One: Punishment.

KAYLA.

I slowly parted my eyes to face the darkness around me.

There was a starling noise that sounded from the door as my father barged in and a gust of air blew into my face. My hair was drenched in blood and sweat across my shoulders and I lifted my fatigued gaze to face him.

Alpha Archer reeked of alcohol and I already knew that this round was going to be way worse than the last. My wrists burned from the chain that bound them and my whole body ached the moment he lunged forward to grab me by my throat.

His nails dug far too deep into my skin that I couldn’t breathe and the my vision started to fade from the corner of my eyes. I clawed back at him to struggle, at the same time I tried my best to not anger him the more.

“Where is he!” His voice thundered, leaving me in a faint whimper and I choked on my words. “I—I don’t know father” I whispered. “Goddamnit” He lifted me like I was nothing and slammed my body against the callous walls. There was a snap in both my back and ribs as I tumbled to the ground.

I couldn’t move now and the bleeding wounds across my body burned from the air that touched it. It felt like my lung began to close as I gasped for air.

It was the toughest night I’d had to endure and bringing my eyes to open again seemed like a miracle. I wasn't new to this type of inhumane torture. Darkness was where I spent the majority of my days because rarely anyone wanted to see me—I was a tragic reminder of my mother, Beth.

A brutal one.

I owe you an explanation on how I got here—entrapped in my father's dungeon but the whole story really begins nineteen years ago on this fateful morning that the birds chirped across the fields. There was an endless cry that came from the coast of the rivers and it was from a child who, wrapped in a duvet had been left for abandon.

That child was me.

It was the first time that I ever opened my eyes to see the world and although I couldn’t make much of where I was, I could tell it was my mother who stayed right beside me.

For three days and three nights, I laid there and so did the body next to me until the fourth day that I was found by Rose. Rose would eventually become my step mother and she would be the first to break the news to me that I killed my birthmother.

She had died the night of the full moon that I was put to bed and when they found the both of us, she was on the cusp of decay.

Everyone had their own versions of the story—some said it was the hardest labor anyone had faced and after I was born, we were both alive. Others said she had died on the verge of me coming out.

For me, the fact that she died was all that mattered. Her loss was grieved by the entire Blood Moon pack who loved her so much, especially by my dad, Archer who was the Alpha. They looked at me and to them, I was the reason she was no longer here.

I was the monster and the murderer because ever since then, I was blamed for her death.

My mother wasn’t the luna but she remained Archer’s mistress because of the mere fact that she was an omega and that meant she could never become his wife or luna of the pack.

It was one of the hundred traditions we had that even love couldn't break. An omega was the least in our pack hierarchy and even the fact that she was the Alpha's mate, it couldn't really change anything. He went ahead to marry Rose shortly after she died and I was taken into their home.

From the day that I was found, I lived with them.

And slowly as the years passed, my own father's resentment grew towards me. It was clear that he hated me as much as the rest of the pack because they assumed I was the monster that killed my own mother in the womb. She had disappeared the night I was to be born and soon, she was no more.

I became the pack slave at eleven and I was brought up in an unending duty and obedience to everyone else. It was the start of the hell I would face my entire life. I spent my days ensuring the whole place was sparking clean and washing all the clothes and dishes.

I would serve food until my hand quivered so much that it felt like they would fall off at anytime and my joints ached. The only time anyone said a word to me was either to yell or to call me abusive names.

They would strike me for the smallest of things and soon my whole body was covered in scars and bruises. I was dressed in the dirtiest and most torn clothes while my step sisters had everything they wished for. The days went by a lot harder and in the night, I would retire to my dark, cold chamber where I would cry myself to sleep.

For nineteen years, I endured it all.

It was a miracle I was still alive but somehow, lying there now with the chains around my wrists and blood soaking my clothes, I wasn't sure I had much longer. I laid there paralyzed from the whipping and although I was a werewolf, my fate was just like my mother's who was an Omega. Besides being the very lowest in the pack, we also didn't heal so fast.

It was the reason why after many hours, I still bled.

I deserved this.

