CHAPTER TWO

KARLA'S POV

I perfectly understood why my father was so violently opposed to the thought of having a child be an Omega. I was now the weak link in the family.

In the pack, our family was one of those families that was one calamity away from being reduced to a lower-class family, and my father would rather die than become one, which was why he would rather die than have one of his children be an Omega. He had succeeded with my two brothers so far, so he had concluded that the problem had to be from me.

"I won't have an omega in my home." He had boomed. I was still in so much pain that I didn't register the pain as he dragged me to the basement himself.

Later that night, after I eventually changed back to my human form, I heard my parents arguing loudly, to be fair, it was more like my father yelling at my mother.

"You are the cause of this." He spat. "You were the weakling of your family, and now you've passed it to your daughter."

"There has never been an omega in my family, and you know that. You wouldn't have married me if there was."

"Who knows if you had..."

"This is not the time to get into an argument about anything. What are we going to do about her?" My mother cut in, which was pretty bold of her. I didn't know which hurt most, that I was an anomaly in both sides of my families or that they were both referring to me like I was a stranger instead of their daughter.

"She's going to remain in the basement until we find a solution."

"People will find out eventually."

"I know, but let's hold out a bit. We can't afford to let her drag down the family's standing. Let's wait and see if her brothers will snag good mates."

After that, their voices went down, and I was left with my thoughts. It was one thing to understand why something was happening, but it didn't make it hurt any less.

Our pack wasn't always this obsessed with rankings, at least that was what my parents used to imply. Although no one in the pack would openly talk down to a wolf of a lesser rank, but in recent years, it was getting obvious, and families with Beta and Gamma wolves were now careful not to marry down.

Actually, this whole obsession with wolf rankings started after the recent Alpha Aiden became our leader. Rumor had it that he shouldn't have become Alpha.

Alpha Aiden has a twin brother, Ace, who also happened to be my friend growing up. Ace was always the one touted to be the alpha. He was the stronger one of the two. Although their father didn't play favorites, but it was pretty obvious whom he was training to take over after him. Ace. This caused a lot of friction among the twins. By the time they were 17, most people had started to refer to Ace as the new alpha to be.

It was no surprise when they shifted on their 18th birthday and Ace had the bigger and stronger wolf, whom he named Zeus. However, shortly after their 19th birthday, Ace was found with blood and a dead wolf, who Aiden claimed to be their father and our old alpha, while Ace swore that he knew nothing about it and that he had been set up. No one except me believed him. I was 16 at the time, and I cried every day, thinking that he was going to be killed.

To my relief, he was only exiled and was to be killed immediately if he ever dared to set his foot back. I was certain Aiden had something to do with it, there was no scrap of evidence that pointed to him.

Aiden was declared our new Alpha, and he went on a rampage. To show everyone that he was powerful, since he knew the entire pack preferred his twin brother, Ace. In his four years as the Alpha, he had raided five smaller packs. Personally, I thought he was overcompensating. He knew he could never be as good as his twin brother, so he was showing the world that he was a ruthless man.

To hide his own weakness, he would often take it out on omegas. Once, he had a man flogged to death for collapsing on a run. He was fond of things like that, flaunting what he thought was a weakness in other people.

"We can't afford to have losers in the pack." He would often say, as if omegas aren't part of a natural order.

I shuddered to think of what he would do to me once he finds out that I am an Omega.

After two days in the basement, I was starving, but surprisingly, I wasn't as weak as I thought I would be. My wolf, whom I had named Zeal, was weak already, but there was something in my core that I was sure was not normal for a wolf of my size, but I decided to keep that knowledge to myself.

My only hope of ever getting out of here was if I was fortunate enough to get my mate this year. My gut told me I would be getting my mate soon, but it wasn't going to happen if I was in a makeshift jail.

So, when Lance came to slip me some rolls and bread, I held on to his hand and begged him to get me out of here.

He shook his head. "It's too dangerous out there for you. Where would you even go?"

"I'm not running away. I just want to find my mate at the Moon Goddess festival. If I find my mate, Dad might decide to forgive me for bringing such shame to us." I said pitifully.

"Fine." He said. "It's tomorrow. I'll come get you."

The next night came soon, and he came to get me. "You have thirty minutes. Good luck, baby sis."

I would be needing it.