Chapter 1: LILA

"Lila, when you finally get your wolf, are you going to get married to an alpha so we could move out of this dump and finally live a good life?" the adorably curly-haired, wide-eyed girl asked in a light, bubbly tone, standing beside me as I arranged my hair, getting ready to go to work.

I was about to give my usual response, but my foster mother beat me to it.

"Marcy, why don't you go to your room and finish learning your spellings?" Helene stood with her arms on her hips, in her usual scolding pose, giving the little girl a warning look.

"Yes, mummy." Marcy pouted, then turned back to face me. "Bye, Sissy. We will continue our conversation another time." She waved her tiny hands, and she was gone.

Helene walked up to me, raising her hands to my hair and properly parting my fringe. "Don't listen to Marcy, she's just a kid."

"I'm really fine, Mom." I brushed off her worry.

My foster family knew how heavy the topic of shapeshifting and mating was for me. I was already in my twenties, and I hadn't been able to change into my wolf or feel any sign of it inside me. My parents felt sorry for me. They thought I was just a late bloomer, but I didn't know how to tell them that I was never, never ever, getting my wolf.

Hell... I wasn't even a wolf, but they didn't know that.

In the universe of werewolves, where there are alphas, betas, and omegas, there was me; a null. A null is considered worse than an omega. We are scentless, wolfless, void... every word that fits the description of useless. To the other wolves around me, I was nothing more than a ghost. But my foster family had taken me in and treated me like their own blood. I'm pretty sure they were this kind only because they didn't know my real identity.

Revealing myself to the other wolves; especially in the Tartarus Pack, would be like willingly writing my name on a death list, and I could never do that. I only felt sorry for Marcy and Helene. They kept holding on to the belief that I would transform one day, especially Marcy.

A quiet laugh escaped my lips. Marcy had this big plan for me. She was going to personally throw a feast the day I shifted and make sure I found myself an alpha so we could all be promoted to a higher rank.

It was such a shame. Nulls are destined to die alone. I had already lost all my kind. It wouldn't be long before Helene got tired of me, then Marcy, then the pack...

"You know, the blood moon is around the corner. I was thinking this time you should go outside. Maybe it could finally trigger your wolf to come out." Helene's voice sliced through my thoughts. She looked at me with a hopeful gaze, like it might finally work if I did.

Every blood moon, the Tartarus Pack usually held a celebration with a large feast. They played loud music, ran into the forest, and released their wolves. It was always wild, while I stayed in my room with Marcy, entertaining her with fairytale stories.

"Mom..." I held her hand softly. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm sure when the time comes, my wolf will come out." I hated myself for lying so easily to her face, but what choice did I have?

"I have to get to work. I can't afford to be late and lose my first, and probably last, job." I told her. 

Recently I got accepted to work as a technician in the Tartarus main office, up until then I was jobless and limited to free labor.

I squeezed my mom's hands a little tighter and we both shared a hug before I left the house.

The Tartarus Pack was very big, located in downside Seattle, and it lived up to its name. For omegas like 'us', this place felt like a prison. You worked and worked, yet got nothing good in return. The Tartarus Pack dealt with major cybersecurity and technology, and it was led by Alpha Reis Throne. I hadn't seen the man before, but I had heard a lot about him. I had heard about his bad temper, believe me, I hadn’t just heard about it, I experienced it. Every. Bloody. Day.

I finally got to the company. It was a tall skyscraper with more than forty floors. The roof was shaped like a pointed arrow, the building made of strong black metal, and the garage was filled with several fancy cars parked in neat rows. As beautiful as the exterior was, the inside was pretty ugly, at least, in my experience.

Looking at the pieces of fried metal at my workspace, I felt like dying. I worked as a technician, fixing damaged systems, either caused by rival packs or, guess who... that’s right, Alpha Reis.

He was always grumpy and bitter about being trapped by a moon curse, unable to find a mate. Any little discomfort this man felt, he took it out on software or hardware, and I was the one who suffered, fixing everything and putting it back in place.

"Lila, less standing and more working," Brielle scowled at me from her workstation.

Her workspace alone was enough to remind me how cruel life here was. She sat in a fancy cubicle, laptops neatly placed on her desk, with a special headset and walkie-talkies.

In this space, we were all technicians, but they handled the less stressful part. They dealt with software and never had to weld or get their bodies stained with mechanical oil like me. My workspace was a literal dump, one could barely see past the scattered, damaged metal.

I wasn’t even surprised by her behavior, or anyone else’s in this room. To them, we were all omegas, but even with their miserable lives, they still had the pride of knowing they could shift. I couldn’t.

"You should come take these metals, they just arrived," she called rudely.

I walked toward her desk to pick up the iron. The moment I touched it, heat burned against my palm, and I dropped it instantly to the floor.

Brielle and her friends burst out laughing.

"Why didn’t you tell me it was still hot?" I winced, blowing air on my palm as if it could ease the pain.

"Good luck healing, wolfless girl," Andrea, one of Brielle’s friends, snarled, and they burst into another round of laughter.

The lights suddenly flickered. The floor shook, and some systems sparked, like a mini earthquake was about to happen.

Damn that bloody Alpha.

I dragged my feet back to my workspace as the room shook again. More systems began to fry, I just watched a laptop burn out.

"Wolfless girl, you should come get this one too," someone called without a hint of sympathy.

God, that bloody Alpha never knew when to take a break. That was all I could do at this point, curse him silently in my head.

Releasing a sigh, I put on my PPE and safety goggles before heading to pick up the laptop. I reached for the micro-solderer from my desk and began working with deep focus when the door suddenly tore off its frame, flying across the room and shattering a window.

Everyone dropped to their knees, trembling. I found it confusing, I had never seen them this afraid.

Then I felt it. A strong, suffocating force filled the room.

My gaze slowly lifted to the tall man standing there, he was about six foot five, wrapped in a thick black blazer with matching black pants. His hair was slicked back perfectly, giving him a flawless look, if only he wasn’t raging like someone about to explode at any second.

My eyes widened as realization hit me. 

Standing before me was the one and only Alpha Reis Throne. When our eyes met, I saw something golden flash through his deep brown orbs.