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Cecilia's POV

“Attention, Alpha King Leopold Kingsley is taking in new slaves. All unmated virgin Omegas, aged eighteen to twenty-three, are ordered to report to the pack town square.”

My blood runs cold immediately after I heard the annnouncement. I stand there in shock in the marketplace, the basket of herbs spilling from my grasp.

Sophia. I had to find Sophia.

Without another moment’s hesitation, I start running back to my house.

Over the past few months, I have heard countless stories about the ruthless Alpha King, often ending in some poor slave being killed. It's no mystery why the palace is constantly on the lookout for new help. In the most private of whispers, some people call him a ruthless tyrant, others a cold-blooded monster.

Even though I'm a 17-year-old Alpha daughter who hasn’t been threatened by this royal order, my friend Sophia is an unmated virgin omega. Just as the ruthless King wanted.

Sophia and her mother, Diana, are Omega slaves of the Silver Moon Pack, which my Alpha father leads. But my father always treated Sophia and Diana like family.

After my mother died, I started to cherish everyone around me even more. So despite our different ranks, Sophia and I grew up in the same house, I see her as my sister.

I wonder if an Alpha can really go up against the direct order of the Alpha King himself, but we will definitely try.

I burst through the front door without any regard for knocking, gasping for breath. But what I see shocked me to the core.

My father is sitting at the head of our dining table, with Diana sitting beside him and Sophia facing him. They are laughing together and Diana is touching my father’s arm with her own hand.

Like a real family.

Were they always doing this while I was away?

My father's smile fades away the moment he spots me. “Cecilia? Finished at the market already? Why are you back so early?”

I find it difficult to breathe again. “The royal army is here. They're taking omega slaves. Unmated virgins between eighteen and twenty-three," I say.

My father’s face darkens. Diana audibly gasps, and I can hear the trembling in her breath.

Sophia turns as white as chalk. Her wide, frightened eyes fix on my father. “Dad, help me!”

The word hangs in the air like smoke. Dad. She said "Dad," not "Alpha William" or "Sir."

But my father didn't correct her.

"Please, William," Diana is crying, reaching out for him with her hand. "Don't let them take our daughter."

Our daughter. These words make no sense to me.

But my father didn't correct her either.

My father stands up, setting his jaw in determination. “ I won’t let Sophia go to that dangerous place. I promise you both.”

The next second, my father’s gaze fixes on me, sharp, calculating and cold.

What does that mean?

“Officers of the Royal Palace. Open up,” a gruff voice shouts from outside.

My father goes to answer the door. “Good evening. May I ask the purpose of this visit?”

“Good evening, Alpha William. We have confirmation of an eighteen-year-old Omega female living here. We need to bring her to the palace as ordered by His Majesty.” The officer checks a list in his hand. “Is there a… Sophia here?” He asks, looking past my father directly at Sophia.

To my surprise, my father puts a firm hand on my shoulder and pulls me in front of the soldiers. “This is Sophia,” he says. “This is the Omega girl you’ve come for.”

What is he talking about? “What?” I exclaim to the officers. “I don’t know why he’s saying this, but I’m his daughter Cecilia.”

My father turns to me, his face fierce. “You are lying, Sophia.” Then he turns to the officers. “She is our Omega slave. The other is my daughter Cecilia.”

The two officers nod and come forward, one taking each arm to escort me towards the door.

"Dad! Please!" I plead while being pulled away. "Tell them the truth."

When I glance at Sophia and Diana one last time, they almost look like strangers to me. Sophia is cold and detached while Diana seems satisfied.

Something finally clicks in my mind. What I just saw when I burst open the door. Sophia called my father "Dad". Diana asked him to save "our daughter". And... the fact that my father cares about Diana and Sophia even more than he cares about me sometimes...

There was something going on between my father and Diana. And Sophia...might be their daughter.

If that's true, they must have already been dating even before my father married my mother, because Sophia is a year older than me.

My mother, my beautiful kind Mother with her gentle hands and warm laughter, died when I was seven, taken away from me in a swift and troubling illness. Had she truly died from illness, or did something much darker happen to cause her to pass away?

Did Diana and Father want her gone?

Maybe there was a plan all along to get rid of me. My chest tightens with bitterness as I wonder if this whole accident was actually convenient for the people I used to call family.

I say nothing during the journey to the palace. Only two thoughts circle around my mind: 1. No one is going to trust my word over my father’s, but I will come back, no matter how long it takes. 2. I will uncover what happened to my mother, at any price.

As our carriage stops outside the palace, I’m startled out of my thoughts by a sudden intrusion: My inner wolf Lora’s presence. She’s been awakened by something I cannot fully sense as a human.

"Mate is near" Lora suddenly says.