Chapter 2:

We got home and Pa was waiting for me on the porch with a red hot face. It was past midnight and his favorite daughter was not yet home.

I glanced at him and then quickly evaded his hot stare, The night was pitch black and deadly silent, only the long lonely howls of wolves could be heard from far distances.

"Hey, who goes there?" His voice projected out which sent a cold shiver down my spine, he narrowed his eyes onto us.

"Put me down please, my dad will see us." I blurted out with crimson cheeks. I dreaded the day pa was to see me with another man and this time around I was nearly naked, only Zach's white shirt wrapped me up.

"No, your leg is injured, how will you walk.?" Zach raised a question with serious boldface.

"I will crawl if I have to please put me down."

But he did not listen to my plea until we reached the deemed lamp on the porch. Even though I was mated to him, I was ashamed to be seen with the most respected member of the pack in my birthday suit.

"Alpha Zach, it's just you. I thought it was someone else." My father's tone of his voice instantly became soft and submissive.

"Yes, Beta Wood. I brought back Bella. She finally bloomed into her wolf and injured her leg in the process." Zach spoke in a deep sexy voice.

I glanced at his sexy lips speaking to my father and gawked at their slow intense movements while he unfurled them.

I swallowed hard as I quickly quivered out of my trance.

"Oh, that's so kind of you to bring back my Bella. You can put her down here. Thank you." Pa answered back with a slight grin on his face.

I looked at pa and I could tell he was holding himself back from uttering something nasty because the man who brought me back home was the Alpha of our pack.

Zach gently positioned me on a charcoal-grey metallic swing on the porch.

"Aww" I let out a sexy moan to get him to look at me even just once but he did not peek at me.

I pouted my lips and rolled my eyes at him, let's see how long you will resist your mated wolf. I sneered silently.

"Greetings to your father," Pa bid him farewell to get rid of the man who brought his practically naked daughter home.

"Okay, I will be taking my leave now," Zach replied with a stern poise on his face. He veered around and jumped off the porch while he transformed into a white-furred wolf and ran off into the dusk.

"Oh my girl, so you finally turned into your wolf. I'm so proud of you. How do you feel to be part of the pack now?" Pa inquired with his eyes wide open in anticipation of my response. He sat next to me and awaited my reply.

"Pa, I'm naked and need to get some warm clothes on me." I blurted out loud while I limped my way to my tiny bedroom in the basement of the house.

"But I want to hear about your day.?" Pa yelled out. He insisted we talked about my day every time I returned home.

Maybe it was one way he connected with mom, but then I never bothered to ask him why he insisted I tell him about my day.

"Pa it's late go to sleep," I answered back with a grimace on my face while I toiled to get downstairs.

*******

Moonstone mating ball.

The next morning, a tiny golden bell frantically rang out loud to signal me that I was needed by either my stepmom or Crystal upstairs. I rumbled over my bed and sighed heavily.

Soon I will be leaving this hell hole and moving in with my Alpha…oh how I can't wait to be crowned Luna today and have a lot of pups running around my huge mansion. I exhaled merrily then sat up on my hard surfaced bed while scanning my old-fashioned room. Everything in my room was either about to be thrown out of the house or picked up from the dumpster somewhere else.

My eyes came to a halt after catching a glimpse of my beautiful mother's picture who mysteriously vanished when I was two years old, and since then I have been told that she was murdered in the forbidden forest where the rogue wolves roamed freely.

I sighed with trembling lips while holding back tears from trickling down my pink cheeks.

"Bella!" My stepmom yelled out loud from upstairs. Interrupting my solemn moment as my body shuddered at her high-pitched voice.

"I'm coming Beta Diane.!" I quickly got up from the bed, dressed in baggy green sweatpants and a purple vest. I limped my way upstairs barefoot to meet my stepmom who insisted I address her by her rank and name in the pack because she despised me and my mother for reasons best known to herself.

The short version of the story I heard was that my Omega mother was mated to my Beta pa and from nowhere, Diana came into the picture and seduced my pa and she got married to him instead of my mother. Diana had Crystal but the mate bond between my Pa and mom was too strong to resist hence my Pa went over to his mated wolf and mated. Lol, I know that sounds funny but that's how I came into this world.

Sadly I took after my mother's blood as I was deemed an Omega from birth.

Two years later my mother mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth and I remember Pa going to search for her in the woods until I turned five then he slowly lost hope and gave up on his search.

Since then, Pa has warned me and Crystal to stay out of the hunted forest.

"You called, Beta Diane." My knees trembled with fear because she used to hurl insults and beat me mercilessly if I delayed responding to her call.

She glanced at me and smirked while rolling her eyes at me. Diane stood in the hallway next to the main entrance with her car keys clasped in her hand. The upstairs of the house was well decorated with modern furniture, but only my room sucked.

"What is this I heard about Alpha Zach bringing you home in the middle of the night naked, what were you doing with him?" She asked with unblinking focused eye contact with me.

