Chapter 1- Proposition

* Flashback *

'And what happened to the father bear, Mumma', eight-year-old Lucy asked her mother Wilma with her big blue eyes.

'Sweetheart, we will continue the story tomorrow. It's past your bedtime', her mother endearingly tucked little Lucy inside her unicorn blankets. Wilma gave a final kiss on Lucy's soft forehead before turning the lights out. That was the last memory she had with her mother.

The next day Lucy was woken up by total chaos outside. As she tiptoed outside, she saw a strange black man stabbing her Mumma mercilessly and multiple times.

'Mumma!', she shouted as she charged towards the scene. The strange man having finished his job exited swiftly out the back door. Lucy looked on horrified as her mum was now bleeding at several open stab wounds, as she kneeled beside her mum, she heard a few coarse and crackled breathes.

'What in the! WILMA!', her dad shouted from behind as he shoved Lucy to tend to his dead mate's body.

'YOU! I knew you were cursed ever since you were born. I should have killed you a long time ago', her father cursed as his eyes began growing darker and more furious. Within seconds, he was growling, and Lucy knew his father's wolf was surfacing now. As he took close dangerous steps towards Lucy, he pinned her to the floor and started pressing against her throat making her suffocate.

'Dad please let meeee go..it was not...'

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Lucy woke up panting from her nightmare. She has been getting these terrible recurring dreams ever since she was accused of murdering her own mother. The knife miraculously seemed to have her fingerprint and she was the only witness at the scene. Everything was pointing at her including an old prediction from a witch that she was cursed. Her father, Peter had hated her ever since. She was denounced as the beta's daughter and made to work as an omega despite having beta's blood running in her veins.

'Mumma', she whispered softly as she remembered her mother's soft feature caressing her hair. 'I miss you so much'. All she had of her mother’s memory was a locket that belonged to her. She had no other claims to anything else, but she was more than content with just the locket. It smelled of her mother and reminded her that she was loved once.

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Lucy was just scrubbing the dirty grout off the floors as usual when Gina started her usual routine of torturing and making her life miserable. She kicked the mop bucket making all the dirty water run down on the floors Lucy had just mopped.

‘I just finished cleaning!’, Lucy protested with her low voice while keeping her head down.

‘You murderer bitch, you dare talk back to me’, Gina kicked Lucy on her abdomen making her yelp in pain.

Gina was Lucy’s stepsister by default after her father remarried another, she-wolf soon after her mother’s death. But she never understood why Gina hated her so much and why no one ever bothered to question how an eight-year-old could yield a knife and kill an adult she-wolf? But common sense was lost on her years ago as she continued suffering abuse and torture at the hands of most pack members. Even few of the omegas used to hit her and yet Lucy did not do anything to stop them. She knew fighting only made more enemies and she thought it would be best to be quiet.

Gina kept hitting and cursing at Lucy when one of the omegas chimed in stopping her. At the mention of the Alpha, Gina quickly left, and the omega took Lucy to her shared room.

The omega was kind enough to give her some comfortable clothes and she changed into them after a nice relaxing shower. How come she had never seen this omega before? It would be quite hard to miss her with her dark red hair. She introduced herself as Jolene to her and she thought that it was a very pretty name.

Once Lucy was done with changing, she headed towards the kitchen. Even though Jolene had offered to help, she knew she could not just sit and watch. But as she made her way through the long white corridors, she heard a growl from behind.

She instantly shot her head back to see where it was coming from, and then she met the green, emerald eyes of the pack Alpha. Alpha Jayden was staring at her and growling menacingly. Lucy gulped hard as she tried remembering if she offended the Alpha in any way possible, not that she could think of.

‘I…am sorry..Alpha Jayden..I was just heading to the kitchen and..’, Lucy stammered but was cut off by Alpha Jayden’s growl.

‘You can’t be my mate!’, the Alpha growled again, and Lucy noticed that they were attracting a crowd now and everyone was whispering to each other. She wondered why Alpha Jayden was claiming such a big thing, she was only 19 and still did not have her wolf yet. But with or without the wolf, she should feel at least the pull and yet she felt nothing when she stared at the Alpha’s green eyes.

‘What’s going on here?’, the former Alpha Warren stepped in as he looked between her and Alpha Jayden.

‘My wolf Jase senses she is our mate’, Jayden finally broke the eye contact and answered his father who was now observing the interaction closely. ‘This simply cannot be. We can’t have a past accused murderer as the next Luna of this pack’.

‘And I don’t intent to make her one either’, Jayden spat his words at Lucy who was trying to hold herself together.

‘Someone take her away. We will discuss this first thing tomorrow morning. We have important guest coming in tonight’, the former Alpha dismissed everyone.

Jolene quickly stepped forward to take Lucy away. She needed to know why Jayden thought Lucy was his mate. As she guided Lucy’s trembling body away, Gina stepped in front of them blocking their way.

‘Wait Jo. Earlier you told me the Alpha called me right away. But he told me he never did?’, Gina raised her eyebrows with her hands folded.

‘Miss, I said the Alpha was thinking about you right that moment, I never told you he called!’, Jolene replied making some of Gina’s friends’ chuckle.

‘But’, Jolene quickly added, ‘I assumed the Alpha would always be thinking about you because I know you are going to be our next Luna! What happened right now could simply be a misunderstanding miss’.

Gina seemed pleased with the answer as she finally moved aside to let them through.

Lucy still appeared lost at words as Jolene walked her back to the shared accommodation.

As soon as they reached the accommodation, Lucy started sobbing uncontrollably.

‘Take a seat Lucy’, Jo guided Lucy on to a chair gently.

‘I don’t understand why my life is always so miserable. I only wanted to lay low until I turned 21 so that I could leave this pack’, she said through her teary face, her blue eyes looking sad and empty.

‘I think I might know why this is happening’, Jo announced making Lucy contort her face in confusion. Before she could ask how, Jo continued, ‘You want to leave this pack and I want my freedom too in a way. So, I have a proposition for you that will benefit us both....’.