Chapter 2: Reborn For Revenge

Chapter 2: Reborn For Revenge

Kora pov 

It had been a year since Kai betrayed me and got my sister pregnant. He used me for her games. It was the most cruel thing anyone had ever done to me because how could someone make fun of a matebond, knowing how serious it was?

I sniffed and swiped the back of my arm over my forehead, sending sweat beads flying to the ground. I had been working tirelessly all evening to gather herbs for my sister and Kai’s baby daughter.

After everything I had been through in their hands, my father still wanted me to serve them. He had the guts to order me to give her child my blood on a daily basis. Jada’s daughter’s wolf was born with a heart disease, which could only survive on other people’s blood.

I was the sacrificial lamb. 

Everyone else was too important to do that, but not me, it was what the Alpha had told me to my face. 

Suddenly, I moaned a scream. My foot caught in a trap and I found myself dangling upside down from a tree branch.

I felt dizzy as blood rushed in the wrong direction. 

“Nnnnn!” I screamed again, trying to force my ankle free.

Ugly thoughts came to my mind because all my life, good things never liked coming to me. My family would rip it off before it could. I sniffled as memories of the past flashed back and cast a cloud of sadness over me.

“Nnnn…” I whimpered again, shutting my eyes as night began to fall, tears staining my cheeks.

“Rather an unlucky evening for you, isn’t it?”

I heard a deep voice suddenly and my eyes flew wide open. I was already feeling so lightheaded and queasy from being upturned for so long. There was a man standing right underneath me, dressed casually in faded jeans and a black jersey vest. His eyes were so blue that it struck straight to my heart. 

I gulped, frozen for a heartbeat.

“How did you get up there?”

I shook my head, stopping when I made out his chest rumbling through the darkness. He was laughing at me. I swear if I found out that he was the one who put this trap here, I would…I would…

“You would what?” Another voice chuckled, but it didn’t come from the man standing right underneath me and fear ripped through me, how could he have heard my thoughts? 

I was mute. It wasn’t possible that they could have heard what I just said in my head.

I squinted, making out two other men approaching where I was held like a wild animal in a trap. My jaw dropped when I realised they were literally all identical. How could this even be possible? Brothers? Triplets?

“Don’t make threats you can’t keep,” the other one said in a calmer voice, arms folded over his chest.

A sea of blue was before me. Their eyes were the most mesmerising things I had ever laid eyes upon. It would steal my attention for a lifetime if it couldn’t be helped. 

But the next thing I knew, I was falling from the trap, arms flailing around me in fear. I expected to hear my neck crack as it hit the hard ground, but strong arms caught my fall and pressed me close to a warm body.

My heart began to beat faster. 

“What is your name?” my eyes darted to another man approaching us, all having the same face, and I shuddered at how identical they were. 

Sweet goddess, quadruplets?! How was anyone supposed to tell four of them apart?!

They smiled at once, and then one said, “No one ever does.”

I squeaked, clamping a hand over my mouth. There was no doubt about the fact that I was mute. Words weren’t coming out from my mouth now, so how were they reading my thoughts?

“I’m Ras and this is Lane.” The one carrying me pointed at ‘jersey jacket’, introducing him as well and Lane immediately flashed a smile that made my heart do a cartwheel. “Cace is more reserved than all of us and over there, that’s Aeson, the big bad wolf and first born.”

Ras then pointed at the one he had walked in with, who looked more laid back and quiet than all four of them. Aeson stood in front of all of us, arms crossed over his chest while he watched with a crease between his brows.

How could I tell them that my name was Kora and I needed to get back home as soon as possible?

“It’s a beautiful one. I like your name,” Cace said calmly again. “And you don’t have to worry about that part. We are sworn to protect damsels in distress.”

“Wait! As much as that sounded really corny, my brother’s absolutely right, Kora.” Lane grinned, rattling me even more. “We’d get you out of here before whoever put those traps comes back.”

But I didn’t say that out loud. How are the four of you listening to my thoughts and reading it?!

Aeson drew closer and replied in a surprisingly soothing voice, “Calm down, Kora. We are the Lycan Kings of the Seventh Moon pack and we have the power to read the thoughts of mute wolves.”

Fuck!

The Lycan Kings!

What were they doing all the way here?

My eyes popped wide as I hustled to go on my knees and bow before them, but Ras wouldn’t let me. I had never imagined in my lifetime that I would come across the Lycan Kings. My position in life was so low that I couldn’t dare have dreams. 

But I loved hearing my name on the mouths of these men. It shot straight between my legs and that was something that had never happened with Kai. It was just gratitude that kept me with him. I thought he had decided to be with someone like me and I figured I didn’t deserve Kai at the time.

“I would keep saying your name more, but it’s getting late and danger lurks at night. We have to get you home safely,” Aeson said, arms still crossed over his chest, like some big bad wolf.

I bit my bottom lip and nodded, shutting my thoughts up, which was hard because when you are mute they usually run a mile a minute. But there was no privacy in my head now and I didn’t want these hot were—I screwed my eyes tight, jamming my lips together as Ras chuckled.

The Lycan Kings took me home safely and I couldn’t thank them enough. Though it wasn’t until I had crossed the gates of Galen’s pack that I realised I had just fatally messed up.

