Chapter 2: How it all began: Grief and Betrayal

~SERAPHINA's POV~

Exactly twenty-four hours from this moment, I will die. And so will everyone in this gathering.

I watched as the body of my father, the beta and the highest-ranking wolf in the pack, was lowered into the ground right beside my mother's grave. I tried to muster some tears at the death of my only remaining blood relative, but my eyes remained dry. It wasn't because I didn't love my father; far from it, I cared for him until his last breath. However, I had seen this scene play out once already. The first time was two months ago, this was the second time I would bury my father, and although it still hurt as much as the first time, I knew I had bigger issues to worry about.

I had seen the death of everyone here and I needed to stop it.

I looked around the gathering. It seemed everyone didn't have a problem crying like I did. Most of the pack members' eyes were bloodshot from mourning. Behind their sad expressions though, was a look of defeat and hopelessness. I couldn't blame them; my father was one of the last few werewolves who could still completely shift into their full forms. With him gone, the future of the pack looked bleak.

The next highest-ranking wolf left in the pack would be the gamma, who was also my fiancé, Julian Montgomery. It would have been me, but I couldn't shift. I didn't even have a wolf. Seeing as I recently turned twenty-one a while ago and didn't transform, it was finally too late. I would forever be a werewolf only in name and strength.

As if summoned by my thoughts, I noticed Julian walking in my direction while the pack priestesses began the final rites over the grave.

"Sera, what are you doing so far away from everyone? Move closer so you can say your final goodbyes," he said, snaking one arm around my waist and urging me toward the crowd.

Two months ago, I would have leaned into his touch and drawn comfort from his warm hugs, but the fact that I knew he would cheat on me with my best friend in a few hours made his touch feel like hot coals burning into my skin.

I shrugged his hand away as I replied, "I'm not feeling too well."

"I'm sorry about Beta Gabriel, Sera. I can't begin to imagine the kind of grief you feel, but he was like a father to all of us, and I want you to know that we're all here for you."

"Especially me. I promise to take care of you and the pack to the best of my ability," he added. I resisted the urge to scoff. I guess 'taking care of me and the pack' meant being buried balls deep in Cynthia while we were mourning. It shouldn't even matter; he would also be dead in twenty-four hours.

Let me go back to where it all started.

Two months ago, on the night I first witnessed my father's death and burial, I had gone for a walk under the full moon after the ceremony to get temporary relief from the overwhelming grief. I would have preferred to be in Julian's arms while he whispered words of comfort, but he had to urgently attend to pack duties since he was now the head.

My father had been my rock. His status had been the only reason people respected me despite the fact that I had no wolf. The pack had a strict hierarchy. At the top of the chain were the shifters. Their ranking was based on the type of wolf they could shift into. The beta wolves were the leaders since the great plague had wiped out all alpha breeds fifty years ago.

Next on the chain were the pack members who could hear their wolves but could not fully shift.

At the bottom of the list were people like me-people who didn't have a wolf. Even the Omega shifters ranked above us. The only thing that differentiated us from humans was our strength. We made up the majority of the pack but in a few generations, there might not even be a pack.

Our species was going extinct, and we were one of the last standing packs. Even then, our shifters were giving birth to wolfless children everyday. I was a glaring example -a big disgrace to my father's lineage, although he never made me feel that way.

Absentmindedly, I found myself wandering toward my father's room on my way back from my walk. If I couldn't have Julian's comfort tonight, I wanted consolation from the familiar scent of my father.

As I got closer, I began to hear cries coming from inside. Could it be a pack member trying to find solace like me?

I approached the door and put my ear to the mahogany to hear better. I reeled back in shock when the sound became clearer.

It couldn't be!

Who would dare dishonor my father's memory by having sex in his room when his body was barely cold in the ground? I will have Julian punish whoever it was.

With red-hot anger bubbling in me, I swung the door open, ready to rain hell on the fools I would find, but my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach at the sight in front of me.

"Fuck me harder," Cynthia, my best friend since we were in diapers, cried out, and her demand was rewarded by my fiance ramming into her with increased speed.

Bile quickly rose to the top of my throat. This had to be a dream.

"Right there, oh yes, right there," she moaned, and I immediately decided I had seen enough. I couldn't take it anymore.

