Chapter 3

A gasp left my lips as I stared into his dark eyes, he swerved his head to the shivering girls kneeling before him then back to me. His eyes held contact with mine for a silent moment before they moved to my back.

“They did this to you?” he creased his brows as he examined my gory back.

“Yes, Alpha,” Melsa quickly nodded.

The grief from the slash returned and I inhaled. I am certain that it was a silver blade, I do wonder if I will ever heal. My flawless skin has always been a center of attraction in the pack, I guess the girls must have been jealous.

“Why do you carry silver blades around knowing how dangerous it is ?” He frowned at the girls.

They stammered and exchanged frightful glances.

“Do you know how dangerous the step you took is?”

His voice sounded distant yet clear. I glanced up at him again, his piercing dark eyes stared intently at me as he shoved his hands into his pant pocket.

“Xander, I…” My heartbeat rang with intense speed as Nathan came into the gathering. His sentence ended midway as he glanced at us,

“Alpha?” He called and the Alpha looked at him, his dark hair sweeping against his face.

“Have these girls locked up,” He waved his hands at our three devilish guides.

“I will decide what to do with them.” He said and approached me.

Nathan resisted for a moment, he glared at me and rounded up the girls who had been crying their eyes out since the Alpha arrived. He muttered a word at Melsa and she smirked and stuck out her tongue at him.

I shrieked and shut my eyes as something cold snaked itself around my arm, it must be a snake or worse, a poisonous climber.

I wished for death yet it wouldn’t come and when it knocked with a silver blade the alpha came pushing it away. I wriggled my weak arm to shake ‘whatever it was’ away yet it didn’t budge. My heartbeat accelerated as it fixed tightly to my arm, its gnawing teeth digging into my flesh. My lips trembled and I tried to call out for Melsa but no words came out.

“They have been taken to the castle, Alpha.” I heard the distant voice of Nathan.

I was shocked that the alpha was still there, watching me suffer from a mere creature, but then he would have flung it aside if he had seen it unless it wasn’t what I thought it was.

I snapped open my eyes and stared into a pair of startling dark eyes.

“Are you okay?” He asked calmly. He was kneeling beside me and his hands were fastened around my arm. I gasped as I realized that it wasn't a snake neither a poisonous climber, it was his cold hands. His hands were so cold that my arm had become numb from his touch.

“Your-your hands!” I shrieked.

Nathan and Melsa hovered behind him as he glanced blankly at my arm.

“You need to get your wound treated,” he snapped and his eyes darkened. I relented in fear but he cupped me into his arms and plodded towards his horse.

“Though…the scar will remain,” Nathan mumbled behind us.

I heard the alpha say something but I couldn’t understand his words, it sounded like a rushing wind that sweeps past and never returns. Their voices whirled around me as my eyes dilated and my body shook in dizziness.

The last thing I saw was Nathan’s evil smirk followed by a river of darkness.

* * * *

“She will be fine.”

“It is a silver blade, will it leave a scar?”

“It depends on her strength, Alpha.”

“She is an Omega.”

“There is no possibility for her surviving.”

“I don’t care.”

“She is weak, Alpha.”

“Nathan!”

The growl forced my weak eyes to open, I peered at the people in the dimly lit room. A woman stood at the foot of my bed and the Alpha and Nathan stood by the door arguing.

“She will be fine,” the woman repeated and they kept mute. I groaned and the alpha walked to the bed with Nathan solemnly trailing behind him.

“Praise be to the Moon goddess, she is finally awake!” The woman said and sat on the edge of the bed, she cupped my hands into her frail, rough hands and caressed my forehead.

“I am Levanda, the pack’s healer,” she mumbled softly.

I stared blankly at her, a beautiful grey-haired woman probably in her late 70s, her grey hair was styled perfectly to her slender, quivering shoulders, the sweat on her face exposed the wrinkles on her face which was hidden with face powder, and her pale, cracked lips lit up her face whenever it spreads into a smile.

“How are you feeling now?” I jumped as hot breath brushed against my neck, the Alpha was sitting beside me, his dark eyes sliced into me.

“How are you feeling?” He repeated. I realized that the sweet, melancholic voice that echoed in my head was his. I nodded and he sighed and parted his lips to say something but the presence of Nathan made him press them together in annoyance.

