EMILIA POV
“I don’t think I understand what you mean,” Alpha James replied to Alpha Lucas.
“I’ll take her as a prize for my win. She doesn’t seem to be worth much to you all in this pack, don’t you think?” He raised my hand and shoved it from side to side to prove his point on how frail and useless I was.
“I don’t think—”
“Who is her guardian?” Alpha Lucas questioned, ignoring and interrupting Alpha James like he had done for most of the night.
“I am,” Carlos stated, standing up. His eyes were cold and hard as he looked at me, and there was only one thing I could read from them – you have brought shame upon my name for surrendering.
“Do you have any much use for her? Will you let me have her as a prize for my win?” Alpha Lucas requested.
I expected Carlos to be a bit reluctant about letting someone take me to a pack I had no idea of, but he simply sighed and cleared his throat.
“Unfortunately, Emilia has brought nothing but shame. She has not improved throughout the years since I have adopted her after my brother’s death. I am willing to hand her to you as a prize for your win as you have won fair and square, on the condition that you take care of her just as I have taken care of her. She is my brother’s daughter, and I owe her my responsibility.”
A part of me wanted to laugh at how sincere he sounded, but the other part of me was exhausted and heartbroken at how easy it was for him to give me away to just anyone he wanted.
“Then, it’s settled. I reckon I have your blessing, Alpha James?” Alpha Lucas questioned, raising his brows at Alpha James.
“Well, if you have the approval of her adoptive father, then there’s really nothing I can do, is there?”
The celebration of the Blood Moon festival went on, and I sat in silence, now in the spot made for members of Moonclaw Pack.
I started to wonder why Alpha Lucas hadn’t told them that I was his mate. Was he ashamed of me?
I stole glances at him all through the night until the end of the festival.
“We leave by dawn. Meet me at the Southern border,” he ordered me as soon and everyone started to leave the court, not giving me a chance to leave before he left.
*
“What’s this?” Alpha Lucas questioned the next morning, taking my hand and scanning it with furrowed brows.
I withdrew my bruised hand from his grip, hiding the consequences that Carlos had made me face all through the night as a result of surrendering loudly in public.
The memories played out in my head as I recalled him giving me a parting beating and making me place my hand against a burner throughout the night so I wouldn’t fall asleep.
“It’s nothing. I fell,” I lied, even when I knew that he wasn’t naive enough to believe something like that.
We started the journey through the southern borders towards the pack of Moonclaw.
“Two hundred and fifty-four times,” Alpha Lucas said all of a sudden. “I started to count the number of times I fell twelve years ago. I have fallen two hundred and fifty-four times in twelve years, and I have never had any injuries that look like that.”
“Our bodies are different,” I argued.
“I have been burned quite a number of times, too.” As he said this, I froze. He noticed my change in demeanour, but I managed to keep walking forward to convince him that I was okay. “I do recognize burns that look like that. I also know that you wouldn’t have lied about falling if you had done that to yourself. Was it your uncle?”
I didn’t answer his question. What use was there for telling him everything about what I had been through in the hands of Carlos if we were already on our way out of the pack?
“I don’t like silence for answers, Emilia,” he informed.
“It really doesn’t matter,” I said.
“That’s also an answer in itself,” he noted, stopping and turning around.
“Wait, where are you going?” I called after him, hoping to the Moon Goddess that he wasn’t going where I thought he was going, but with each step, I realized that he really was – he was heading to Carlos’s house.
“You really don’t need to do this. I’ll heal. We’re leaving. It doesn’t matter,” I tried hard to change his mind, but he kept walking forward without paying attention to me until we were right at Carlos’s doorstep.
Carlos opened the door upon hearing the knock on it, only to be greeted by Alpha Lucas punching him right in the face. Alpha Lucas, not giving him time to recover from the effect of the punch, grabbed Carlos by the hair and slammed his head into the door seven times before letting him fall to the ground.
“It’s my token of appreciation, for taking care of my mate all these years,” Alpha Lucas said, grabbing me by the arm and leading me back to the border.
*
As we kept walking, the silence got even worse and deepened until we walked right into Moonclaw.
“Welcome to my pack, Emilia,” he announced, leading me towards his house, where I found a lady walking down the stairs and into the living room.
“Oh, you brought someone along.” She smiled, walking towards me and taking my hands. “How lovely. What’s your name?”
“Emilia,” I responded, noting how similar her hazel eyes were to Alpha Lucas’s.
“Are you his mate, or did he just bring you here for his own fun?”
At her question, I swallowed the lump that grew in my throat. How often did he being people for his fun? What kind of fun? Was I supposed to tell her that I was his mate?
“She’s my mate,” Alpha Lucas replied before I could. “She doesn’t answer questions much.”
“I’m Katarina,” she introduced, “Lucas’s sister.”
She pulled me in for a hug and whispered the strangest words in my ears.
“Welcome to hell, Emilia.”
