped. People flocked en masse through the doors of the small building that sat atop the underground bunkers. I heard the howls again.

Two enforcers blocked off our movement when we tried to enter the building.

“What is this? Move out of the way!” Celeste exclaimed, looking behind us to see if anyone followed us here. People overtook us as we paused. The enforcers let them go without a hassle but when Celeste moved forward with my hand still clasped in hers, the men blocked our way again.

One of the men looked at our clenched hands and raised hard eyes to mine. I swallowed at the look in his eyes. It made me take a step back.

“It’s me.” Celeste turned with a frown when I took another step back. “They won’t allow me in.” I swallowed with eyes that stung.

“We will not let a traitor into our sanctuary.”