“The elders are waiting, Alpha,” Nathan said. Alpha Xander got up and strode out of the room in silence. Nathan directed a snicker at me and trotted after the alpha.

I sighed as the feeling of prejudice crept into my solitary state. The physician who had cared for me was no longer in the dimly lit room and Melsa was not anywhere close to the castle. The gashing slash on my back left a besetting, gory, chilly imagery on my mind, I don’t know if I should feel perplexed that I wasn’t seeing the wound, a wound that will certainly heal but leave a scar that will remain on my companion for the rest of my life.

I slid out of the bed, my feet willingly shuffling to the door, I would become a burden if I should remain here, I want to be away from the Beta, the Alpha, and every other person in the castle.

When I opened the door, I came face to face with Nathan, his cold, stern face pointed out that he didn’t want me close to him.

“I was about to leave,” I responded and he moved out of the way.

“Didn’t I tell you? You cannot survive without me.” His stinging mockery halted me in my tracks.

“This is just the beginning of your suffering, Elena, and bear in mind that I will never accept you no matter how clingy you tend to be,” he added. I couldn’t say anything to prove him wrong, even when I tried to retort back at him, no words formed in my mind or spilled from my lips. Courage left me and tears blurred my vision as I stared sheepishly at him. He is right, what use will I be alive, I will only be a burden to my family and myself, I will live the rest of my pathetic life without a mate or someone to love. The scar on my back will be a constant reminder of how weak I am.

As I turned away to walk out of the perilous fate that stared at my face, the same audacious voice spoke up behind me and I halted.

“She is your mate?” I turned around and glanced at the Alpha. His brows arched as his penetrating eyes dimmed into my shattered heart.

“Yes Alpha, and I have rejected her,” Nathan replied proudly.

Alpha Xander mused and took a few steps towards me.

“You have rejected her?” He asked again and Nathan nodded.

“Since you, Nathan, have rejected the Omega…” He wrapped his cold fingers around my chin and lifted my face.

“I, Alexander Lucius, accept her to be my mate!" he declared.

I was shocked at his utterance, Nathan wasn’t left out either. I was standing between two men with different emotions, both anticipating an answer from me. I stammered and staggered until my feet propelled me out of the palace.

Getting back home with rheumy eyes, I padded into my room unnoticed and sank into my bed. My life is like a pendulum, swinging from bad to worse, why would the Alpha want me even when I’m not his mate? There have been rumors that the alpha had lost two Lunas mysteriously, I won’t call this a rumor but a fact. Why will he want me for a Luna, does he want me dead too? Is this a way the Moon goddess has devised to punish me for my sins?

I stood, paced to the window, and stared at the sky which was studded with stars. I sighed dryly as the door creaked open and Melsa padded into the room, looking pale. Some of her forelock was gone and her hands and feet were bruised. Her bruised hands held a bundle of embroidery.

“How is your back fairing, can I see it?” Melsa asked as she dumped the embroidered dresses into the closet, I shook my head and snapped it back to the lonely stars.

“Was it that bad?” She whispered and held my chin.

“No,” I muttered but the tears that threatened to spill out betrayed me.

“You don’t have to hide it, we will always be here for you, remember?” She muttered and pulled me closer to her body. I whimpered and buried my teary face into her shoulder. The door burst open and we disengaged. My father panting heavily, pointed at the door. We stared at the door, unsure of what had taken his breath away. “The Alpha is waiting outside for you.”

~

My knuckles turned white in anxiety as I stood before the horses. I interlocked my pale, trembling fingers behind my back and dug my toes into the ground trying so hard to remain steady. The Alpha had the usual blank look on his face, his gloved hands tightened around the reins. Nathan's face was pale in anticipation and dread, right in his eyes he pleaded for a disagreement as a flood of dismay swayed around his pupils.

“You owe me an answer, Elena,” Alpha Xander finally broke the tensed, silent air. My parents and sisters gapped at me in utter confusion, everyone in our neighborhood gathered to fish out what my new peril was. This is the only chance I have to make a decision that will either change my life for the better or the worse.

I stared deep into the Apha’s piercing eyes and declared, “ I, Elena Cyrus accept to become your mate.”