5

ANNABELLE.

It's been a couple of hectic days with all the preparations for the Ball. After the day that Zyn and I's escapade. We had a pack meeting. Zach, and Marco announced that we've received the invitation.

Most of our people were thrilled and excited to hear about it and had an agreement. They wanted to go. However, we were quite flabbergasted as to why Marco didn't tell us a piece of really important information. The idiot.

The ball was going to be held in the Adecer Royal Palace- meaning that the royal fucking vampire family was hosting it this year. I truly tried to act rationally about it but it was too much. I didn't want to risk having my family hurt especially not in someones else's territory.

We'd be susceptible and weak but since it was the vampires' turn to host it and after knowing that they had agreed to not pull any crazy bullshit, I managed to calm down.

I wasn't happy about it but I have to do what I have to do to please my pack. We could use the numbers. Wolves finding their mates means reproduction and more hands-on-deck to help with protecting and providing for each other.

After all, we weren't the biggest and strongest pack in America for nothing. Trust me, I'm still opposed to the idea of having a mate and don't want to step a foot in that goddamned palace but that isn't enough for me to refuse the unmated wolves in my pack not going to find theirs.

Just because I'm against the whole concept of having a mate doesn't give me the right to think that the others wouldn't want their other halves. Soulmates or whatever.

Not everyone is an angry bitch like myself. For all the good reasons, Of course.

Father dearest forbid us from going the year that Mama died and the one after.

I just had my first shift at seventeen- hybrids have their first shift at seventeen, sometimes, eighteen it depends on when their wolf decided to appear since the vampire side sometimes overpowers the wolf side. And back then, I was weak and had an untamed wolf to take care of. So for me to try and get 'father' to permit the unmated ones to go and find their destined mates was impossible.

Our pack members were scared shitless of him and didn't fight back. He knew that he had too much power over them and he used it. Perks of being their Alpha. I guess.

They just took that verdict without protesting. And the fact that werewolves were creatures that couldn't live without their mates yet, these ones in my pack didn't fight him back, makes me hate him more than I do already.

He terrified them to no end. And just because he didn't have a mate anymore didn't mean that the others shouldn't. He didn't even treat her the way he was supposed to.

The fucking hypocrite.

Ania growls at that thought confirming that my explainable hatred towards my sperm donor isn't just from my side but hers as well.

I'm not selfish like him. I never was.

He was a verbally abusive sicko but I'm glad that he's gone now.

I might've been alpha for only 3 years but after he died of a wolfsbane poisoning-I was only nineteen back then. I was trained heavily even before my shift so that I'd be the leader that he wanted even though he wasn't exactly thrilled that a girl would overrule him one day.

Misogynistic fucker.

But at least he died after all the shit he got our people to go through. A horrible death too.

We might've not found the person that poisoned him but honestly, we didn't care. Actually that's a lie.

Nobody gave a fuck. At All.

Our people were happy to be free of my 'father's' controlling and messed up ruling and nobody turned an eye to the fact that he was poisoned on our grounds.

It's funny really, his people that were supposed to have an outburst and freak out that their leader died but no, they were quite relieved when he was gone. And I don't blame them.

He might've abused and used his power to bend it to his own will but the only person that actually took all of the hits for us- the physical ones- was my mother. Nobody knew what was happening to her.

Until the day that we had found her in a pool of her blood seeping out of her wrist, naked, bruises and scars littering her skin. I still remember that day to this second. Every single thing about it.

Zach and I were told to go and call her out since we thought that she just overslept that day because she didn't come down for breakfast. And he 'who shall not be named' left for business at a nearby pack in the dreadful morning.

But imagine our shock and horror when we scented blood in the air and bolted into the room to find her in that compromising situation.

Dead, Beaten, bruised and violated. By her own mate. Her soulmate. Her other half.

Apparently, he forced himself on her and abused her and he left for the pack shit in the morning. So she took it upon herself to get rid of the pain that she was going through behind closed doors and took her life leaving me orphaned and heartbroken and full of hate.

I don't hate her for what she did.

I just...wish I knew.

I wish I noticed how dead her once alive and full of glee, pretty amber eyes were......I wish she'd told anyone about it.

I wish that she did something about it.

I wish that she sought help.

I wish that I could've helped.

I was isolated in my own room and wasn't allowed to go out unless it was for training or pack meetings and meals after her death. But even before she died I didn't see her much, because my sperm donor thought that I'd get toughened up if I didn't have that much contact with my own mother.

"-Alpha Devirolli, are you listening?" An inpatient, familiar male voice interrupts my trail of depressing thoughts, making me straighten in my seat and realize that one of the twelve other Alphas that I'm having a meeting with is irritated by the fact that I wasn't listening.

Tough luck buddy, I've been daydreaming throughout this whole unnecessary ordeal.

I mean can you blame me.

These idiots got me convinced that we should have a meeting at 10 AM to 'talk' about the rogues that seem to surround the eastern packs like the Dark Moon pack and the Red moon pack because their Alphas are fucking pussies that can't maintain the safety of their territories.

Even though it's none of my actual problems to take care of, rogues know better than to cross me nor come near my territory. So you could say that I had a reputation for being a little....violent with intruders.

The last two years Alpha Jameson-my close friend and business associate from the White Crescent Moon pack-and a few other Alphas from the neighboring communities had requested the Council for a pass to be able to exterminate any rogue or trespassing supernatural if they cross territories.

And we got it.

Because, we before were used to handing over any trespassers to the Council to decide their fate and some of the rogues were off lightly with a couple of warnings and slight torture.

Most rogues were dangerous untamed creatures, and most of them caused mayhem in their wake, especially if they found a weak pack and decided to pry on it, which was one of the reasons we wanted that pass.

The legalities are important in our world after all.

A permit to eradicate any dangers flocking our people was a good thing to have.

If we didn't get said permit and took it upon ourselves to rid us of the filth that the rogues were. the Council would've taken our titles for disobeying their orders.You could say that It was necessary to follow the rules in our world. There wasn't something as being stronger than the law.

Yes, we were dangerous creatures but that didn't mean that we weren't indestructible. We had weaknesses that humans or other supes could use against us.

And the Council's members are the high-ranked representatives of each supernatural species which we call, The Elders that rule over; The Werewolves, The Vampires, The Witches, and The Fae, which are the most populated and known creatures.

The thing that I actually liked about the Council is that they actually tried to solve conflicts between us, supernaturals. They ruled with honesty and made everyone abide to the democratically, well endowed and fair rules that everyone agreed on.

The second thing is that they didn't take the Royals- the fae king, vampire king, werewolf king- to be our representatives because they knew that they'd abuse their power against each other because of the hate they harbored towards one another.

I was doubting for one second that they would unleash havoc and not care about their people. Gosh, they acted like fucking children sometimes. One can only imagine what sort of uprisings and wars would happen if they were in those positions of power.

And last but not least the other rare species of the underworld like demons, Demigods and fallen Angels- which we only heard about and never really came across.

It was like as If they didn't exist.