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Prologue

My life wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. The little light I could get was always far out of my reach. It was slipping away until the hope of ever getting to that light was tugged away from me. But then, he came along.

Or should I say, I stumbled on his territory? Xavier Knight. The vicious leader, Alpha of the Crimson Moon pack.

He was supposed to end me, kill me like all the rumors I've heard, said he would. But he spared me. I didn't know why he did that day. Until little by little, he showed me.

Xavier Knight was my mate.

Which wasn't supposed to be possible. We were completely different creatures. But the craving of his touch and the way I couldn't possibly resist him proved that this was indeed our fate.

But, I had a secret I would die to keep and he had a beast he was fighting to stay in control of.

In due time I would fall for the beast, but in due time my secret would also be revealed.

" I'm going to claim you deeply Aurora," Xavier pants on top of me.

***

《 Aurora's pov 》

I shivered, curling into a ball on my makeshift bed. It was all used clothes from the pack members, clothes that they no longer wished to have. I had weaved them beneath me, hoping they kept me warm from the cold of the floor.

For years I had been sleeping like this. Now I was seventeen and even though I was very short for my age, the clothes underneath me weren't quite enough for my length.

My teeth chattered, slamming on each other uncomfortably. I fisted my hands together and pressed them to my chest as I clenched my eyes tightly. I never could sleep properly.

It perhaps had something to do with the lack of warmth in my tiny room that was once a closet. Or perhaps it was the lack of wolf inside me. If I were like them, maybe I wouldn't be freezing half to death at night.

But I wasn't like them, the beasts who transform into claws and sharp teeth. I was the girl with the odd features. No one really knew what I was. Not even I.

The old door to my room opens harshly. The wood bangs on the opposite wall, having me wincing at the sharp sound it created.

I peeled my eyes open and blinked as a familiar silhouette enters my room. My heart pounds knowing why she came here. My body still ached from the work she bestowed on me mere hours ago.

My room had no light, so it was impossible to see if her face was tight with anger. But I knew she was. Anger was the only thing I seem to invoke on to the wolves of the pack. I suppose not being one of them was one of the many reasons.

"Get up!" Gomery hissed with the tone that always invoked fear into me. I winced from the sound of her voice and the protest of my body as I rise to my feet.

"It's four fifteen and you're still in bed?!" Gomery's voice screeched, distressing the four walls of my room and my ears.

Four fifteen in the morning? When had I gone to sleep?

"I'm sorry I didn't kn-" I began to apologize knowing that if I didn't she'd grow angrier by the second.

"Save it girl. You have work to do. The dishes and clothes need to be washed." Gomery walks over to me. I gasp in pain when her thin long fingers dig into my scalp as she jerks my head forward.

"Hurry up now. The Alpha would like his clothes dried by mid-day." She pushes my head, motioning me to walk out of my small room. My heart drops in my belly.

Alpha Raphael was the leader of the Crystal River pack. Supposedly his sister, Genieve had stumbled upon me in the woods when I was a baby. I was all alone with only a blanket with my name 'Aurora' stitched on it, wrapped around my tiny frame.

At least that's what they told me. At first, I believed it must've been all rainbows and sunshine, until Genieve died and I was blamed for her death.

On the date of her death, they remind me always of how I caused her to perish. Their beloved Beta was murdered by untamed vampires that sought for, me. No one knew why but apparently they sought for the child with the odd features.

I can't remember Genieve, or how old I had been then when I caused her death. The story they recited never seemed complete. It was more puzzling than a Rubik's cube.

____________

My back aches for being in this position for hours, my legs growing numb for standing for so long, my hands aching, my fingers stiff. The plate I had been scrubbing slips out of my hands and falls into the sink.

The sound of it breaking made my heart thud painfully.

It was the last plate I had to wash. The very last one, but my clumsiness would make me pay the price.

"You incompetent girl. Is there anything you can do right?!" 

I bowed my head, my heart flipping painfully. "I'm sorry." I whimpered and cried out when her fingers get a hold of my pale pink hair and tugged it harshly.

"Outside now! You know Alpha Raphael doesn't like blood touching his floors." Gomery grits out in anger and pushes me away. I stumble, nodding knowing I couldn't exactly get myself out of this situation.

I bit my tongue as I stagger towards the back door and out into the backyard. The wolves didn't come here much, they rather the front woods. Apparently, the trees here weren't lush enough. But I knew better to think that this was the cause.

My bare feet scrunch the grass beneath me as I walked. I could hear Gomery behind me and I stiffen knowing what was about to come.

I knew I was nothing to them, just a mere girl the Beta should have never taken in. Some wanted me dead the moment she died but the Alpha wanted to use me as a slave instead. Apparently seeing me being tortured and overworked every day was by far the best punishment than a quick death.

I can't remember much of my childhood, not that there was much to remember anyway. Their cruelty made sure of that. All I remember was scrubbing floors before I was the age of nine.

I cried out as the lick of leather on my arm brought me pain. It tore my skin and I quickly wiped the blood away, praying that it didn't fall to the earth. Some say I was a witch while some say I was a human that was cursed by the moon goddess. 

I knew I wasn't. I knew I wasn't either of the two.

I whimpered when the leather licked my skin again. This time it leaves a red lash across my flesh but thankfully doesn't tear it. I couldn't heal quickly like they can and they enjoyed that mere fact. 

Another lash had me falling to my knees. The grass crinkle under my knees as my torn dirty dress covers them. The loud sound of a crow high above my head made my eyes snap up. I watch the black crow soar through the sky freely. 

As another lick of leather came down on my arm, a tear slipped out of my eye. I yearned to be free like that crow one day. I craved the feeling of being free from this horrid place. "One day," I whispered as I wipe the blood trickling down my arm and hoped not a single drop had touched the earth.