Chapter 1: Playing with fire

Hi guys! This is a dark romance with questionable themes like bondage, dark kinks, sadism and masochism. I like to write female leads that talk back, fight back and give the male lead a tough time. If this isn't your cup of tea, this is not the story for you.

Chapter 1. 

Ugh. They're at it again.

I rolled my eyes as I walked into the lavish dining room where mother and father were arguing about yet another mishap.

Whatever. 

I sent a quick reply to Eleanor's snap she had posted about being on a beach somewhere close to the Pacific ocean. She was a bitch and a bore, but quite frankly, I'd rather be with her now than with my parents here.

My mother took a break from yapping at my father to shoot a glare at me. "No phones at the table, Nyx! I've told you countless times!"

I rolled my eyes but nonetheless kept my phone back in my pocket.

She turned back to my father, this time her words reaching my ears. "You have gone too far, this time, Darius! He is just a child! You didn't have to involve him in this. What were you thinking?!" she chidded, her voice filled with fear and warning.

"Not another word from you, Simona. I don't expect you to understand the decisions I have to make as alpha." He growled as he spoke, his anger was evident and loud. 

I snapped my fingers at a waiting servant who quickly came to pull out my chair from me.

Nyx, that's my name. And I am the daughter of Alpha Darius and Luna Simona of the prestigious Whitethorn pack. As the only child of the alpha and Luna, I am as favoured as they come. I have an entire legion of well trained sentinels protecting me, all the money in the world, enemies disguised as friends and an array of servants at my beck and call. 

To me, the servants were the best part of my life. I love how I get to tell them to do even the most obscene things... and they do it because they don't have a choice.

My parents were still going at each other as I stared at my buffalo wings, the mac and cheese and of course, the little fries that followed and my wine. I hated being disturbed whenever I ate. Their arguing was giving me a fucking headache.

Maybe alcohol will help drown out their voice.

I held my wine glass up and sniffed it in disgust. 

Chardonnay. I hated Chardonnay. 

Glaring at the servant closest to me, I didn't even have to say anything and he was already running to the kitchen to get me my favorite brand of red wine.

I tapped my fingernails on the hardwood table restlessly as I waited for the simpleton to get my wine. Everything seemed to irritate me this evening; my parents more than usual, dinner, the wine, even the colour of my fingernails. I had painted it silver and bedazzled it with crystals but they suddenly looked too loud and brazen for my liking now. I wanted something plain. Like black. Black seemed like a decent colour.

"Simona, I am trying to have dinner here," my father suddenly growled.

"Don't you understand how dangerous this is? They are called the Blood fang pack for a reason, Darius. Your greed has taken it too far this time, involving the alpha's child into all this! You're playing with fire, Darius."

My breath seized. My fingers froze from their impatient tapping on the table.

Blood Fang pack?

Oh no. What has father done this time?

While the Silver moon pack was known and respected for its prestige and majestic beauty, the Blood Fang pack were the complete opposite. They were dark, bloody, ruthless and barbaric. Unwilling to reason or even work with other packs, raging wars against smaller packs and taking and plundering. They were the epitome of death, darkness and destruction.

The Blood Fang pack isn't a pack to be messed with. They are fearless, evil and morally corrupt, and as if that isn't enough, they have close relations with the dark witches. 

Witches were frowned heavily upon by werewolves because they were born evil, sinister and tricky and would offer the most basic help for the most obscene prices; your beauty, your grace, your wisdom, your destiny... Even your first born. 

The practice of using witches had been banned ages ago but Blood Fang follow their own rules.

  The witches helped them with dark magic whenever they needed help in conquering other packs. They have done it for decades. What's even worse is that the pack is headed by one of the most dreaded werewolves in the world. Alpha Atlas. A crazed lycan and a powerful hybid. He was a rare species. A bastard born of a female lycan and a vampire father. He was banished by his entire family and prowled the country as a rogue, amassing followers, wealth and influence until he was able to defeat countless packs and build his own.

He was a force to be reckoned with. The last of his kind.

His name stokes fear in the hearts of many, including my mother and father. He is cruel and ruthless in the darkest and most depraved way. He has no heart, no soul and no mercy when it comes to plundering and killing. His obscene and insane powers as a lycan enable him to kill people in a rather unpleasant and gruesome way that most werewolves cannot, giving him the power to transform whenever he wants while we have to wait for a full moon.

