CHAPTER 1

~ Doris ~

Today is the mating ritual, I was still cleaning the room of my twin stepsisters, Vanessa and Veronica, as always.

My knees hurt from kneeling on the floor.

I scrubbed at a stain on Vanessa’s floor until my fingers burned, but it didn’t come off.

I scrubbed harder.

They turned eighteen today, and everyone knew they would find their mates and I was nineteen with no mate.

I woke up very early, around 5 a.m., to start cleaning and cooking, I cleaned all the rooms, including the twins room.

When I got to Henry’s room, I skipped it, as usual, he always told me not to clean it.

Don’t worry, sis I’ll clean it myself, he would say.

Most times, I never touched his room.

I was still scrubbing the corridor when I suddenly remembered it was the mating ceremony day. Before I could even finish, my stepmother walked in.

“Doris, don’t tell me you’re not prepared for the ceremony yet, you need to do and leave my house today, I don’t mind if you bring a low level omega as your mate, it’s not like you worth anything good.

Every time I look at you she continued…I see your mother. You’re just like your slut of a mother.”

That word always hurt me.

Slut.

It was the only thing she ever called my mother, and it always broke me.

I quickly finished up but before I could get to my room, the twins walked through the corridor, dragging their dirty feet over the place I had just cleaned.

They laughed and walked away, and I had to clean it all over again for the third time now.

When I finally went to my wardrobe to prepare for the ceremony, there was nothing decent to wear. It was always the clothes Vanessa and Veronica were done with—clothes they had already ruined before throwing them to me.

I picked up a pair of old jeans, they were faded and too loose on me, I had gotten thinner over time. The tops looked more like rags used for cleaning the kitchen than clothes meant for a person to wear.

Or a girl like us, my wolf said in my head.

Her name is Candy.

So what are we going to do now? Candy asked. We need to find our mate today.

I ignored her because I already knew the truth.

No one wants a mate who cannot talk.

I walked quietly toward the mating arena, not because I had high expectations of finding my mate that day, but because I wanted to try at least once.

“Our dumb sister thinks she’ll find a mate,” Veronica laughed.

“The Moon Goddess would never curse anyone with a mate like you unless it was a rogue.”Vanessa added, shoving me aside as they walked past me.

When the mating ritual began, the air shifted. One by one, werewolves started perceiving the scents of their mates.

Then, suddenly, I noticed a scent sweet like strawberries.

Finally, Candy jubilated inside me.

“We have a mate.”

Just then, the Gamma stepped forward but the moment his eyes met mine, irritation flashed across his face.

That was when I realized it.

I was his mate.

And just as I had expected, he did exactly what I knew he would.

“I, Julius Armstrong, reject Doris Charles as my mate.”

The laughter came right after.

Not that I didn’t expect it, I always knew it would happen…this was the second time my mate rejected me because I cannot talk.

In the pack, they call me the dumb girl not because I am stupid, but because I am mute, a girl who cannot speak.

Julius Armstrong was the Gamma, the third in command under our young Alpha.

They were all twenty-one and this was the third time Julius had rejected his mate.

The first time was when I was seventeen. Rumors said he rejected her because she was too fat, he called her a loser, someone unworthy of being his mate.

The second time was when I was eighteen, he rejected his mate at the same time my first mate rejected me, this time, he said she was too short.

And now it was my turn.… the third time, he was rejecting me just because I was a mute girl obviously.

What did I expect? Who would want a mute girl as his mate? I wasn’t surprised, not really because I had expected it but the humiliation… the sting of being dismissed yet again hit harder than I cared to admit.

It wasn’t just embarrassment. It was the quiet, sinking feeling that maybe this was my life now. Always rejected. Always invisible. Always alone.

After the rejection, I looked around.

Everyone was looking at me, some with pity, some like I wasn’t even there... I felt like a lonely child standing in the middle of a crowd, I had no friends.

“I’m so glad the Gamma rejected her,” a girl whispered, leaning closer to her friends.

“What was she thinking, coming here?Honestly, no sane wolf would ever pick her,” another girl whispered back.

I ignored them and turned my head to the other side and saw Veronica already standing close to the Gamma, showing herself off as the chosen one.

They had been dating for months before the ceremony, so I expected her to be his mate and not me.

While Vanessa stayed around the Alpha, throwing herself at him.

The Alpha looked at me, our eyes met for a moment, but he said nothing, he didn’t seem interested in Vanessa at all, even though she kept forcing herself on him.

Veronica stayed with the Gamma, laughing and acting close to him, just like always.

I stood there alone, wishing I had never existed.

I was not born mute, my stepmother and stepsisters made me this way but they pretended like I had always been like this.

Lost in my thoughts, Henry ran up to me.

“Hey, Doris,” he said. “Tell me you’re okay.”

I shook my head, then nodded, I didn’t know what else to do.

Henry was the only person in the pack who accepted me for who I am, he was only sixteen, yet he acted more mature than most of them.

He held my hand as we walked away.

“Just because you didn’t find your mate today doesn’t mean you won’t find him in the future,” he said gently. “Try to stay positive.”

I nodded again.

I couldn’t talk, so nodding was all I could do. When I needed to answer questions, I wrote them down in my small notebook that I always keep with me.

Just as I got home, I was already expecting my stepmother to shout.

It was normal for her to be angry whenever I came back without a mate.

When I reached the door, I saw her waiting. My father was there too, but the moment he saw me he walked back inside, obviously he didn’t want to be involved.

Most of the time, when my stepmother or the twins maltreated me, he remained quiet, he never said anything.

I don’t know if he was happy that I was being maltreated or if he simply didn’t care.

Sometimes I wondered if he even cared at all. Which father would see his own child being mistreated and just walk away?

As I approached my stepmother, she looked me up and down.

The twins had already gone home, and they were back in her good graces, laughing beside her.

Before I could even enter the room, Henry grabbed my hands and guided me forward.

“Stop right there,” my stepmother snapped the moment I almost stepped inside.

“You think my warning was a joke, right? I told you not to come back to this house without a mate,” my stepmother snapped. “I’ve endured you for nineteen years, and I won’t anymore.

You’re nothing but a headache to me, I told you to go find a mate, and right now, go look for anyone, bring back a dog or any animal I don’t care, but just stop coming here empty-handed. You are a demonic reminder of your mother… a slut!”

The twins joined in, their voices cruel and loud.

“Yeah, Mommy! Her mother was a slut! And a child of a slut will be a slut too!” Vanessa said, while Veronica laughed.

“Stop it! Stop treating her like this!” Henry interjected, trying to defend me.

“It’s not her fault she got rejected by her mate. What do you expect her to do? She doesn’t even have a chance to meet anyone else. Can’t you have some sympathy?”

But my stepmother shouted over him, furious.

“Get inside and stop involving yourself! I don’t want to see you near this slut’s child!”