CHAPTER 4

HAZEL

I had always taken the Silver moon pack as my home but they had never accepted me. That's why my mother always lectures me on when to display my backbone. Other girls didn't need that lesson, but I did. Because I have always been stronger. 

The rules we're expected to follow within our pack have always seemed unjust and out of touch. They're a constant source of frustration for me, as I believe there must be a more equitable and compassionate way to live together.

While all other females merely accepted them as law.

I thought that was what made me an Alpha female.

But my wolf tells me now that it's never been about my inquisitive spirit. I have questioned everything all my life because I don't belong here. 

The entire wolves start to chant, causing the fur along my back to stand on end. 

They all want Cosmo’s decision.

They want full vengeance.

They want it to be bloody.

Because they blame me for existing. And my father's expression tells me he blames me, too.

‘Pathetic looser, he’s not my father.’ I think.

Yet he raised me. Loved me. Groomed me for this position today. And now he's disowning and rejecting me before the pack. 

I don't hear the words, my heart seemed to be beating too fast in my ears for whatever he's saying to register in my mind. But disapproval and hatred radiated from his stiff form. 

He kicks my mother again. 

She's not even awake or moving, the asshole seems to be taking advantage of her prone form.

He picks her up and tossed her to Alpha Arturo’s feet carelessly.

My wolf growls again, furious at the site of a male treating his mate with such autom of disrespect.

Alpha Arturo nods at two of his men. They prowl forward with hungry eyes, picking up my mother's lifeless form and dragging her toward the trees. 

My wolf step forward, her anger radiant as she watched keenly. 

But a growl from Alpha Arturo holds me captive, confusing my senses. 

‘Not my Alpha,’ my wolf thinks. 

Yet my paws are frozen to the earth. 

I understand this power, it doesn't feel right. My wolf want to fight it, to flee her way out of his hold and destroy everyone in her path. 

Alpha Declan adds his own growl, forcing my legs to buckle beneath me, bringing me down to the earth. “She's going feral,” I hear one of them say. “She's worthless to us.”

A conversation follows, something about my mother paying for her sins.

“We should send her to the Brute wolves,” someone suggested, the words sending a blade of ice down my entire body. “That's enough punishment for her, let those wide animals rip and shred her apart in tiny pieces.”

No, I want to say. No, please don't send me to the Brute.

But my wolf won't let me shift back into human form to plead.

Maybe because I don't actually know how to shift back to my human form. 

My Mate is supposed to teach me that. Yet he's standing next to his father with his back to me, treating me like I was nothing. Like I didn't just spend the last eight month going through the mating trial with him. 

None of this makes any sense. 

I should be running in the trees right now, basking in the scent of the earth, and —

An agonized scream reaches my ears, causing my wolf to perk up.

Mom…

Chuckles follow. 

Hungry growls, too.

My father does nothing, his face expressionless, as my mother plead for them to stop. I can't see them, but I can hear them. 

I can smell what they are doing.

They call her a whore. 

They call her worthless and useless.

They mock her.

They tell her she's going to die on her back.

And they tell her to go fuck more dicks in hell with the demons.

My wolf growls low, the urge to move clawing at my instincts and shattering the hold around my paws. This motherfuckers were all going to die. 

In the next moment, I'm sprinting across the earth towards my mother's screams.

She's crying.

I’m coming. 

She was in terrible pain.

I will save you. 

She's terrified and scared.

I would protect you, I'm almost—

A larger grey wolf tackles me to the ground with a large thud, the fierce snarl one that I vividly could remember and recognize. Cosmo. He has me pinned to the ground beneath his much larger body, his jaws on my throat tightly. 

My wolf doesn't even accept his dominance, she kept fighting beneath him with all the fury and terror inside me, trying to free herself from his weight but it was useless.

I could barely breathe beneath him, his canine in my throat and piercing deep into my skin. 

He is going to rip my head off, I realise, panicking. No, he was going to kill me like Alpha Declan's precious daughter was killed by her own mate. I couldn't allow history to repeat itself. 

My spirit renews my fight, turning from anger to an outright need to survive. 

But he won't move. 

He’s damn too big. 

He’s too strong and powerful to defeat. 

And I have only just met my wolf. I can't even control her at all if I wanted to. 

A soft whimper escapes me, my eyes locking on those vibrant blue ones, so familiar in his wolfish features. 

My mother's scream began to fade. 

The world is darkening.

My life… is over. 

I try one last time to swipe my paw at Cosmo, but it's too late, my limbs no longer work, my body fully subdued beneath his growling form. 

This was my end. 

A chilling nightmare, woven from the darkest threads of despair and dread.

A cruel fate bestowed on me.

The last sound I hear is my mother calling my name. “Soni…”

And I genuinely pray for the fi

rst time in my very short life that she keeps calling my name like that. 

Please call my name.

Please call my name.

Please call my name…

But then the world goes entirely black.