Chapter Five: Alpha’s Cruel Test

It was another bad day, as Zara knew that the only way to be out of that caged quarter was to become a member of the pack. But that isn't easy to be, because she's just a property.

And if she isn't a member, it won't be possible to like that quarter which makes her training with ma Erena impossible.

So she did the unthinkable. She went to the training master and told him that she was ready to become a member…. Which indirectly means a servant and not a property, a gift from a rival.

And that was how they ended up in the sparring ring that was already soaked with blood by the time they dragged her to it. The earth was dark with sweat and bruises, grooved with claw marks and footprints of those who had come before her, strong, fast, and trained. 

Zara was none of those things. Her bare feet sank into the dirt as she was shoved forward, her arms stiff from yesterday’s scrubbing, her back aching from the stone she slept on. Above her, the morning sun bled through a gray sky, casting long shadows that seemed to mock her weakness. 

Around the ring, the pack circled like predators. Their eyes gleamed with expectation of her failure. They told her that this was training, a training for all properties given to the pack, if a property wants to become a member of the pack, the wolf must undergo this training and test…. It always happens on the fourth moon.

But to Zara, this wasn’t training. It was a spectacle punishment dressed up as training. A public stripping of her dignity. And there, seated in his high-backed chair, half-shadowed by a wooden canopy, was Hunter. Looking so watchful and calm like the storm before lightning.

The challenger stepped forward. Zara didn’t know his name, only that he was tall, muscle-bound, and had the look of a man who’d won too many fights and grown bored of it. His expression was amused, but not kind. He flexed his fists like he was warming up, even though he’d already been fighting earlier. 

His chest was bare, his knuckles scarred. Hunter raised a hand, and the challenger lunged forward.

Pain came quickly, too fast as Zara barely dodged the first hit, but the second caught her across the face. The impact blinded her for a moment, the sound of flesh against flesh ringing in her skull. She stumbled, her body screaming to fall, to curl up and beg it to end. But she stayed on her feet. Her pride held her there like invisible chains.

“If you want to be part of the pack and stop being a property,” Hunter’s voice cut through the thick air, low but sharp as a blade. 

“Prove you’re worth the space you take up.”

Laughter followed, but from him and the pack. Tori and Daphne stood close to the ring, both dressed in attire, their arms folded, their eyes dancing with cruel pleasure. Daphne muttered something that made Tori laugh louder. Zara’s blood burned at the sound. But she didn’t speak. She didn’t break.

The next hit knocked her to the ground. She coughed against the dirt, the taste of metal flooding her mouth. Her elbows stung from the impact. The warrior moved toward her again, maybe to finish it, maybe just to toy with her. She didn’t know. But something inside her shifted… an old, hot instinct, primal and vicious.

She moved without thinking, with a desperation to win, to find out more about what Ma Erena meant. As the warrior bent toward her, she lunged at his throat, then at his chest, and finally at his arm. Her teeth sank into his forearm, breaking his skin. Blood spilled onto her tongue, salty and wild. The man howled and flung her off with a snarl, clutching his bleeding arm. The crowd gasped, they were mostly shocked at the fact that she had bitten.

She rolled onto her back, panting. Her lip was split and her body was already aching badly. But her eyes were sharp now, like something that had decided, that finally, it's time to fight.

Across the ring, Hunter had stood. His jaw was tight. His eyes were fixed on her with amusement, even though he didn't want to admit it to himself, somewhere beneath, he was proud of her.

The fight ended there, not with a declaration of winner or loser, but with silence. The kind that speaks louder than any words. Hunter raised a hand again, and the warrior backed away, blood dripping from his bitten arm. Zara sat up slowly, her chest heaving heavily, watching the Alpha.

Hunter declared that, from that day henceforth, she should be given a chamber in the servants’ quarter, she will eat the same portion as the servants but she's still property from an enemy. Immediately after the announcement he walked out, with his mistress and guards trailing behind him.

Zara didn't care of she's still a property, she was just happy that she's now in the servants quarter. And it was finally time to go look for Ma Erene, whom she haven't even seen since that time again.

Later that evening, the soreness in her muscles bloomed like bruised petals. She moved slowly through the garden outside the main hall, away from the servants’ quarters and the noise. The moon was rising, her body still throbbed with pain, but it wasn’t the pain that consumed her. It was what she felt when she looked at Hunter. 

She hasn't given it much thought as of them, but now she just couldn't stop thinking about it, the way his gaze had shifted during the fight. That flicker of heat, amusement and confusion. She didn’t understand it, but it stirred something in her chest, something she didn’t yet trust to name.

She was alone until she wasn’t. She felt him before she saw him. Well as an Alpha his presence will always carry a weight in the air, and his scent is always unmistakable anywhere. 

Hunter emerged from the dark like a wraith, his footsteps silent on the floor. Immediately she saw him, she didn’t even bother to bow, her whole body was seriously aching. She just stood there, arms crossed over her sore ribs, watching him.

“You didn't eat this evening, are you going to starve yourself because I still called you a property even after it seemed like you won?” he asked. 

Zara didn’t respond.

He stepped closer. “You think that makes you strong, or that will make me change my mind?”

Still, no answer. Hunter studied her. Then, suddenly, he leaned in… too close again. His breath grazed her collarbone as he inhaled deeply, but immediately pulled back again with a strange look on his face.

“It’s so wrong to change your title wolfless girl,” he muttered.

Zara’s stomach twisted. But before she could ask why he said that, whether to be afraid or curious, he stepped back. The distance between them widened with the force of a storm cloud dispersing.

“You will always be a mere property,” he said, his voice almost a growl now. “And now, you will start suffering for your father's sin.”

Then he was gone…just like that. The garden was quiet again. The wind stirred the leaves. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and in her chest twisted with terror.  

And now, it was time to go look for Ma Erene.