2. Dangerous Stranger

Tears streamed down Rosalie's cheeks as she tried to free her arm from her mom's grip, but it was of no use.

She dragged her to the tree near the woods. Rosalie panicked and shook her head violently, but Penelope didn't listen.

She forced her against the tree and tied her hands with the ropes behind the tree. Stepping back, she glared at the girl.

"You'll stay tied here until afternoon. I know you did that stunt because you didn't want your sister to shine at the moonlit altar. You're jealous that she'd shine in the ceremony." Penelope growled.

"No. That's not true. Please, untie me." She pleaded as her mother glared at her.

"Stay quiet!" She hissed and walked away, leaving her alone.

Two hours passed as she stood there tied up. Her legs trembled, and sweat trickled down her temple despite the cold. Her lips trembled; she was thirsty. She hadn't eaten anything since yesterday. If she were kept tied like this a few more hours, maybe she'd die.

Carolina returned home, but she saw Rosalie at a distance and approached her. Seeing her tied like this, she huffed.

"You deserve this punishment. Excellent for the pathetic wolf who couldn't even shift properly." She said.

"I know you didn't prepare the bath for me because you're jealous of me. Now just wait for tonight. You'll see how all the alphas would go crazy for me." Carolina laughed.

The laughter drew the attention of two high-ranking guards passing by the pathway on patrol. They were "brutes" who lived for the power they could exert over those weaker than themselves. They stepped closer to them, their shadows long and terrifying.

"Need a hand, Carolina? Maybe she needs a reminder of her place," one of the guards suggested, his hand resting on the hilt of his heavy blade. 

Rosalie's heart stuttered in raw fear. The look in their eyes was scary. They look at her with hunger but mask it with hate. She felt ants crawling all over her body at their piercing scrutiny.

He stepped forward, his boots slamming through the ground. He loomed over her, pinning her against the tree further as she tried her best to dissolve into the tree so their bodies won't touch. "An Omega who can’t even serve her sister is a waste of the pack's resources."

Rosalie’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She squeezed her eyes shut, flinching away from the hand she knew was coming. 

Please, Moon Goddess, not today. I can't take one more bruise before the ceremony, she prayed silently. Even though her mother might not let her go to the ceremony. But Rosalie had hoped that something might change her fate tonight, and maybe her suffering would stop.

She waited for the sting of a palm, for the guards to pull her hair, for the laughter of her sister to peak.

But the strike never landed.

The air in the woods suddenly changed. The temperature plummeted so fast that Rosalie could see her own breath. 

It wasn't just the cold of the mountains; it was a heavy, suffocating pressure that seemed to suck the very oxygen from the room. The guards’ laughter died in their throats. Even Carolina stepped back, her face turning a ghostly pale.

"Leave her."

The voice didn't come from the pathway. It seemed to come from the shadows themselves. From the woods behind her. 

It was a low, vibrating growl that hummed in Rosalie’s very marrow, a sound that felt like thousands of bees thrumming against her skull. It was deep, terrifyingly steady, and carried a weight that made the stone walls seem to tremble.

Rosalie opened her eyes, her breath hitching. Standing behind the guards was a figure draped in a dark, hooded cloak that swallowed the light. A heavy, fur-lined hood was pulled low, obscuring his face entirely, leaving only a void of shadow where a man should be. The power rolling off him was ancient, "merciless," and utterly overwhelming.

"My Lord," the guard stammered, his bravado vanishing instantly. He bowed so low he nearly tipped over into the ground. "We were just... she was in punishment by her mother, we were teaching her a lesson..."

"I will not say it again," the hooded man said. His voice was like grinding stones, "scary" and "teeth-like" in its sharp, dangerous edge.

The guards didn't wait for a third warning. They scrambled out of there, nearly knocking Carolina over in their haste to escape the presence of the stranger. 

Carolina, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and strange curiosity, cast one last look at the shadowed man before fleeing after them, her silk ribbons fluttering in the draft he brought with him.

Rosalie remained tied to the tree, trembling. The harsh ropes were still stinging her skin, but she could barely feel them. All her senses were locked on the man in front of her. 

He stepped forward, his movements possessing a predatory grace. He silently unbound her wrists and freed her as she dropped to her knees because her legs were jelly.

He didn't offer a hand, and he didn't speak a word of comfort, but the mere fact that he stood there, a silent sentinel in her defense, made Rosalie’s world tilt.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice cracking with the weight of years of silence. She wanted to see him. She wanted to know who had saved the "lowest of the low" from another morning of bruises.

She looked up, trying to peer beneath the darkness of his heavy hood with grateful misty eyes. For a fleeting second, she thought she saw a flash of amber eyes that burned like dying embers in the dark.

A face that felt like a "merciless brute" but looked like a savior. But before she could speak another word or even catch her breath, the hooded figure turned.

He didn't walk away; he simply vanished back into the gloom of the woods, leaving behind nothing but the faint, lingering scent of winter pine and old, dried blood.

Rosalie sat in the silence of the woods, her heart still racing. Who was he? she wondered, a strange heat rising in her chest that she hadn't felt in years. 

Why would someone so powerful stop for someone like her and help her?  There were so many questions in her head.

As she walked back home, she was scared that her mother would punish her in some other way.

But Carolina had told her what happened. And not wanting to get in trouble with the higher-ups, Penelope told her to simply get lost in her room, and no food for her.

She silently took a bottle full of water and went to her attic, but she wasn't sad. She was excited for the ceremony tonight as she pulled out the dress from under the cupboard and smiled, staring at it.

It was a beautiful burgundy dress she had stitched herself. This was the discarded dress of Carolina, which her mother gave to her. It was even torn, but Rosalie redesigned it into a beautiful dress.

For the first time in years, she was excited for something, excited for the ceremony.

A hope for a better future.