I have heard about him from snatches of rumours around the house and I had no intention of meetings him in this lifetime or in my next.  

If father has really stepped on his toes... Shivers sprouted up my arms... There was no telling what Atlas will do to wreck vengeance on our pack.

We were not a small or weak pack by any extent, but the thought of the tyrant lycan even setting his eyes on us made me shiver. I didn't even know he had a child. He must have kept them a secret from the rest of the world to avoid being seen as his weak link. He probably raped a poor woman and ripped the child from her because he needed a heir.

"For the last time, Simona, drop it. I am alpha and I will do what I want and what I think is best for this pack!" My father declared, it was quite a scene, the both of them had a back and forth and I could only look at them with bated breath.

"You can't do what you want when it concerns Blood Fang! They are far stronger and more deadly than we are!"

Silence ensued between both my parents and the servants pretending like they were not listening in on the argument. My mother had crossed the line with what she just said. Whitethorn was said to have been blessed by the moon goddess herself, making us her favoured pack, a pack to be envied by most, with our beauty, healing powers, strength and wisdom...

But if Whitethorn was blessed by the goddess, then Blood Fang was blessed by the devil.

Frankly, what she said was the truth, if you ask me. While packs respected us, they feared Blood Fang... and I'll pick fear over respect any day. 

"Simona," my father said quietly, restraint evident in his voice, "I will give you the opportunity to take that back. Right now."

"I can't take back what I said because it's the truth. I know it, you know it, everyone in this goddamn pack knows it-" 

Slap!

Everyone gasped as my father struck my mother on the cheek.

I wasn't shocked by what my father just did.

I learned from a young age to sit still, smile and look pretty in the presence of my father because you never know when he'd blow up or find the right reasons to hit you. With my father, I learned to be seen but never heard. On good days, I got anything I wanted. On bad days, I avoided his wrath.

My mother still had a lot to learn. All these years of living with my father and she hadn't grown a lick of sense.

Suddenly, I felt something cold and wet dribble all over my lap.

I shrieked and stood up, glaring at the imbecile that just ruined my custom made Versace dinner dress.

The servant I had told to get my wine. The fool had spilled wine all over my dress!

Seething in rage, I took the wine glass, poured its content all over the wretched man's head and slapped him twice for good measure.

I guess I was my father's daughter after all. 

"Clean up this mess," I told him coldly, "and when you're done with that, pack your shit and leave these premises. If I see you here by morning, I will have you torn limb from limb like the wretched animal you are."

The idiot fell on his face at my feet and started grovelling before me. I wrinkled my face in disgust at his lowliness and wretchedness.

Incompetent fool.

I kicked him in the face and stomped on his back as I purposely walked over him to go to my room and get myself a change of clothes.

I had just taken a few steps when the alarms went off.

Sirens blared from different parts of the pack, indicating that an unauthorized person just infiltrated our borders unannounced.

I froze. Fear seized my heart.

Could it be... No. No, it couldn't be.

I refuse to believe Alpha Atlas was here. Our borders were safe and secure. They had been safe and secure for thousands of years. No one has ever breached our pack. No one!

This must be a drill. This HAS to be a drill.

The lights flickered on and off. There were shouts and screams from outside and my panicked heart skipped a few beats when the doors blasted open and our sentinels marched in, in their black uniforms, their faces dark with urgency.

They closed the doors and fastened the locks, barricading us from what was happening outside. 

The leader of the sentinels turned to my father. "Alpha, follow us to the safe room. It isn't safe for you here. The borders have been breached."

I watched as the servants panicked but none of them dared leave their station. There would be hell to pay later, if they do.

If they survived this attack, that is.

Suddenly there was silence. 

All the screaming and shouting from seconds ago seemed to have stopped.

"Let's go," my father finally said, his face a firm and brave mask.

The doors to our lavish dining room bursted open all of a sudden, and consuming darkness filled the entire room, as if all of night had settled right in this room. It was thick, dark and suffocating and it felt like someone was squeezing my lungs of all its air.

And then there were footsteps. Calm, loud and proud.

My breath seized. My lungs were constricting in my chest. In the darkness, I heard the footsteps getting closer and closer to me. A presence suddenly passed behind me, leaving the ghost of a man's touch around my neck.

I didn't need the pack's seer to tell me. 

Alpha Atlas was here.