CHAPTER ONE: AWAKENING THE CURSE

ANNA'S POV

"Shhh....lower your voice, you don't her to hear what we are planning."

But I already know what my evil stepsisters are planning...evil step cousins. They have been running around the house suspiciously with my aunt for the past few weeks since the new year begun. They believe since I'm turning eighteen this year and the curse will finally manifest.

"Oh goddess, we've been waiting for this curse for three years now, still nothing." Nadia sighs. "I don't even believe your under a curse anymore, whatever the mysterious curse is that nobody wants to disclose to us."

"We should sell her to an ancient werewolf." That's my elder cousin, Clara suggesting to them in her room. I can hear them all the way from the kitchen which is 11 rooms down the hall where I'm scrubbing. They had turned me into the packhouse slave but I can't complain that's the price I have to pay for them keeping my secret. I know I'm WANTED!

"Mom, you ain't saying anything, let's sell the bitch she's of no use to use plus we can make a few bucks off her head."

"She is still family." My aunt defences me.

Somehow over the years I had come to realize that my aunt actually loves me, she's just scared of my 'curse' I scrub angrily on the kitchen floor.

"Who do you suggest we sell her to?" My younger cousin, Bella asks. "We can't keep her within radius of our pack. She is clear danger."

I can't believe they actually want to sell me, like a common commodity. I can't allow that. I stand to my feet and angrily throw the plates on the sink against the wall. Where will I go if I run away from here? But I can't keep running my whole life.

"I would have suggested we drown her in her bath or strangle her in her sleep but the bitch is immune to death too." Clara groans and I can picture her visibly throwing a pillow.

I move over to clean up the mess I have created but the oversized skirt around my waist rolls down, I knot the waistband tightly to the size of my lean waist. "I hate this stupid victorian era maid outfit I have to wear." They have starved me over the years and subjected me to all manner of tortoure that an average girl shouldn't survive but somehow every morning I keep waking up stronger. Save for the weight loss and pale skin, no one will know I'm being abused, my bones are still strong as ever and my spirit alive.

"And there's still the option of the letter we got in the mail." Bella says in a singsong manner.

The letter in the mail, they have been ignoring it for the past two weeks, none of them bold enough to address the subject.

"I wonder what it is." Nadia says what's on my mind.

"But that message was not for her." Clara snaps.

"The moon goddess never makes a miistake. It was addressed to Anna Fairchild." My aunt's voice sounds bitter... almost jealous?

"Fine, then let's send her there, I bet she won't even survive her first week out there without dying. I fucking hate her, let's get rid of her ugly, stupid face." Their voices are followed by shuffled footsteps. I hadn't realized they were moving.

Where do they want to take me? What do they want to do with me? I throw the rag in my hands on the floor and push away other of my cleaning items as I run out of the kitchen.

"Anna." My aunt calls out to me before I can make it round the corner and down the stairs. I pause and wait for her and her daughters to reach me then I slowly walk back into the kitchen my eyes darting around for a knife but Clara spots one first and hurries into the kitchen, grabbing it off the counter. She pushes me against the wall and presses the cold blade to my throat.

"Don't fight it." My aunt says in her calm deceptive voice that I hate so much. "We want what's best for you, my dear."

"I fucking hate you and I want to slit your throat open." Clara spits in my face

"Don't hurt her, darling. Killing a cursed wolf will only deviate the wrath of the moon goddess to you."

"That's your fucking saving grace." Clara pins my left hand to the wall while Bella pins the other to wall.

"No. No." I start to struggle as I realize what they are about to do. My aunt has a syringe in her hands filled with yellowish liquid. "What's that?" I cry out.

"It's a substance that will make you feel good." She runs her fingers along my wrist looking for a vein. "Don't fight it, we want what's best for you."

"Please I don't want to go to that awful place I hear you people talk about." I try to free myself from their hold but their combined strength is no match for me.

The needle pierces into my vein and liquid rush in straight to my brain. My knees grow weak and my head feels too heavy for my scrawny neck to hold up. Smiley grey eyes and silver hair crosses my mind before a sack is thrown over my head and I'm left to fall on the heavy wooden floor but I don't feel any pain. I'm wrapped in something heavy and itchy...a rug. It's suffocating and impossible to breathe. My eyes flutter shut...

* * * *

I'm laying on my bed. I'm drowning, lost in space. I yawn and stretch my hands, turning and stiring in bed, I'm falling, falling...

"Ahhhhh!!!" A loud freighted scream erupts from my mouth as my eyes fly open. I'm hanging on a fucking bridge that's at least a 100ft high, below me is endless mist I can't see a thing down there. I scream again, my heart is drumming in my chest, the only thing keeping me from falling into the endless void below is my hands that's tightly wrapped around the narrow bridge, It sways in the wind and I scream again. How did I get on a bridge?

Sweat rolls down my face and back as I struggle and throw my body fully on the bridge. I'm sitting half way through it. I look to my back, I can sense blood thirsty rogues lurking in the shadows. "Aunt! Clara? Bella?" My voice echos with no response. I lick my lips and wrap my arms tightly around me, a card falls from my clothes onto the bridge. I read the content quickly with my eyes, it's a letter of admission addressed to me from a certain 'Mooncrust Academy."

I look ahead of me, where towers reach high into the sky, their spires lost in the fog. I squint my eyes to look in the distance. The angular tip has a glowing engraving 'MOONCRUST ACADEMY.', a sense of dread envelopes me but not the kind I felt when I turned to the hungry rogues in the darkness behind me.

No direct path leads to the academy, it's only accessible by the deathtrap-excuse-of-a-bridge that I'm sitting on, the other end stretches to the entrance of the isolated castle that stands ontop a jagged rock that juts out from the mist covered ocean surrounding it. It's a stone castle, the kind of buildings you see in history textbooks that send chills down your spine.

"Where is this place?" Nadia asks in my mind.

I sluggishly rise to my feet, tugging the letter under my arm. The bridge creaks with every step, I squeal and lay back on it, wrapping my arms tightly around the bridge, as I crawl on my belly to the academy that looks both timeless and forsaken as if the world has forgotten it entirely... or intentionally left it behind.

I hope I'm making the right decision. Will this place help me find out about my curse? Will I ever strengthen my wolf, will I graduate and become a personality? And above all will I ever see my best friend again?

I stop in front of a huge black gate that is held up by two strong pillars in the form of a vicious wolf squatting on either side ready for battle. I insert my letter into the slot on the gate and it automatically lifts upwards and I walk through, it closes back in my wake.

A huge female clad in leather suit smiles at me. She is a shewolf, I can sense her. "Anna Fairchild, we have been expecting you." She spreads her hands wide in show of excitement before dropping them to her sides. "I'm Claudia, vice principal war and physical control, welcome to Mooncrust Academy; a school dedicated to training werewolves who posses Alpha and Beta blood.

But I'm an omega.