Chapter 1

Elena's POV

Knowing he probably couldn't wait to see me, I put on my best lingerie beneath a silk armless top that pronounced my bursted front

In excitement, I slipped through the door leading to his room, but what I saw killed all the excitement immediately.

My stepsister was fully undressed. Golden, the alpha prince, was kissing her madly. His hands worshiping every part of her body as though I had never existed.

I struggled to repress the shame that suddenly penetrated me, sharp and merciless.

They were so lost in the moment that they did not notice me for the first three minutes. I stood frozen, watching something I should never have seen.

It was my stepsister, Mila, who first noticed me, and she immediately enveloped Golden with her arms, shielding him from looking at me.

“Elena, I think you have eyes to see for yourself that he likes me so much. So nothing to talk about,” Mila whispered with her eyes half open.

“I cannot explain this better right away.” Golden immediately cut in. “I know the moon goddess is aware of everything. I can't help this situation, Elena. I think at this point you should find your soul mate elsewhere.”

My heart bittered long before the tears filled my eyes.

I struggled to speak, just a fragment of everything collapsing inside me.

“We both knew we are fated mates, as revealed by healer Kiara. We both sensed it. She gave us this day for us to mate. But here you are…” I muttered, as more tears foamed up. 

Mila lifted her hands in surrender, a breathless smile playing on her lips, and the next moment Golden swept her up. He dropped her onto the bed with a reckless kind of tenderness that made my chest tighten. She clung to him instantly, wrapping herself around him.

“Hmmmm,” Mila moaned. And just like that, I knew. The sin happening between them wasn’t ending anytime soon. It was only just beginning.

I hurriedly turned my back and squirried out.

Outside the pack house, I decided to head for a nature walk. I had learnt that a nature walk could help one calm down when overwhelmed by worries. I clung to that thought like it could save me.

I had not known my stepsister had taken her hatred for me to such a level. This was apart from how she and her mother always treated me and my own mother.

“Are you not an ordinary servant?” they would remind me whenever I attempted to protest, whenever someone lashed out at me even for things that were obviously not my fault.

When the moon goddess spoke that my fated mate was the alpha prince, I was glad. Because mating with Alpha Prince Golden would have set me free from the constant humiliations. He would not have allowed all that mess. Or so I had believed.

All the ambitions and expectations had been cut short without my knowledge.

I just had to find a place to release all the tension before it consumed me whole.

At the riverside, I squatted, my jaw resting on my knees. I remember staring at the water, waiting for it to take something away from me. Pain, hope, anything.

After a while, I continued strolling through the footpath amidst the forest near our border. I did not know where I was going; I only knew I could not stay still.

I got to a place, and I started to feel a pulling sensation and an alluring scent. I could not tell where the feeling and the scent were coming from. It unsettled me, yet drew me forward.

I continued to move, savoring the cool atmosphere of nature, sighting the endless greenery as if it could numb my thoughts.

But the scent was becoming stronger. And so was the pull.

Until I reached a point where I saw him.

No way. Alpha Varlok. He seemed to be in heat too. I quickly hid myself, lying down behind a thick bush, avoiding his awareness—too much closeness, the possibility of eye contact, anything that could force me to lose my guard for him.

There had been no way I would go down with Varlok. I heard that he kills brutally. I looked around for another person, just to be sure he was the only one there. He was the only person.

And everyone had been saying he killed his first mate during mating. That he marked her mercilessly, maybe without pheromones.

There had been no way the moon goddess would design my fate like that.

He later branched elsewhere, I knew it was in search of me.

I lay there for so long until it was nearly dark and the heat had faded from my system. Then I rushed out of the forest.

Alpha Varlok would be furious at missing me. I remember thinking I needed to stay alert, to avoid anyone seeing me at that hour.

I sneaked into town in the dark.

When I reached the house and headed to my room. Before I could turn to my room’s direction, I began to hear Mila and her mother.

“Show me the mark,” Camela’s voice slid into my ears, then I sneaked closer to pay more attention.

“Oh, it’s well pronounced. Big wolf. Now you are really ranking to the top as I had wanted.”

“The love potion worked, I can't believe it's so potent. Mother, you can’t believe how Golden denied Elena to her face. It was unbelievable to her,” Mila's voice finally broke out.

Those last words from Mila just started to drain the remaining inner strength that probably kept me breathing. I collapsed onto a wall and tears started welling out. It was so devastating discovering that my stepsister and a mother figure to me planned to make life miserable for me.

Is it just because I'm an omega servant? Or because there's something about me I don't know that triggers these treatments?

“I believe you, my little wolf,” her mother said again.

Mila spotted me and her frown lifting toward me.

“Where are you coming from at this time of the night, lowly servant?”

I had to stride past her in a flash, knowing she only wanted to shame me as usual. I opened my room and scurried into it, while I continued sobbing.

“Mother, did you notice Elena is just returning to the house?” I heard Mila bellow. I trembled at this and my current predicament just shifted onto another. Now I did not want to be questioned.

Within seconds, my father who is the pack’s gamma and my stepmother were already in the main lounge.

Mila broke into my room. “Father’s calling you.”

She surveyed my stance, the way I stared into empty space.

Then she continued, “So you are mourning your loss?… You want Golden so badly, I can see. Maybe that’s why you went to look for an unlucky wolf to fill the space in your heart. I understand. It is not easy.” She mocked, chuckling in the middle of her words.

“Let’s go.”

When I did not move, she grabbed my arm to drag me. I consented. With a heavy heart, I began to stroll out to the lounge.

I stood at a close distance.

“Elena, you must tell me the truth. You have been complaining about Mila and her mother lying against you just to mock you, but I have never disputed that, nor have I supported their claims. You know I intentionally housed your mother separately while I still visit her often. And there is nothing Camela can do to avert my decision.”

Camela twitched at that. Even now, I remember how those were the kinds of words I wanted her to hear. Because she knew how to twist things, how to appear calm before father while shifting blame onto me.

“All of this is to let you know I don’t have a problem with you. Okay? So tell me. Where have you been?” father continued.