The baby!

Oh, no…

She had not yet received a dose of my blood today and that could be fatal for her. I dashed into the house, slowing to a stop when I noticed the furious guard wolves already coming to me in offence.

I shook my head, moving back, but they seized my arms as I screamed, fighting them off. But I was weak and my wolf was dormant. If Kai had completed our bond, maybe she would have woken up.

“Nnnn!”

The guards tossed me on the floor right at Alpha Galen’s foot and the first thing he did was to smack me hard in the face. I groaned, falling on the floor from the force of his hand.

“Where have you been, Kora?!”

I rubbed my palms together, begging because it wasn’t my fault. I had gone to pick up herbs for the baby when I got trapped. If those brothers hadn’t helped me when they did, I wouldn’t even be home now.

“Was this your plan all along?”

I shook my head hard, willing him to understand. The guards brought me a pen and paper but at the instant, my father tore it to shreds and crushed the pen. I shuddered at the anger radiating from him.

“My daughter’s child almost died today and it caused her a lot of discomfort, watching her baby in so much pain—“

“Alpha,” a midwife barged into the room, calling his attention.

“What is it?!” he snapped. And the woman came forward, hands fumbling together. “Princess Jada…she…she lost the new baby.”

I gasped brokenly. My sister was heavily pregnant again for Kai and she had just miscarried. My frown deepened. Was it all my fault? Why couldn’t anyone else have donated blood for the sick baby? Why did she have to make all of this look like my fault?

Immediately a piercing scream shot through the rooms in the pack house. It was Jada. She had just heard the news that she had lost her unborn baby because she was worrying too much. 

Alpha Galen rushed out of the room of the sick baby just as I had started giving her my blood to ease her suffering. And when he returned to the room much later, things were a lot calmer, but his guards still followed him behind.

I knelt down.

“Jada wants your head.”

“But I know my daughter is being unreasonable.” I almost breathed a sigh of relief when he added that, but he said again, “I would imprison you, where you’d never be able to leave and put her child in harm’s way again.” He seethed, “Take her!”

My eyes flew wide as chains came around my wrists, binding me tight while I sobbed.

***

I had been crying for days in this dark cell with no one to help me. Each time, the pack doctor would come around to take my blood and leave only stale bread. I consoled myself with the fact that I was helping the innocent baby stay alive, but why had this become my life?

Jada or Kai could do it. Or Ramona or Felicity? We were all werewolves and our bloods were compatible with each other. I cleaned my face with the neck of my dress, but the tears fell again. 

When night came, I heard the lock of my cell snap open. Fire lanterns flooded the dungeon hallway with light. I raised my head up and found Kai standing right there, fidgeting on his feet.

“We don’t have much time,” he said and my heart began to race.

Was he really about to betray Jada and set me free? I got on my feet and when I didn’t move, Kai rushed inside and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me out.

“I said, we don’t have much time, Kora! If Jada realises I’ve been gone for too long, she’d suspect something’s up.”

But I stopped him with a hand on his chest, and he already knew the question in my gaze.

“You…you shouldn’t waste away like this. This should not be your life,” he gritted and remorse for everything that had happened flashed on his face. I believed him.

A surge of determination shot through me. I suddenly had the will to live more than I had ever felt. Kai’s hand clasped around mine as he ran, tugging me forward because he was faster.

Maybe he didn’t forget all the times we had spent together after all. I couldn’t forgive him, but this would go a long way in repaying the debt he owed me. 

Long grasses pricked my legs as we dashed through them under the moonlit sky. I was tense, always looking over my shoulder to see if Galen was coming for me.

Then I noticed there was a cliff ahead and Kai wasn’t stopping. He didn’t look like he was going to and fear immediately gripped my heart tightly. It worsened when we got to the edge and I saw my three sisters standing there, Jada looking pale in the middle.

While holding her stomach, she said in a weak voice, “You’ve done well, Kai.”

And my heart shattered all over the floor. He kicked me forward and I tumbled to the ground at their feet, snapping my head up from the sand. This wouldn’t end well. 

I rubbed my hands together, sobbing harder because the only wrong I had ever done to them was exist.

“You killed my baby on purpose,” Jada said, coming forward to grab my hair and I screamed. “And you wanted to kill the other one by disappearing. Was it a witch you went to consult to curse me so I could miscarry?!”

She was hysterical and before I knew it, the three of them began beating me to a pulp. I extended my hand, reaching out to Kai, who stood at the side, watching.

But he just scowled, turning his back on me as they battered me until my life hung by a thread. I rolled through the dirt when Felicity kicked me to the edge.

“It’s enough, sisters! Let’s leave her here,” Ramona said, a bit of an edge in her voice.

“No, we got her so good already. I say we finish this,” Felicity laughed while I quivered in my blood, struggling to stand.

And when I managed to get on one knee, my eyes flashed wide open at the sight of the stone Jada raised up, bringing it down on my head so suddenly.

“Nnnn!” I screamed, dropping to the pit far below, falling to my death.

And when I opened my eyes again, I was no longer on the cliff, falling. I was in my bedroom, hale and without bruises, two years in the past…