CHAPTER 1

Ellen.

Pain. A feeling that should have been attached to my name. A forced part of me.~

My back felt like a thousand blocks were placed on it as I struggled to get to my feet. It was another show time and I had been brought out to the fun house to embarrass myself while other wolves watched and laughed in both amusement and mockery. I wasn't sure for how long the play went on but my limbs felt dead. My organs barely functioning.

"More, Omega. More!" 

My entire body ached badly. My wolf was almost unconscious and my bones felt like they had been trampled upon countlessly. 

I struggled to catch my breath and get on my feet at the same time, but I crashed to the cold hard ground once again. This time, I didn't bother getting up, I let my body stay still. I was lying on spoilt and expired food, on stones and rocks, and the many other things that had been thrown at me. My nose caught the pungent stench of onion pus that had been thrown at my face and I could only grimace in my weakness. 

Their laughter filled the hall once more, brutally soiling the once serene atmosphere, sounding like what my best friend would call a disturbing cackle. It was disturbing and I didn't care that they were laughing at me- well, I did, but there was nothing I could do. 

I couldn't even help myself. Once again, they began asking for more but I was sure my body could no longer amuse them.

By now, even though my eyes were shut, I was sure the hall must be in its worst state and it hurt me even more, knowing I was responsible for its maintenance. Like a bolt, a rock was thrown at me and before I could duck lazily, it landed on my head. 

My body went limp. 

"That's enough now, everyone. Fun is over," I heard his voice, even the sound of it was like punishment to me. 

Derek Stones, my main tormentor and future Alpha of the Crimson Pack had stepped into the hall and announced. 

"Ow! She's such a weakling!" 

"Smelly Omega!" 

"Why don't you just die."

That and many more followed as they vacated the hall. 

In my morbid state, I heard the heavy stomps he made with his boots as he emerged towards me. He was my tormentor and I recognized even the slightest smell of him. 

"Clean up," he kicked the side of my stomach and exited the hall. 

Certain that I was all alone, I rolled on my back and shut my eyes, releasing the pool of tears that had been stored in them for hours.  

As I waited to regain my strength which doesn't usually take time- one surprising trait from an Omega- I thought of my life so far. My cursed life in the Crimson Pack.

It started from my birth. As though informing members of the Pack that something forbidden had been birthed, an intense earthquake struck the Crimson Pack the day I was born. Lives, properties, and businesses were destroyed in the disaster and my mother, Mabel Oliver, lost her Life birthing me.

From that moment on, I was considered inauspicious and a bad omen. 

Growing up as an Omega, I was timid and weak. Unlike my peers, I was also a very slow learner. My first movement wasn't until I turned five and my first success to utter a complete sentence to express myself happened in my tenth year. 

Just like everyone, my father treated me no differently. Dwayne Oliver, my father was the famous Beta of the Crimson Pack and it angered him to know that his first offspring turned out to be an Omega. He would constantly tell me how my existence brought shame to him and how he wished I was never born. 

After all, he lost his precious mate because of me, and in that, I took a reason to not completely blame him for detesting me. 

My father hated me, he bore no other feeling towards me except hate and fury, and he never hesitated to tell me whenever he got the chance. Aside Derek, he was the second person I feared the most. 

My mother, Mabel Oliver was one of the highly respected and loved wolves in the Pack, she also served as a nurse in the Pack's medical house. Hence, it was difficult enduring the wolves blaming me unapologetically for her death. 

They mocked and abused me whenever they had the chance and my father made no attempt to stop it. I was tagged a cursed wolf and they believed any wolf who got involved with me, would share in my accursed fate. Hence, I had no friends. 

But that part of my life changed in my fifteenth year when I rescued a gray wolf who somehow got stuck on a cliff. She had hurt her shoulder and couldn't lift herself to the land. I was running an errand when I met her and I helped her up the cliff and treated her injury with some medicinal plants I found. One skill I possessed. 

Her name was Natalie Wales and since then we became friends. Slowly, our relationship blossomed and we were soon best friends. She was the only one who didn't see me as bad luck or a tool for others convenience. 

Despite all the misfortunes I experienced, I took faith in only one thing. 

Just as my strength started to fall in, the door burst open and footsteps rushed up to me. 

"Ellen!" Natalie's voice drove into my ears, "Ellen, answer me!" Her mezzo-soprano voice was laced with extreme worry. 

"N-Nat.." I breathed out, proving to her that I was alive. 

By this time, my strength had developed enough for me to be able to get on my feet.

My wolf, Amy was still weak so I tried not to stress her too much so she could heal properly. 

Natalie helped me properly to my feet and began leading me out of the hall, a part of my weight falling on her body. 

"Stay with me, Ellen. I'll get you to the doctor." 

Natalie kept talking to keep me from slipping out of consciousness. 

"Nat? We're going to leave, right?" 

"Yes. We'll get out of here alive. Both of us. So, for just one more day, El. Let's endure their shits. Just one day." She assured me like she always does. I found myself smiling despite the pain reverberating in my system. 

According to the law of The Crimson Pack, wolves under the age of twenty were forbidden to live alone or outside the pack. This law was made to control the rogue population and it was the sole reason why I remained and bore the brute violence of the Pack members.

 In two days, I will be twenty. An age of freedom. Natalie and I are planning to leave the Pack to find a real home. Somewhere without pain and torture. Somewhere where I am not considered a curse. 

This reality, yet to come, was what I took faith in. But now, not so much. 

I thought of Derek. He had grown too accustomed to tormenting me. I wondered why the moon goddess ever thought us a perfect pair. I was extremely glad when he rejected me as his mate two years back. I could not stand the thought of having a man like Derek- who found pleasure in my pain, and joy in my sorrow- as my mate. 

As my eyes started to close in unconsciousness, my lips still remained flattened in a smile. 

Just one day,' Natalie's words rang subtly in my head. Healing me of my inner pains. 

'One more day and I'll be free.' 

I fell into unconsciousness.