Chapter 2

I tore awake, clawing at my bedsheets as if I could rip that nightmare from memory, but all I could see was the red. Papa and Mama, my brothers, my Pack. I could feel it all over me, sticky and slick and metallic.

It’s all over me, the dark of it, the lukewarm wet, the stench. I can’t get away. I can’t– can’t–

…a soft growl rose in my mind. A low hum, more like. My wolf Seren cloaked my conscious, grounding me, assessing my immediate surroundings. But without proper training, I couldn't maintain the connection with my wolf for long. It wasn't uncommon for days to pass without feeling Seren's presence.

As always, Seren slowly faded from my awareness, and my usual calm settled over me once more.

There was no red. No suffocating scent. What had felt like blood caked on my body was just my blanket clinging to cold sweat.

Almost nine years later, I still suffered the same nightmares of my Pack being slaughtered every night, and the Tyrant looming over me. Some things could never be washed away, no matter the time passed. But today, I had many other things to clean.

I dressed for the day, suppressing the lingering tremble in my hands. These days, I was doing better. When I had first been brought to the Lycan court, the tremors were endless.

“Mate,” Zavan had said that day. And after murdering my family, he stole me away from my Pack’s land.

What could the Tyrant have wanted with a small pup? I remembered the looks of disdain, the whispered laughs and ugly jeering. Only when I grew older did it also dawn on me what further purposes the other Lycans had expected me to serve as the King’s mate, even as a child.

It puzzled me, and others, to this day that he wanted nothing of the like. He just assigned me the status of omega, and left me here while he ravaged the remaining werewolf packs with war.

What was I to him, but a sole gained trophy from his conquest of meting out justice over the werewolf packs. If it wasn’t my duty to dust off forgotten palace antiques, I might have been wearing my own coat of lint by now.

I should’ve felt grateful for being spared maybe. Lucky. Blessed– my Pack had once called my family this, after I was born.

None of these resonated with me as I knelt on cobbled stone ground and dragged a wet rag across the dull surface. As an omega, I was given menial labor to occupy my time. With the master absent, his dogs had no qualms against tasking me with the more miserable work that needed doing.

If they got bored enough, they would even lash out at omega werewolves like me physically. But nothing to disfigure me permanently, to mar the King’s ‘prized pet’, that couldn’t be gone should the master return on short notice.

Honestly, I preferred the wet rags and dirty floors to their lot.

But I refused to spend anymore of my life rotting here.

I still had one hope left: my eighteenth birthday. I'd finally be an adult werewolf, and the Moon Goddess's blessing that night would boost my power. And I’d be damned if I’d stay. That was the plan.

Not that I never thought of revenge. But against King Zavan? I was nothing. He could kill me as easily as he'd butchered my pack. Getting away—that was the only thought that had kept me tolerating this life for nine years.

The sound of approaching footsteps, carried down the empty hall. I tensed instinctively and scrubbed harder as a shadow fell over me.

My blood ran cold as the scent of a powerful Lycan filled the air. I didn't dare look up. He was obviously stronger than the Lycans who usually beat me. What kind of pain would he inflict?

To my surprise, a respectful and strangely familiar voice sounded above me, "My lady, I have some matters to discuss and items to deliver to you."

I hesitated, then looked up. My heart clenched when I saw who it was.

Beta Tyler, King Zavan's shadow. If he was here, then where was the King...?

The blood-curdling fear washed over me again. I forced the words through a throat tight with the memory of blood, "My Beta..."

Beta Tyler appeared travel-worn, likely just back from his duties beyond the palace. His eyes tracked down to my worn dress, then lingered with a weight on my knuckles, chafed and swollen from the frigid water.

He frowned and took a step toward me. I couldn't read the confusion and slight hesitation in his expression, but with other Lycans, that usually signaled a blow was coming.

“I'm sorry...” I mumbled, waiting for the first blow to come.

I couldn’t help but flinch as his arm shifted, unhurried as the movement was. But instead of a strike landing on my face, Beta Tyler’s arm uncurled from an open finery chest.

There was a dress inside. It looked elegant, made of smooth fabric too expensive for me to name.

“The King sends this as a gift. He returns to the palace in victory tomorrow. And he requests a private audience with his mate after the banquet,” Beta Tyler said then, holding the chest toward me.

Cold dread sank into me first. A wolf towering over a red lake, its darkness growing toward me– the Tyrant who slayed my family and left me with nightmares.

But the pain rapidly twisted into fury. That bastard, that murderer, that–

“Mate….”

I shuddered. If the King was returning to the palace, then this could be my last chance of escape. Turning eighteen also meant our mate bond would snap into full force.

Taut with alarm, I took it as calmly as I could, trying to hear his words beyond the pounding of my pulse in my ears. “Of course. My Beta.”

He had made the chest look light, but I stumbled slightly as I took it into my arms. Beta Tyler kept his arms reached, as if prepared to help steady me. But I was pulling away, not meeting his eyes.

Beta Tyler lingered for a moment, and I stayed fully alert, still awaiting my punishment…. Then, he turned and walked away.

I watched him leave until he turned a corner far down the corridor. And only once he was out of sight, I turned the opposite way and moved quickly as I could manage to my sleep space in the omega dorms.

I had everything planned. Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday—the day I would escape this stagnant life. I had even packed the few things I owned and hidden them under my bed.

So why was the King returning tomorrow? Did he know?

But I had never told a soul, knowing that anyone who knew of my flight and didn't report it would face his wrath. If I failed, I was determined to be the only one to pay the price.

Now, everything was thrown into disarray. My plans had to be moved up.

An audience? With his mate? No. No!

I was foolish in allowing myself to relax in the false security of his absence. The King had not forgotten about me after all.

Of course he remembered the daughter of traitors. Of course he remembered the prize he’d deposited here for storage, now ripened to fulfill mately duties and ready for him to do as he pleased with.

On my way back, word had clearly spread. The palace was buzzing with excitement, everyone celebrating the imminent return of its master.

It was a goddess damned epidemic the way all the female Lycans (and some male) had started shamelessly panting over the news of the King’s return.

One of the praises that were hailed about the Tyrant is that he was devastatingly handsome, heartwrenchingly gorgeous, sculpted with time and care by the Moon Goddess.

The last time I saw him in person, he had knelt down low and held my hand very briefly as he bid farewell in formality. “I will return to you.”

The little girl I had been in that moment could only compare him to a storybook prince. Ink-like hair falling forward– eyes black as obsidian, as if taken of the night sky itself– and skin sun-tinted and smooth.

But that memory stayed tucked away behind the cutting images of endless red, and stiff silhouettes of my pack laying still for good.

I gathered my things, a small pack I had prepared. I couldn’t possibly sit and wait, to be tracked all eve by the King and his men, and then collected as soon as the King saw time fit to retire. I needed to leave now.

But as I hurried down the usually deserted corridor, my pack in hand, and rounded the corner to make my escape, I crashed straight into a hard, unyielding chest.