I ran out of there with tears blinding my eyes. They were so engrossed with each other that they didn't even notice me.

How could he do this to me? With Cynthia of all people and in my father's room of all places?

I had been betrothed to Julian for as long as I could remember. It was an arrangement between his family and mine since we were kids in hopes that our union would produce a beta breed. Despite the fact that it was arranged, we still loved each other. Or so I thought. I loved him, and I believed he loved me too. If I had a wolf, I was sure he would be my mate.

I continued to run. I didn't have a destination in mind; all I knew was that I needed to get as far away as possible from what I just saw. I found myself at the river that bordered our pack land. There, I finally let myself fall to my knees and scream.

'This is a bad dream,' 'This is a bad dream,' I repeated to myself over and over again. Maybe if I said it enough times, I would believe it.

Tears of dejection fell from my eyes, and I could swear I felt my heart break into two. Why was this happening to me?

Julian and Cynthia were the only people I had left. The only people I felt I could trust. Why were they doing this to me?

I don't know how long I stayed at the river, but I saw the sun rise and set while I lay in the grass.

"Should I just run away from the pack to start a new life?" I thought to myself. I no longer had any ties to the pack anyway.

"Or maybe I should just sell the deed for the pack land to Reed Knight." Another thought popped up.

Reed was the billionaire tycoon who had been trying to buy our land for months. My father had vehemently refused even though we were in debt because the knight family was reknowned for trying to chase the few werewolves left in Riverton City out by buying our properties. Selling the land would be the end of the last pack in the city. I immediately scolded myself for even considering it as an option.

In the end, I decided to go back home.

"Do your best to save our pack, Sera. Moon-ray pack must survive." That was my father's dying wish. That was the only thing he had ever asked of me, and I would be damned if I let Julian take that from me.

I will go back. I will marry Julian and have his babies, hopefully, they would be betas or gammas. My feelings didn't matter; the survival of the pack did.

That night, about twenty-four hours after my world collapsed, I dusted myself off and began to make my way back to the pack settlement. Despite every part of my being protesting, I continued to walk without stopping. I knew if I stopped even for a moment, I would start crying again, not only because of the betrayal from the people I loved the most but also because no one deemed me important enough to look for me since I left. Was my father really the only reason they cared at all? I bit my lips in a bid to hold the tears of humiliation in.

Finally, the settlement gate came into view, and I continued walking toward it, but an eerie feeling settled on me. Something didn't seem right. For one, everywhere was dead quiet; even the sound of the night critters was absent. Apprehensively, I moved forward, hoping to hear at least some movement, but the silence was deafening. What was going on?

At long last, I reached the gate entrance, and my mouth parted open in shock.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I ran inside, my heart hammering against my chest.

"Goddess, please no!" My whole body shook as unending tears fell from my eyes at the sight in front of me. Dead bodies of my pack members laid in a pile near the guard house while the buildings in the background had been burnt down to ashes.

What happened here? How did this even happen? Why wasn't I here when my pack needed me the most?

With shaky limbs, I made an attempt to move forward to check if there were survivors but paused when a cold metal was suddenly pressed to the back of my head.

"Remain where you are, or I'll shoot," a hoarse voice commanded.

Numb from grief and disbelief, his words didn't register in time, so I turned my head. But before I could see the perpetrator's face, I heard a click, and then everything went black.

That was the first time I died.

Darkness.

That was all I could see. Darkness stretched for miles and miles around me in a void with no other person in sight. Was this the afterlife? I wanted to speak, but my mouth wouldn't open. I tried to move, but my legs felt as heavy as lead.

A soft female voice suddenly filled the void with a whisper, "Go back and save my children."

'Who are you? Where am I?' I wanted to ask, but my throat still wouldn't produce a sound.

"Go back and save my children!" This time, the words were screamed. She sounded like a woman in pain.

"Go back and save my children!" The voice continued to scream over and over again. The high pitch in her voice made my ears hurt. My hands immediately flew up to cover them; it felt like my eardrums would tear otherwise.

'Please stop!' I tried to say, but her screams continued increasing in intensity until I couldn't bear it anymore and my mouth finally managed to weakly cry out, "Please stop!"

That was how I came back from the dead and found myself two months back in the past, before my father died and before my fiance betrayed me.