EMILIA POV My body froze at the strange greeting I received from the sister of my mate.What did she mean by hell? Was she just pulling my legs to see how I would react? Was it a threat of some sort?She pulled away from the hug, smiling widely at me.“You seem to overthink things a lot. What I meant was, my brother is a hellish person to deal with, so welcome to the hell I have to face everyday.”I heaved a quiet sigh of relief, smiling back at her for the clarity.“You must be tired. Should I show her to her room?” Katarina turned to Alpha Lucas, who had been standing and watching our exchange the entire time.“Not yet. Just take her bags up. I’ll show her to her room later,” he instructed her, beckoning for me to follow him.“It’s not your room just yet, and you can’t be my Luna if your fighting skills are as poor as they are. Last night, you did nothing but kick me in the shin and slap me on the face, is that seriously all you’ve got?” he questioned, and I nodded in response.“Fo
EMILIA POV “What… What is…” I couldn’t form a fully comprehensive question. My mouth was opening and closing repeatedly, and I was trying hard to wipe the image out of my head, but it didn’t help that my mate was standing there, putting his shorts back on as if he just couldn’t care less. For a second, I wondered if my genuine surprise was validated. If my mate was cruel enough to take me to the Omegas’ quarters, why should I be surprised about him being with someone else? “Emilia…” He sighed, rubbing his eyes and walking towards me, taking me by the arm and leading me out of the room. “What are you doing?” I asked, my voice low. “What are you doing?” He countered as if I was in the wrong, taking me aback. “You should be in the Omegas’ quarters, why are you out here in the middle of the night?” “I came here because I thought you could help me.” I hoped he could hear the disappointment and hurt in my voice. I hoped it would do something to him, but it only hurt me more that he did
EMILIA POV“Oh, goddess!” Katarina exclaimed as the soldier finally led us into the town, where a lot of the pack members gathered in front of their houses, holding the bodies of their loved ones.“This…” I placed my over my mouth to mask how shocked I was by the view.There were tens of dead people we had seen so far – about twenty or more, and they all looked like they had died from the same thing.But nobody knew what had killed them.Their bodies were pale, almost gray, and the palms of their hands were completely reddened.“This is bad. Find someone to go track Lucas and bring him here this instant!” Katarina ordered the soldier, who took her word and ran off.We walked towards one of the many people who were sitting outside and bawling their eyes out over the death of their loved ones. This woman was holding a teenage boy to her chest.“Please, save my son! He was fine last night, and I found him like this when I woke up and went to check on him. Please, Jacob! Open your eyes. Y
EMILIA POVThe soldier that had been yelling at me for the laundry launched himself into one of the rooms, returning with weapons and running down the hallway and out of the house.I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell if I was expected to join in on the fight as I watched soldiers running from one room to another and down the hallway, and I was too scared to ask them as they all looked ready to kill anyone or anything that stood in their way.“Hey, what’s…what’s happening?” I stuttered as I got out of the house and met one of the Omegas wiping a knife with a piece of cloth.“A rogue attack. We haven’t had one of those in a long time. I wonder why they’re here,” she mumbled, seeming more concentrated on the knife she was wiping clean.“And us? Are we supposed to join the fight?” I questioned, wondering if the knife was hers and she was preparing for the battle.Her eyes shot up so that she could examine me for a moment. Then, she stood up with a sigh as a soldier rushed out of the
EMILIA POVWe all shared looks with each other, wondering if this soldier had lost his mind and was trying to trick us into believing some mindless joke that they had all planned on their way back from the war.Seeing that none of us was moving – in fear or in doubt – the soldier raised his voice and boomed at us: “I want to believe that you all have functioning wolf ears! Grab whatever you can and join us on the battlefield! Nobody will be having your back! It’s a full war. You either die alone or you assist us to win this! Orders from the Alpha!”The soldier turned around and shifted into his wolf form, racing out of the house and leaving all of us in the room to scramble and wonder what to do next.Some people had made it into the kitchen to grab knives while some of the others were sure that they could take out a few rogues with their wolf forms.Unsure of what I was going to be doing, I blindly followed. There was nothing else I could do but hope that if we reached there, they wo
EMILIA POVI looked at Katarina, confused at her words. What was there to say about me so much so that a seer would summon me and Alpha Lucas to see her.“I don’t understand. What truth about me is there?” I questioned, not liking the way Lucas was staring at me with suspicion.“I guess that’s what the seer wants you to find out. Come with me,” she said, taking my hand in hers and walking forward so that Lucas walked behind us.There was silence, and I couldn’t help but feel Lucas’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. I wondered what it was that this seer, who was most likely not a true one, had in mind to tell us.I had been raised not to trust seers or wolves who delved into spiritual. Carlos used to tell me they were nothing short of witches and would take the side of witches if there was ever a need to fight against werewolves with them.As we walked towards the seer’s place deep into the woods of the pack, Katarina and Lucas stopped at the same time, causing me to stop an
EMILIA POV“We’re being attacked!” was the last thing I heard someone announce to the rogues who were still in the kitchen before all hell broke loose.Someone pushed me to the back, standing in front of me.“You’re already injured. You can’t fight right now,” she said to me as they clashed with the rogues.I couldn’t stand there and watch just because I had an injury. I ran into the kitchen to grab a sharp knife, getting back into the living room as the Omegas had all shifted and we’re pushing the rogues back so that they would all be outside the house.I found a rogue on top of one of the Omegas, snapping its teeth and trying to find something to bite. I took its distraction as an opportunity to lunge for it and stab it right in the neck.Blood squirted out of its neck, but it didn’t relent immediately. It thrashed around wildly, running for me and trying to attack me as well, but I used my feet to kick it back until it got weak enough that it fell to the ground with shallow breaths
EMILIA POV I almost laughed at what the seer had just said. I would have laughed if nobody was taking it as serious as they all were.“I’m… I don’t think I understand what you mean,” I voiced my confusion.How could I possibly be the cause of two rogue attacks in a pack that wasn’t even mine? I was an Omega, rejected by the Alpha, for the Moon Goddess’s sake.If they believed I had ties to rogues, they had to reinvestigate and see that I had always been under Carlos’s wings since I lost both of my parents, and he kept a strict eye on me that I barely had the time to even talk to my pack members back in Fangsbane, let alone a rogue.“I want you to know that I’m not accusing you of anything,” Gwen, the seer, made it clear. “That you had something to do with it doesn’t mean you planned it. I meant you have something about you that brought about the attacks or the plague that recently took the lives of some pack members.”“And what exactly is it that she has with her?” Lucas asked.“I’m