Chapter 3

“All of you –“ I pointed my new fingers at the people in front of me – “Stay – stay away from me!”

“Princess –“ Selene’s father spoke in a tone filled with so much anguish, you would think he was the one who just witnessed their death.

“Oh god,” I found myself choking up, tears streaming down my face.

Was I really dead? I had fought a long and hard fight. Even though I knew I could not live long or live like my peers, I still fought for the life I had. Even when breathing became a struggle, I did not want to die but the more I thought of it – the more I tried to wrap my head around the fact that I had died – it was too much and I ended up choking on my breath.

“You are fine,” Selene’s mother said and though I pointed a threatening finger at all the people gathered in the room, warning them not to come closer, she came closer.

“I said – I said to stay away.”

Rather than staying away, she sat on the bed beside me and pulled me into a hug. I froze. 

“It’s okay, mama is here,” she hugged me tight. I didn’t know when I started to melt into her embrace. “You are fine,” she continued to whisper.

Her arms wrapped tightly around me felt like a steady rock for my quivering body. Her rosy scent comforted me and as she patted my back, the terrifying nightmare seemed a little less terrifying.

“It’s okay.” Somehow, I felt it was indeed okay.

I did not know how long we stayed like that with my tears and snot soaking her pajamas but sometime along the line, the people at the door dispersed and I fell asleep in the woman’s arms. Contrary to my thoughts that I would be plagued by nightmares of my death, I had no dreams that night. In fact, it would be apt to say that I slept like the dead and when I woke up, there was a woman curled beside me.

Looking at her, all I could think about was how I died and was granted another chance at life. In this life, I had a mother, a father even and a brother. I had a family now.

I still felt I was in a dream because in the first place because reincarnation and transmigration were nothing but myths. My constant illness did not allow me to be religious so I never believed there was anything like an afterlife. I never dreamt of being reborn in another world.

“You are awake,” the woman beside me said as she sat upright, covering a yawn with the back of her hand. “How are you feeling?” She asked.

“I –“ I was overwhelmed and in denial but the thought of a new life, a life where I was healthy and had a family, made me happy but that happiness was only a budding one, sprouting behind the darkness which was the reality that I, Jane, had died after a long battle with several illnesses.

“I had a dream,” I muttered, avoiding the woman’s gaze as tears filled my eyes. “In that dream, I was - I was sick and – I had no one and then – then I died alone with no one by my side, no one to hold my hand or ask if I was fine.” I thought of the wretched life I lived and the tears poured out faster.

 “You will never be alone, honey,” a warm hand enveloped mine. “You have me, and your father, your brother and your pack.” My blurry gaze focused on the woman as she squeezed my hands in hers. “You will never be alone and what sickness would kill an Alpha wolf?”

“Yes, you – you are right.”

Now, I was not Jane, but Selene, a wolf. I had a family, a pack, a healthy and long life ahead of me. It was a miracle and a blessing, one I could not take for granted. Now, I had a mother and she was a pure soul with big eyes filled with love. When she embraced me, it felt like she took some of the burdens on my shoulders away.

I now had more than I could ever dream of having.

When my new mother kissed my cheeks and left the room, I stretched out on the bed, my eyes fixated on the ceiling. I tried to gather my wits around me to prepare for this new world. There was no memory left behind in this body that I now possessed, although there was a sense of familiarity that arose now and then, as with how familiar this room felt the first time I opened my eyes here.

“I died and entered into a book world,” I said to myself, collecting my thoughts. “I am now Selene, most likely named after the Moon goddess.”

‘I have never heard of a thing like this happening before,” the voice of the wolf in my head spoke. ‘You died and came here but it doesn’t explain what happened to the real Selene,’ the wolf continued. ‘Although I’m not sad to see her go, I wonder if the goddess decided to obliterate her soul or something.’

“What was she like?” I asked the wolf.

‘Selene? She was a spoilt brat turned evil woman. A villain, really.’

The word ‘villain’ had me jolting in surprising. I was gradually accepting my fate that I entered a book world but did I become a book villain? A villain would either die at the end of the story or be cast out of the pack in humiliation, neither of which appealed to me.

Wait, no way! Was I heading down a path to death again!? No, I got a new life and thought I would live a long and fulfilling life and then die of old age! If truly Selene was the villain, then I had to find a way to change her/my fate.

Then I remembered a book I read in my past life. It was the only reincarnation book I ever read but it was not to my taste so I never finished it. It was a book was about a woman who died and woke up in her favorite novel but she was the villain of the story. She knew the plot well so she used her knowledge of future events to change her fate.

Maybe I had to follow her path but first, I had to figure out what book this might be.

“Hey,” I called the wolf in my head, “what is the Alpha’s name?” I asked because the male protagonist was always an Alpha. Always.

 “Liam,” she responded and I could not pretend to be surprised.

It was the most common name for Alphas in werewolf romances. Liam, Lucas, names like that. The abused omega mates were named Lily or Aria or even after the goddess Selene – like me. The plots were similar, the names uncreative so how would I figure out which book this was? All of them blurred into one in my head!

“Okay, lets calm down.” I took in a deep breath to calm myself when I started to hyperventilate. “Selene may not even be that bad of a person so – so…”

‘No, actually, Selene was the worst. Mean girl, bully, obsessed with the Alpha’s son,’ the wolf did not allow me a chance to dream. ‘If this was a book, then Selene would be the villain, no doubt. She cares for no one but herself and her obsession with the Alpha’s son is borderline crazy.’ The more the wolf spoke, the more my heart sank.

“O - obsessed with the Alpha’s son? What do you mean?” I was already getting the gist of what the original Selene was like but still, I did not want to believe it.

‘Yeah, Selene is infamous for shamelessly chasing after the next Alpha. She has relentless stalked him and bullied every girl around him. She has attacked at least twenty women, without a shred of dignity, just for speaking to him. Heck, she almost killed a girl by locking her in a classroom overnight during the harsh winter,’ the wolf’s voice got heated.

A plot unfolded in my head and it was not pretty. Selene must be the evil woman who would come between the powerful Alpha and his suffering omega mate by hurting the omega and causing misunderstandings between the couple. The kind of woman that would join forces with the Alpha’s enemies to exploit his weakness which would be his virtuous omega mate. The one that ends up dead or thrown out of the pack.

I bit my lips, trying to figure out the novel but I could not. Still, I was familiar with this genre so I knew the basic plot idea. I now had the life I daydreamed of – a better one even, it would be a shame to throw it away by chasing after a man made for another woman. On that note, all I had to do was avoid the Alpha who was most likely the male protagonist of this work.

Never ever fall in love with him.