Chapter 1

Chapter 1

ISLA

My heart sank as the green porcelain vase slipped from my hands and crashed to the ground shattering into pieces.

I heard the sound of the whip before it landed with a sting on my back and I clenched my teeth and wrapped my hands around my head to protect it.

"Wretched being!" The guard spat as he whipped me over and over again causing me to writhe like a snake in pain.

"All you bring is bad luck. You're a curse! A curse!"

"Please don't tell my father," I cried out on my knees as I tried to dodge the whip and also save myself from the wrath of my father.

A nasty snarl appeared on the face of the guard as I begged. "I definitely will tell him. He needs to know that you're still cursing this pack with your presence and that you will soon doom us all!"

"Please I beg you!" I wailed both from the searing pain of the whip and the thought of my father's reaction to hearing the report. I could already see his face twist with hate at me and tears burned at the corner of my eyes.

The pain had gotten unbearable and a darkness had begun to come over me as I fainted from the pain but a loud high pitched noise ripped through the air, bringing me back to my senses.

I recognized the sound. It was the golden horn which was blown to summon the pack to a meeting.

The guard glared down at me with contempt, his hands frozen in the air, disappointed that his torture session had been cut short.

"Get up swine!" He said as he pulled me by my hair. My scream of pain pierced the air but he did not let go and pulled me that way to the town's square where everyone was headed to.

At the entrance to the meeting, the guard flung me to the ground. I pushed my aching body up and tried my best to walk to the front of the meeting where my father, the Alpha of the Red Moon pack was seated. This was the only privilege I was still allowed to enjoy as my father's child. The rest had been taken away from me by virtue of my curse and I had been subjected to a worst fate than a traitor.

I knew my father was disgusted having me at his side. I did not need to look at him to know as I could feel his black eyes boring a hole in me with disdain.

My father had never looked at me the same way since two years ago when I had failed to fulfill my one act as a werewolf.

The day of my turning had been an elaborate party with Alphas from other packs invited to see the next Luna of the Red Moon pack take on her wolf form. For the first time my father had looked at me lovingly as I walked down the aisle in my new dress which would soon be torn to shreds when my wolf form emerged.

Wagers had already been placed on what color my fur would be but when the moon turned full and I, the next Luna was about transform into my wolf, nothing happened. And nothing ever happened.

It turned out I was no wolf but a mere human. An imposter, a sheep amongst wolves.

Not only had I embarrassed my father and family, but ever since that day, the moon had not shone down on my pack the same again. The rains fell less and less till they seized and famine seized the pack.

And it was all became of me.

I wondered what this meeting was about and it seemed the entire pack seemed to be thinking the same thing as murmurs grew amongst the crowd.

"Bring him in," my father commanded in his strong voice and the crowd went silent immediately.

Shortly, a guard walked into the meeting trailed by an old, bizarre looking man with animal looking eyes, dressed in ragged cloaks that were even more ragged than the only sack cloth I was allowed to wear. The entire pack curiously watched the bizarre looking man as he wobbled towards my father on his uneven legs.

"My king," the man addressed my father in a weasly voice that caused my stomach to feel uneasy as he lowered his head.

"Speak," my father permitted. The man licked his lips in an unsettling way and his eyes shifted to me for a second. I felt a knot tie in my stomach.

"I bring good news," he announced theatrically, raising hands and looking about to ensure he had everyone's attention.

"Many have lost their lives for wasting my time," my father warned him.

The man was wise as he took my father's warning to heart and dropped the theatrics. "I know the cause of your pack's curse and...I know how to help you out of it." The man's eyes twinkled wickedly and a queasy feeling in my stomach told me he was up to no good.

The pack turned into an uproar at his words as voices overlapped each other excitedly each eager to hear that their curse finally had a cure.

"Silence!" My father bellowed and the pack immediately fell silent but the excitement was still alive.

Leaning back into his throne, my father eyed the bizarre man, thinking deeply.

"What do you say is the cause of our predicament?" My father's voice was calm, but I could hear the danger in it and surprisingly, the desperation.

"Her!" The bizarre man pointed a gnarled finger at me and I almost jumped back in fear.

"The imposter wolf you call a daughter is the curse that has befallen your pack!" His unsettling voice announced.

"Her failure to turn on her turning ceremony has doomed you all!" The man went on at the top of his lungs.

At first there was silence, the voice of the man carrying on in the air and then suddenly, the meeting was drenched in the angry voices of the pack members who had agreed to the claims of this strange man.

"Silence!" My father yelled again but the crowd were too excited to obey but a deep growl from my father shut every one up. No one dared challenge the Alpha of the Red Moon pack.

Turning back to the man, my father asked, "And what is the solution you claimed to have?" without even arguing against this strange man's claims.

The man's face broke into a gut wrenching grin that revealed all of the six rotten teeth he had left.

"You need to sacrifice her to the moon!" He declared and the pack roared in response. "Set her on a pyre and set her ablaze!"

My eyes grew wide in horror. I took two steps back, reeling with confusion but I stumbled to the ground.

"Where do you think you are going to?" I gasped as the guard who had escorted the man in seized me by hair.

I turned to my father, my eyes wide with fear as I tried to catch my father's eyes but he evaded mine.

"Father..." I cried out at the top of my lungs over the roar of the crowd. "Father please! You can't let them do this to me! I am innocent! Save me father!" I cried out as I struggled to free myself from the guard.

"Don't you dare call me your father!" He growled at me.

I dropped to my knees and started to beg for my life.

"Please spare me father! Do not listen to him! Please father!"

"I do not need this man's words in order to kill you. I have been thinking doing it ever since you took my wife's life. You have always brought nothing but sorrow. I had asked for a male child and all I was given was a wretched whore who could not even even perform the simple task of turning into a wolf. You have been worthless, a curse from the day you were conceived and killing you is what I should have done at your birth and saved this pack from your curse!" I could see my father's wolf in his eyes as he spoke and I was reminded of what I would never be–a werewolf.

Hearing my father say those words killed me even before my death sentence. As I was dragged by the mob to the center of the meeting where a pole had been set up and wood arranged, I did not fight. There was no need to fight for my life. A life that had brought nothing but pain to everyone, it was best if I just died.

My father wanted me dead and had given me up for slaughter. There was nothing left for me in this world and so I stood still as i was bound to the pole and a fire was set ablaze.

I gritted my teeth as the heat from the fire started to burn trying my best not to give my father the satisfaction of hearing me cry but it was not long before I was screaming at the top of my lungs in pain from the heat.

The heat from the fire made my open wounds sizzle and I could already feel my soul leaving my body when I felt someone pull me out of the fire.

I opened my eyes to see what was going on and found myself looking into a pair of blood red eyes. The pain was too much and I surrendered to the welcoming darkness but just as I was about to leave this world, I heard a soft whisper, "Mate!"