Chapter Six

Disappointment is a bitter pill to swallow. A pain that cut deep leaving me hollow. High expectations, outcome low.

My disappointment lingers in the house like a storm cloud. My father growls weakening my knees. He asked for an explanation, but I was too scared to speak.

"Charia!" It was a warning tone.

"I'll speak" I immediately said. The thunder outside still clapped loudly and the rain increased, I couldn't afford to be thrown out of the house tonight. "I. I didn't. I did what you said father, I lured Alpha Ryder with my scent"

"And what happened next?"

"He..he came close to me and I..i..tried to use the dagger to…I couldn't father..my hands were trembling, I. I was scared."

"He saw your face and registered your scent? Charia that's so bad" Delphi whimpered just to make my situation worse. She was never going to be on my side, she would do anything to get father to punish the living wolf out of me.

"I didn't tell him where I was from.." I tried to defend myself, facing my father who lit up his face in some sort of hope. "He asked who sent me. That was when I escaped..he doesn't know I'm from you, father. He doesn't even know me" I cried.

Alpha Lugard paced a few steps, buried in his thoughts. I looked up at my mother whose face of pity didn't console me at all. The only person in the room who truly cared about me was Melissa and she wasn't allowed to come close, she was at the door entrance with her head bowed.

Vera Wolfenstein moved to her husband and whispered some words to him, I couldn't hear, I didn't even have that ability to. I just knelt waiting for the judgment of my household.

"I'm impressed you're not dead" My father finally spoke. "I would spare you since you did not reveal my name to him and still found a way to escape"

"Thank you, father" I lay on the floor with my hands stretched out in appreciation.

"Melissa" he called and she ran over to us. "Lock her in the room for a whole week without food. If I hear or smell that she tasted anything, your job ends here"

Melissa shook her head and took a glance at me. She would have argued, but it was my father and she dared not say a word. "Yes, Alpha Lugard" she concurred without a choice.

"Thank you, Father. Thank you for your generosity" I comprehended once more. Melissa came to drag me up on my feet, she pulled me to my room. I couldn't help but cry, I was glad to be alive at the same time I was not.

A shattered dream to impress my father, a heavy blow on my face, felt like a weight hard to bear. I needed to understand why I didn't belong, but the answers evade me, they slip away, leaving me adrift, lost in the fray.

As Melissa put me in my room, she locked it with keys and a sad face. The walls were closing in on me, the air was thick, I could already struggle to breathe, the room is small, the ceiling low, and time ticked by, so painfully slow.

I've been locked in here for days, all my life since I was born, but unlike previously where I could still roam around the house, now it was just in this room, without no food no water, just my premium tears.

My home was a prison.

To escape this prison, this endless tomb,

I would wait for freedom to break through. But it was all a dream. There can never be freedom.

I moved to my window and opened it, I took a bowl and stretched it out in the rain for water. If this was the little I could get for a week, I would feed on it to survive. The darkness is suffocating, a weight on my chest, and I long for the outside, for the sun to crest, over the horizon, and light up my face, but for now, I am trapped, a prisoner of fate.

Tonight crossed my mind once more as I lay on my bed. His face clouded my thoughts again, his touch, his eyes, his lips, his growl. I felt a bond somewhere, a bond that can never abate, but if wishes were horses. I was drawn to him in an unexplainable way. His embrace made me whole and made me feel special. But maybe that was how he was to every other girl. That was why his charming and sexy rumors never ended in the lady's mouth.

I feel my lips hot in desire once more, craving for Alpha Ryder's touch. I wished I ended up in his bed first before he killed me, that way I would be relaxed in heaven that my pheromones didn't call for the wrong person.

I closed my eyes still not able to get him off my mind. Why did he look like he was interested in me? I was overthinking, wasn't I? He looked like that in all of his pictures online. Talking about his pictures. I took one from under my pillow and stared at him. I was opportune to see his red eyes spark in front of me. I was lucky for once in my life, thankfully for my dad's mission.

I was sad too that my father was going to get somebody else to do the mission and Alpha Ryder would end up dying. But I didn't have a right to ask questions, make decisions or betray the family. I was just going to worsen my existence on this earth.

I want to learn that being different was a gift,

That my spirit was meant to uplift. That I would find my own path, my own way to thrive, and in my heart, I would know I was alive.

A wolf without a pack, and in fright.

For I have not found my own destiny,

And I am not proud of who I was meant to be.