I evaded her gaze and faced the floor while I swallowed hard.

"Umh, he helped me because I had twisted my ankle after I turned into my wolf last night ." I stuttered in a low voice.

Beta Diane strode closer to me with her hands on her hips.

"Oh, so now you have started lying to me because now you think you're a big girl." She roughly clasped my chin and raised my head straight to her face.

I immediately cringed my eyes shut like I always did to avoid her hot stare.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you." She exclaimed with heavy breathing.

My heart thumped wildly as a rush of fear wavered all over me. I unfurled my eyes while my legs turned to jelly.

"I don't care about your stupid turning into a bitch but stay away from Alpha Zach. He can't be mated to a weakling like you. Do you understand me?" She spoke rapidly with veins bulging in the sides of her neck. Diana wanted so badly for her daughter Crystal to be Alpha Zach's mate hence she was willing to go the extra mile to see it go through.

I remembered once, she had invited the former Alpha Harrison to our house to discuss an alliance with both families by Crystal marrying Alpha Zach so that she can give him strong pups to one day take over the leadership of the pack.

But of course, Alpha Harrison rejected this absurd proposal because he was an old person and believed in fated mates and not arranged marriages.

Upon listening to her statement, I bit my tongue so as not to blurt out that she is too late and that I'm Alpha Zach's, fated mate. I was ecstatic that soon I will be the Luna of the pack and I will rule over people like her. I just had to wait for him to make the announcement and make it official at the moonstone ball tonight.

Diana snapped her fingers in my face as I was lost in thoughts on my soon-to-be happily ever after. I let out a slight smile across my face and that's when I received an unexpected hot slap across my face. I stumbled on the floor with my face down as I was caught off guard by her smack while I took short breaths.

"Now clean the house, cook, and go pick up Crystal's dress at the dry cleaners before she gets back from doing her nails." Diana then walked out of the house and drove out in her posh car pa got her on their anniversary.

I sighed heavily with a droopy body while scanning the messy house.

oho, moon goddess please give me the strength to finish cleaning up this house before Alpha Zach comes to pick me up.

I limped over to the kitchen and clutched the broom in my palms and cleaned the house spotless from top to bottom like I did since my mother left.

***********

Hours of intense tiresome cleaning go by fast as I did everything Diana asked me to do and I still had a little bit of time to take a quick bath and unravel in a simple black dress with old heels I owned. I glanced at the mirror and readjusted my simple boring dress to try and make it look sexy or something but it declined. It's like the dress was on a mission to make me look frumpy and old.

I sighed and pulled a face in disgust at the way the dress looked on me.

Anyway, at least he is my fated mate and I'm sure he won't mind whatever I wear tonight. A slight smile emitted on my face.

Suddenly I heard a loud honk from the driveway and an awkward silence as I gathered all my strength and ignored the sharp discomfort in my ankle and hurried up the stairs to meet Alpha Zach in the manicured driveway, Pa and Diane were not around by the time I was leaving the house hence this made it easier for me to rush out of without being questioned by anyone.

Besides I'm eighteen now and I will be returning home as a Luna. I sighed merrily.

I reached outside the house, and Alpha Zach sat in his sleek sports car, nodding his head to the thumping rap music as he checked his appearance for the hundredth time, spiking up his short, corn-blonde hair.

He sensed my presence as soon as I closed the front door, leaning out of the window with a lazy grin. As I approached the car, he flashed his all-Romanian smile in my direction with a wink of his cerulean eyes.

"Hey Bella, you look nice." He called, as I walked around the car and opened the door, slipping inside.

He didn't even bother getting out of the car to open your door or well, maybe he is not the romantic kind, I pushed my brunette hair in the back of my ear.

"Hey," I answered back in a soft voice.

"You ready, Crystal?" Zach raised a question lightly, squeezing my knee in affection.

Wait, I'm not Crystal, I veered around to the backseat of the car only to catch a glimpse of Crystal sexy posed in the backseat of my Alpha Zach's car, my jaw instantly dropped in shock as to why Crystal was in the car with us.

Crystal waved at me with her fingers and let out a mischievous smirk on her face. She enjoyed tormenting me every single second of the day.

"Ahem, why is Crystal coming with us?" I managed to speak up.

"She asked for a lift to the ball." He answered back without hesitation.

What? I exclaimed internally, we all know she owns a car her mother gave her after pa bought Diana her posh car. Calm yourself, Bella, he is your fated mate. No matter what she tries she will not get in between you and Zach. I composed my posture in the car then shifted my head forward, while Alpha Zach reversed out of the driveway and sped off down the road, in readiness to make the fifteen-minute journey to the estate where the Ball was to be held.

The whole time Alpha Zach kept peeking through his rearview mirror to check out Crystal who kept giving him seductive facial expressions.

Why is he peeking at her? I wrinkled my nose in disgust at his unnatural manners.

"We are here." Zach unknowingly disrupted the mental argument I was having with my wolf as

my body quivered out of a daze while I peeked out of the window of the car.