Chapter 3

<<Mora>>

“Don’t touch me.” I snarl at the enforcer; he rolls his eyes as he uncaps the syringe and steps close to me.

“Don’t fight them, Morana.” Cole appears beside the tattooed enforcer, panic in his eyes as he looks from me to the syringe; he knows what's inside of it just as well as I do and he knows that once it's in my system, I won’t be able to run. 

“I said don’t touch me!” I buck backwards into the enforcer holding onto me as the tattooed one steps closer to me. “What the hell is that?” I play dumb as he presses the needle of the syringe into my neck; I barely feel the prick of the needle but I do feel the fire loaded into the syringe entering my body. It feels like lava being pumped right into my body. One second I’m on fire with rage and the next I’m being burnt from the inside out and my vision  is going blurry. I fight it as much as I can but I know unconsciousness is coming for me and there is nothing I can do to stop it. 

“You don’t need to do this.” Cole pleads with the tattooed enforcer but it's too late; I can already feel the wolfsbane pushing my wolf so far back that I can barely feel her. My head feels too heavy and all the fight is zapped from my body. I go slack in the enforcer's arms, and I barely have enough sense to realise I’m being lifted off the ground and carried from the house. 

“Father, don’t do this; don’t let them take me—" My words are slurred like I’ve spent three days drinking nonstop; I barely manage to get the sentence out before my head drops back and my eyes roll into the back of my head. 

“It's okay, Morana; it's going to be okay.” Cole’s whispered words are the last thing I hear. I want to tell him that nothing is going to be okay again but I can’t seem to make my mouth open, let alone form words. The last thing I feel is someone tossing me onto a hard metal surface that is lumpy and digs into me in all the wrong places. 

"Have you ever seen one of these before?” I’m not sure how long I’m out of it but the male's voice is the first thing I hear; it's rough and seems to scratch the inside of my head as I fight the effects of the wolfsbane. My hands are bound with rough rope; I’m on my stomach with my legs bound at the ankles. Each time I pull on my wrists, my feet come with them, making me think I’ve been hog-tied. With all the wolfsbane still in my system and the stuff soaked into the ropes, I’m surprised I’m even awake let alone aware enough to realise I’m tied up. I try to open my eyes but they’re too heavy. I don’t need to see to know I’m in a van, though. I can smell the motor oil and feel the rides of the floor pressing hard into my chest and I can sense that I’m moving at a fast speed but I can’t feel the wind against my face or hear the sounds of nature.

“A female Alpha?” I recognise the tattooed enforcer's voice. “Nah, I heard she’s the only one in the country, and some Beta told me she might be the only one in the world. Doesn’t really matter though; her father paid a fucking fortune to get her into the War Academy so that's where we take her.” My heart starts beating too fast in my chest as the van speeds up and my body rocks back and forth. I can’t do anything to stop the movement and my face smashes into something hard; blood fills my mouth and my nose starts to throb. 

‘Well, that's just great, a broken nose and hog tied in the back of a van.’ I growl at my wolf. I can feel her in the back of my mind but it's like she’s in some drug-induced haze, and I think that's the wolfsbane. ‘Add in a fucking window and this could be a bad porno.’ My wolf gives a half-hearted laugh but it quickly fades into a groan, she’s hurting and I don’t like that – all the years of abuse from my father – and he’s never made my wolf feel like this. 

‘I don’t like this.’ My wolf whispers; her words are slurred like she’s been on a weeklong bender, and although I want her company, I keep quiet to let her try to ride out the high with as much dignity as possible. 

I’m not quite sure how this became my life, sure, things have been shit from the second I was born but that isn’t my fault. My mother was an Omega and giving birth to an Alpha killed her before she was able to even hold me, my father blamed me for the loss of his fated mate and being a female Alpha did not help the matter. From the second I could walk, his abuse started. My only safety in the Pack was Cole. My father's Beta always made sure I was fed, he trained me to protect myself as best as he could and he always made sure that I had the comfort and softness my female side needed. My father tried to raise me cold and dark like all other Alphas and he refused to acknowledge that I needed certain things to keep my female side happy. His Beta was the one who protected me through my heats and made sure no male took advantage of me; he made sure I got time alone with my boyfriend and got an education. If it was up to my father, I would be an illiterate skeleton locked in the basement until the Moon Goddess finally took me home. I tried to follow the rules my father laid out but when I realised other Packs live differently, it only made me want to fight back more so I could have a piece of the life everyone else had. Now I’m on my way to a War Academy where the males will look down on me worse than my father ever did and unlike the Blackthron Pack, I will have no one watching my back. 

‘We need to get strong.’ I growl at my wolf as I feel the van starting to slow. I have no idea how long I’ve been out so I have no idea how long we’ve been travelling. It wouldn’t matter if I was conscious anyway because I’ve never stepped foot outside of the Blackthorn Pack and there are four or five different War Academys that I could be taken to. I don’t know if one is better than the other or if all of them are the same.