CHAPTER 1

“Anaya,” Estrella, the woman who had been taking care of my parents since they fell sick, called out to me as soon as I stepped into the house.

I had been running around the pack, trying to find herbs that we were probably overlooking. There had to be something that could put an end to this. Lots of people had died from the illness, and I was not going to watch my parents have the same fate. But something about the way Estrella was staring at me made my stomach dip.

“Where are they?” I asked as I started to push my way up the stairs while Estrella tried to hold me back and prevent me from going. “Where are my parents, Estrella!?”

“I’m so sorry, Anaya. They… They didn’t make it. We tried all we could. I called the doctors, but it was too late—”

I didn’t want to hear anymore. I didn’t know where the strength to push her out of the way came. I ran up the stairs, screaming until I couldn’t even hear my own footsteps. I opened the door to my parents’ bedroom.

~

All the tears I had been holding back suddenly poured out of my eyes as I sat in front of my parents’ graves that evening. The sun was dipping below the horizon on the fourth year anniversary of their death, and I was just making it.

“I’m sorry for being late. I was just so busy with everyone,” I said as I laid the poppies I had picked along the way in front of their joint headstone.

It had been unfortunate, their deaths. They had died hours apart from each other after a mysterious plague struck and people fell sick with every symptom differing from the last. None of the official pack doctors could put a pin on the epidemic. Not even when my parents—the alpha and the luna—caught it.

My father died just two hours after my mother. It still haunted me that I couldn’t say goodbye to them. I had been running around, finding something that was not there instead of spending time with the people who needed me. The illness left as mysteriously as it came, leaving about fifty people in our pack dead, my parents and most of their loyal guards included.

I didn’t know how long I sat there in silence, but I stood up when the moon was now high up in the sky to signal that it was late at night.

“I have to go. You know how it is, being the alpha of a pack. I have to be there to make sure nothing goes wrong,” I said, knowing I was not going to get an answer but being foolishly hopeful still.

I turned around and started to head toward the house. It was not the first time I would be walking through that path in the middle of the night, but it was the first time something felt wrong.

Dread swelled in my throat as I stopped and looked around. It was eerily silent, and maybe it always was, but it was followed by the feeling of being watched by someone.

“Is anyone out there?” I asked, something my father taught me to do in time of threat. He said it made me seem confident, as if I didn’t care if someone was there or not. I really hoped he was right.

I took a deep breath as I walked on, slightly increasing my pace to get home faster but not enough to show that I was running away from something.

Just when I started to convince myself that I was most likely just making things up in my head, I heard the sound of leaves crunching. There was no need to ask if anyone was there—someone was there, and they didn’t want me to know who they were. That was all I needed to start jogging home.

Like clockwork, I started to hear footsteps behind me. It was faint at first, but it soon got fast enough for me to be at alert. I broke into a full sprint, but it didn’t last long when a strong force pounced on me from the side.

“Argh!” I grunted as I hit the ground with so much force that I felt the scratches immediately I made contact. “Who’s there?!”

I stood up and found myself face to face with two wolves. They growled at me, heads going low to show that they were preparing for an attack. I would have shifted into my wolf, but the only thing preventing me from doing that was because I recognized the two wolves standing in front of me. They were my pack members.

“What are you two doing here?” I asked with a nervous smile. Perhaps they were only being protective of the pack and had mistaken me for an intruder. But when they didn’t back down or show any sign of recognizing me, I frowned.

One of them jumped at me, and that was when I knew it. They knew me, but they didn’t care. They wanted to kill me.

I fell to the ground again, struggling under the weight of the wolf on top of me. Finally getting an opening, I shifted and pushed the wolf off of me.

I growled and struck a paw on the ground to command respect. I was their alpha. If after that they decided to go against me, it would make them traitors to me and the pack. I ignored the rapid beating of my heart as they both growled in response to my command.

At once, they both lunged at me. I was quick on my feet, dodging their attacks as fast as I could because I knew the truth. I knew that no matter how many people called me their alpha, I was born weak. I was an omega. I couldn’t take two of these wolves on my own. The only thing I had on my side was my speed.

“Stand down!” I screamed as I shifted back to my human form. I was plotting my escape, and if I was fast enough, I would make it home before they would get a hold of me.

As they started to stalk me, I made a swift motion to turn around and run. I stalked forward even as my lungs burned and my legs ached for me to stop, but I knew it from how close their footsteps were that if I didn’t get to the safety of my house or I made any attempt at stopping, it would be the end for me.

When my house came into view, I could hear their footsteps starting to fade away. That didn’t push me to decrease my pace. In fact, I ran even faster until I burst through the front door and closed it behind me.

“Oh, goddess,” I panted as I stood in the middle of the living room with my hand on my chest. I stared at the door, half expecting them to run in and continue their attack, but I knew they wouldn’t. It was the house of the alpha. Attacking me was one thing, but doing it in the house that was blessed by the moon goddess would be betrayal of the highest order.

“Why would…” I stopped as I realized that nobody was there to tell me why my pack members would attack me with so much bloodlust in their eyes. Had I done something?

As if to answer the questions I had in the back of my mind, the world around me blurred as I found myself being pushed to the ground with another recognizable wolf on top of me, snapping its teeth.

I might not have known what I did, but I knew one thing—my pack members really wanted me dead.