To die, as the painful tears plunged down my face, I realized that maybe this time I had crossed the line. "Kayla!" A hostile voice suddenly drifted me from the dark abyss and it was Rose shone a bright light into my eyes.

The sound of a whooshing cane hit the ground and I shriveled at the thought of having to endure more pain. It was my stepmother who hovered above me.

Archer was furious and so was she and Leonard.

Leonard was my only step brother but I had two sisters from Rose—they were the only ones not here. The sweat-soaked hair stuck to my forehead as I lifted my gaze to face her. "Where is he?" My father asked again with patience running thin.

"Kayla, just tell us which direction he went" Leonard stepped forward and although I wanted to speak, my throat was so dry and wounded that I couldn't utter more than a faint whimper. "I...I don't know" I somehow managed to reply but in that second, the cane lashed across my back.

"Ahh!"

The sweat stung my eyes as I fell forward, allowing the pain to radiate from my lower back through my entire body—and all because I saved him.

All because I saved that man.

"Father I don't know" I whispered, not as if he wanted to even hear me.

"You opened the gates of jail to let him go—you let a traitor escape us. Do you not know what you've done?" Rose asked me and if it came down to anything, she had been the harshest towards me. "Tell me why you don't deserve to die tonight!”

"You have broken the sacred covenant of trust that this pack shares. You have crossed a boundary which you can never return to and you have left us vulnerable to our enemies." Archer added and I made sure to look into the icy eyes of my father. There was nothing in there, he felt nothing for me.

"It hurts so much, dad" I whimpered over his angry voice but he wasn't hesitant to land me another stroke across my face. The impact plunged me to the ground and I wailed. It was when I laid there, on the brink of my death that he finally halted.

“Kayla"

My step brother called my name as he took to his knees right beside me. "Do you have pity on the traitor, Leonard?" Rose asked her son but he didn't break his eye contact from me.

"That beast attacked me, Kayla" He whispered.

"I don't know what he said to you but he’s a liar and a manipulator. Our enemy and a monster that deserves to be caged and killed—only if you hadn't freed him" He added and I looked across to the cage where he was—where I’d met the prisoner.

Because I was down here for so long, I had made an acquaintance with one of my father's captives. One night, a terribly handsome man was brought in naked and poisoned and he was tossed into one of the cages. He befriended me and compelled me to let him go.

Last night, I did and it was my biggest mistake.

Now, I faced the music and the torture while he was roaming free. That was all I did to end up chained and whipped by my own father. "Tell us where he was headed" Leonard's voice drifted me out of my thoughts and I looked back at him.

"I really don't know, Leonard" His hands landed across my face as he spat at me. “Fuck!" He thundered, arising to his feet. "You really have ruined everything, Kayla. You have fucked everything up" He charged his way outside the doors and I laid there, battered and bruised.

"Take a hundred warriors and we begin a march into the forest tonight" My father's voice echoed from behind and I looked up to where he stood with Leonard and some guards. "We still have a chance because the beast cannot shift if he’s poisoned by wolfsbane" Archer said and Leo nodded his head.

"He is" He seemed certain.

And a breath escaped my lips—of all the things I was, battered, bruised and terribly struck, I was confused as to who this man was and why they wanted him so badly to remain a prisoner.

"I want you to find him before the sun comes out and when he is, I want him killed.” My father, the Alpha commanded and there was a sharp pain that pierced through my chest because I knew where he was headed. It was the last thing that man had left me with, besides his serenading scent.

"I'm headed to the forest" He was breathless as he walked out in the fresh clothes I’d gotten for him. He was in a haste but my hands drew out to him. He then turned around with unearthly blue eyes and a strong woodsy scent that tickled up my nose.

I recalled his distinct features that drew me in from the very first time I saw him.

"I didn't get your name" I had asked in the heat of the moment and he pressed his perfect lips slowly into each other. "My name is Rafael" His voice was decadent and his aura was beyond enthralling.

"Rafael Cordero."

That was the last thing he ever said before jumping out of the windows and disappearing into thin air. I had clung to the sill through which I now looked out of to see the full moon blaze the starlight sky and a crinkle found its way to my lips.

My whole pack was after him but I really just wanted Rafael to be unharmed.