The Nightmare Begins

The only thing that I had come to know these days was the pain inflicted on me daily by Alpha Than. As his slave, there was nothing that I could do. Every night for years, I prayed to the Moon Goddess that my mate would come and rescue me from this hell, but nothing happened. After a year, things got better. I was allowed to do more things. Night after night, the tears fall from my eyes until I stopped feeling anything. The night he finally took my virtue was the night that sealed the coldness in my heart.

Until a few months ago, he had never touched me in any way like that. He would beat me, break my bones. I couldn’t recall how many times he had killed me. I was his play toy. No slave would last longer than a few weeks with him, but somehow I was different. Not understanding why, because I was only an omega and a beautiful one at that. Well, I used to be until he cut my hair and scarred nearly every inch of my body. At first, the punishments were easily a few whips, but then it turned into a deadly game. He would give some sort of liquid before he would start his punishment, then the silver collar came next. He killed me in many ways that I lost count. I would die each day, but just as I was about to meet the Goddess herself, I was thrown back into my body. He would heal me, then leave.

Nothing could hurt me anymore after the night that he made me face of my fate of dying every single night my heart become cold forever, I swore if I ever got free from this man that I would come back and kill him and his entire pack. How was I to know who I was? My parents kept the biggest secret of my life from me. I thought I had the perfect life, the perfect parents, but boy, was I wrong. I didn’t know which fate of mine was worse. The Alpha, who killed everyone in my pack and left me to be killed as a baby, or my Alpha that sold me off as a slave? Or the Alpha that made me his slave or my fated mate? Let me go back and explain things to you, well as best I can remember them.

Five years earlier:

“Josie, what did I tell you? You are not allowed to leave the pack house without your guards.” Dad scolded me for the second time today. I didn’t even do anything. All I did was go for a run in my wolf form. She needed to get out. Dad had banned me from going anywhere without the guards that he had assigned me. It was hard enough, as it was at school with them following me everywhere I went.

“Dad, stop it. I am tired of this. I have no friends. Everyone is scared to come near me because of your guards. You restrict me in so many ways that you wouldn’t believe. Athena needed a run, not with anyone else, but just us.” I sighed as I tried to explain to him. I knew he wouldn’t listen, he never did, and that’s why I felt so deflated. He looked into my eyes. There was only sadness there.

“Josie, we do this for your own good. You must understand there are things that we can not tell you. But you must trust us when we say that you need the guards for your safety.” Mom said as she walked over to dad who was sitting at his desk. My parents were the Alpha and Luna of a small pack on the far west side of the kingdom. We were under the control of the Lycan King but we were on the border of the Alpha King. Why dad had made an alliance with the Lycan King, I would never understand. They didn’t help us or offer protection to us. But it seemed that we were the only buffer between the two kingdoms.

“Can you both stop with that crap? We are stronger than you think. Just because my rank is lower than yours doesn’t mean that I can’t look after myself.” I huffed at them.

“Honey, your rank means nothing to us. The day they left you on our border, we didn’t care if you were our blood or not.” Dad said to me. I could feel the sadness in his voice. See, my parents were not my actual parents. They were alerted one night to a baby left on the border with a note for the Luna of the Crescent Moon pack. Mom told me the second she laid eyes on me that she loved me. They never told me anything else about that night, not even what the letter said. Mom and dad had tried for years to have a child of their own but after three babies dying within hours of being born they decided that they were going to adopt and low and behold there I was, they loved me like a daughter or so I thought, and like they said they didn’t care if I was an omega. They trained me to become an Alpha. I was the only heir and dad decided that I was going to take over the pack when I was old enough.

“Can you please just ask them to stay back? Let them follow me from a distance, please.” I begged them. Dad looked at mom and I knew they were talking through their mate bond. Dad loved mom with all his heart. He treated her more like a Queen than a Luna. Over the years, I watched them and their love for each other, but also for me and their pack that I couldn’t wait to meet my mate. As an omega, it was rare for us to find our fated mate because we were weak and not all of us were blessed with a wolf that could shift, normally if we found our mate we would be rejected and they would take a chosen mate.

“Ok, honey, if that is what you want, we will tell them to guard you from a distance. You have been working so hard that you deserve some freedom. Gamma Alex has told us that you are becoming stronger every day and that you put Alexis on her ass the other day.” Dad raised his eyebrows at me. Ah, I was going to kill Alex. Why did he have to tell dad that?

“She deserved it, dad. She has been insulting me for weeks now, about how I will be a weak Alpha because I am only an omega and that when I fail and Beta Aiden steps in to control the pack, she is will become his Luna and they will banish me from the pack.” I explained to him. I saw the anger cross his face, but there was something else. He doubted me. How could he doubt me?

“Are you sure what you are saying is true, Jocelyn? What you are saying is crossing the line. That is not what I was told. Gamma Alex told me that you were the one that was going to banish them all when you become Alpha because of your dislike for them.” He scolded me. It didn’t surprise me anymore that the Gamma would back Alexis after all she was his sister.

“Josie, he is testing you. Don’t react. We are stronger than they all think. Something is blocking our true strength, but I don’t know what it is. We must find out who we are truly are before it is too late.” Athena warned me.

“I don’t care if they are testing me anymore. Father is starting to believe his Gamma and Beta. After all, we are adopted, remember and don’t truly belong to this pack. Something is going on. I can feel it.” Athena remained quiet as I left her to think about what I said. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew something bad was going to happen, and this was only the start of it.

“Believe whatever you want, father. I saw the doubt in your eyes. I know you believe them.” My voice remained calm as the words came out of mouth. He smirked at me as I walked out of the office. I couldn’t feel more alone than I did right now. Even my parents doubted me. Opening the door to my room, I sat on my bed staring at the mountains that surrounded our village, wondering what was on the other side and why I was told never to go there? Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the knock on the door until Holly, my best friend, entered my room.

“How are you feeling?” She asked me, she always worried about me because she was the only one that saw what I had to put up with daily.

“Dad is starting to doubt me more each day.” I sighed.

“Are you sure he is not just testing you?”

“I can feel that something is coming, and it isn’t good, Holz.” My head was starting to hurt again.

“Would you girls come down, please? Your Alpha has called a meeting with all the ranks.” Mom said through the link. Why did she just say your Alpha and not father? Holly looked at me with wide eyes.

“Josie, I think you need to get out of here now. I will come to you. Tonight we leave.” She linked me. There was no need to say anything. We made a pact years ago that if this exact thing ever happened that we had to leave. We went back to the office where everyone was. Mom, dad, Beta Aiden, Gamma Alex his sister Alexis, even the members of the council were here. Holly looked at her father, who was a member of the council, and I saw the sadness in his eyes. My nightmare was about to come true.