Prologue

~Jada

We call him our God. Because we have no other choice. 

Who else could he be to us? Our leader. Our Alpha. None are comparable to such a strong word. Kael is a strong person. That I know of. 

I’ve never been particularly fond of him. Perhaps I’ve never met him, but his regime fits soundly to who he is. I haven’t attended boarding school for eighteen years to come to any other conclusion. It’s intriguing to see how adeptly he paves our lives our for us, without knowing of our existence. That’s a level of power many would strive for. 

It’s that irritable word that gets me every time. Compulsory. I think it’s his favourite. 

It’s compulsory to be removed from your family callously to attend boarding school until you’re eighteen. It’s compulsory to attend further schooling for five years to get a high end job. Be a lawyer, or a doctor. Something boring like that. 

Unless of course, you’re a misfit. A delinquent. An outsider. 

Then you’re shipped off to manually train to be nothing more than a security guard at one of Kael’s many prison facilities. It’s a shame this Pack, the Discipline Pack, follows its namesake so directly. 

Assuming my rate of success, I’ll be nothing more than just that. A security guard. 

The inevitability of it all has gone to my head. I’ve given up pretending to care at school. Not that I was very good at that to begin with. With all these tests to determine our suitability for these prestigious schools I’ll never make it into, my patience has worn thin. 

And so has the mistresses at my boarding school who are paid to keep me in line. 

“Jada Luccana Michaels!” A shrill call echos from behind me. “Stop this instant.”

My shoes, worn down from similar situations as this, slide me around the linoleum dangerously. My family never sent me much money over my years at boarding school, so the size sevens from three years ago have had to do. 

“I’m sorry Mistress Cunningham, you know that’s not an option,” I call over my shoulder. 

My hands push off the corridor walls, disrupting notice boards parading pictures and achievements of the top students. I never truly run that fast. That’s the game. I like the chase, and when they catch me, there’s nothing on the other end I’m scared of. Aside from the overgrown mustache above the mistresses lip. 

The corridors around my school are never ending. I could lead Mistress Cunningham all over the place. Get her heart rate jumping, her cheeks swollen with colour. She can’t run that fast. Not with the weight she’s packing above her hips, and the cloth that keeps it in place.

“This is the last straw, Michaels,” she calls out, voice breathless and irritated. It only makes me smile. 

I’m the only one in this school who does this. Explains why I don’t have many friends. Mistress Cunningham blames it on my age. I’m a year older than the other girls here. My mother and father hid me from authority for a year until I was found. They had no other choice but to school me with those younger than me. 

My shoes squeak in protest underneath me as a I prance and twirl around the halls. The midday sun beams proudly upon me, congratulating me on my delinquency. That’s how I like to see it, anyway. 

I can’t let myself disappear from Mistress Cunningham’s view. Otherwise, she’ll call a fitter Mistress and this will be no fun. She’s been trying to remove me from her sect for years. Too bad every request she makes to the Head of Halls is denied. 

No one else will have me. 

It’s not my intention to be like this. Routine has never fit me so well. Discipline is a rule I struggle to understand. I don’t belong here. I’m going to be Packless soon enough, according to Mistress Cunningham. And that is fine by me. Until then, I’ll use this time to have the only fun available to me in this place. 

Lost in thought, I didn’t hear the short, stoutly woman approach from behind me. She grasps my forearm tightly, squeezing until my skin burns and I yelp in protest. 

“Okay, I deserve this,” I mutter, tagging along behind her with minimal resistance. She caught me. Well done on her. “But can we skip the lecture today? Apparently there’s a treat after lunch. I’m hoping it’s those sweet maple cakes-“

“Don’t pretend like you deserve any of that,” she snaps, lugging me into her office. She slams the door behind us, so all the paper on her desk quivers.

I take a seat where I usually do. Right in front of her desk so she can stare me down with her steely grey eyes surrounded by decaying eyelashes. She repulses me. Not necessarily her looks, however, I do take full responsibility for the grey in her hair. It’s in fact, because she’s the only known Mistress to lay their hands on any of the boarders. I can understand why she does it to me, but not the younger ones. 

It’s an action the higher-up’s will hear about. That is, if I can just get to them. 

“I’m sick of this,” she mumbles under her breath, hobbling on her crook knee, falling in her seat. “I’m going to be so glad seeing you graduate tomorrow.”

“Me too,” I say brightly. “Might kiss this office goodbye if I’m honest. I’ll surely miss the smell of aged lavender and mothballs. And the unfit mess in the middle of this room.”

It’s my pointed gaze against her infuriated glare.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Jada?” She suddenly asks, her tone easing off, her back arching into her chair. My eyes only narrow in response, as I seek her motive. 

“We aren’t allowed to encounter men until after our schooling,” I tell her warily. Her and I both know girls here send letters to the boys boarding house, catching their romantic interest. I’ve never been involved in that scene. 

Her smile is thin lipped and smug. “Aren’t you such a pretty girl. We are all envious of those green eyes of yours.”

I’m unsure of where she’s going with this, but it’s not in my favour. 

“I have seen a penis before,” I say. That changed her expression. Her thick eyebrows raise and her jaw falls slack. “I stole into one of the teachers rooms and used her unbarred internet to search it up. Thought I should be prepared since none of the Mistresses here know anything about that.”

I’m snide and I’m snarky. In fact, I’m not very easy to like. But I’ll give it to myself. Not many can stick up to this woman. I’d pat myself on the back right now. 

“There’s no use, brat,” Cunningham suddenly snaps. “You’ll never find love. You have none now, and you never will.”

The smile hardly falters upon my lips, but it hits me straight in the chest. 

My family haven’t sent me any letters in two years. I have an impossibly hard time making friends. And my romantic life is non existent. Love is something I haven’t been so familiar with in the past, and even now. 

“You better hope someone wants you to work for them after graduation,” she tells me firmly. 

I swallow uncomfortably. Because I’m unsure anyone will.