CHAPTER 1: PAIN AND FURY

/-Alora-/

This couldn't be happening to me…

Not now, not my daughter…

“Lila, please… please open your eyes for mommy, please, I beg of you…” I sobbed, shaking her frantically.

My dress was soaked in her blood, her eyes struggling to stay open as her grip on my arm weakened with each passing minute.

“Lila please, I beg of you… don't do this to me… I'm going to take you to the infirmary, you're going to be fine… you're going to be fine for mommy…”

I pushed my trembling self off the ground. If I shifted, I would get to the pack faster but when she wasn't even strong enough to open her eyes, how would she get on my back?

I didn't even have the time to think as I scooped her off the floor and ran through the forest as fast as I could.

Goddess, please… Please don't take her away from me…

Tears streamed down my cheeks, blinding my vision as I ran through the dark forest but I didn't dare stop. My daughter was dying. I could feel her form getting weaker and weaker in my arms.

I didn't know what wild beast did this to her. If it was a rogue or just a wild animal but it had clawed her stomach open and left bite wounds all over her legs and neck…

It was a miracle to find her alive.

The pack suddenly seemed like it was miles away and my legs were throbbing from the speed I was sprinting at.

Twigs snapped under my barefoot but the pain was almost insignificant to me.

“Mommy…” I heard her frail voice call out.

“Shhhh! Don't say anything please… don't say anything…” I sobbed. The pack gates were just ahead of me.

“I didn't get it… Daddy will punish me…” her voice cracked and my heart shattered to a million pieces. Even while dying, she was still worried about her father's reaction.

“I was so close… but I couldn't reach it… it was right there… he will hate me…”

I dashed through the gates and headed for the infirmary. The entire pack was silent as everyone was blissfully asleep in their beds.

I pushed open the doors and all eyes snapped to me. In less than a second, the nurses were running to me.

“Please save her, do everything you can to save her please,” I pleaded desperately as they dropped her on a stretcher.

I could feel my lungs closing up on me as my little girl lay helplessly on the stretcher. Her eyes were closed now, but I didn't want to believe she was dead.

She couldn't be dead after everything I've had to endure for her sake. Her hands were clenched tightly around her teddy bear.

It was the first and only gift her father had ever given her. I couldn't bring myself to move as I watched them roll her away.

Even though she was just five years old, she suffered the cruel end of her father's hostility and neglect.

And it hurt more because she was so fond of him. They had been somewhat close until she turned three and his ex-girlfriend returned out of the blue.

My knees buckled and I found myself crashing to the ground. My tears hit the tiled floor as the earlier events of tonight replayed in my head.

Me, returning home late, after the annual charity visit, only to discover my daughter was nowhere in the palace.

I couldn't find Tyrone too, so I assumed she might have gone out with her father, as unlikely as it was, until I asked a maid how long they were gone for, and she told me vividly that my daughter was not with him.

“The Alpha left with Miss Allison, Luna. Young miss injured her pet and the Alpha sent her to the woods to get herbs and some huckleberries…” the maid's words echoed in my head.

The words sent me trembling all over again. I had been too late. Way too late.

“Luna, are you okay?” One of the nurses asked and I got off the floor, wiping the tears off my face.

Thirty minutes had barely passed when the doctors returned. I rushed to them.

“How is she?” I asked desperately but the looks on their faces were not even encouraging. “Why isn't anyone answering me? How is she?” I yelled.

“We… We tried our best, Luna, but you brought her in a little too late. She died from excessive bleeding,” he said and a scream erupted from my throat.

My world came crashing down. My Lila was gone. My baby was gone.

I screamed, cried, and begged, but nothing could bring back my little girl. In that same hour, my phone rang. It was a call from Tyrone.

“Did your stupid daughter tell you what she did?” He barked before I could even get a word out.

“Tyrone…”

“She told you right? Well, tell her that if anything happens to Allison's puppy, she is going to regret having me as a father!” He hung up immediately and I dropped weakly to the ground.

His daughter was dead, and he was more concerned about a dog. Was Lila’s life worth anything to him?

I braced myself together as I signed the papers to retrieve her body.

Lila had been the binding thread between me and Tyrone and now she was gone, there was no reason to be with him.

I reached home, broken and devastated. None of the servants or guards dared to come close to me. It was either the bloodstained clothes or the dead look in my eyes that scared them away.

On reaching my room, I took off the ring from my finger and dropped it slowly on the table. It broke me that one man that I fought to keep for almost six years was the very person who utterly destroyed my life.

I tried calling him again, but he didn't answer any of his calls, and all the while, his little mistress was busy posting photos of them together with the puppy.

“Get well soon, Cony. You didn't deserve this. Cupid and I are here for you, always. #puppylove#” she had posted, and there was my husband smiling happily while holding her hands and petting the injured puppy.

He had never looked at me like that or treated our daughter with as much love as he did that puppy.

He didn't come home that night, and that was enough proof of how insignificant we were. I cried myself to sleep and woke up to a slamming door.

“What have you done?” He growled.

So he did feel the sharp sting in his chest when I cut the binding thread but couldn't leave his mistress to confront me right away.

“And where is that little brat of yours!”

I couldn't bring myself to say a word to him.

“Answer me, Alora! Have you gone deaf?” He gritted, fists clenching as though he wanted to hit me. I would have preferred it if he did just that.

It would be my punishment for being so stupid and blindsided by his incompetence.

“You sent your five-year-old daughter into the forest alone to get herbs and fruits for your mistress…” my voice came out in a cracking, angry whisper.

“Really? Is that what this is about? I disciplined your daughter for hurting a harmless animal and you cut our binding thread? What is wrong with you?” He yelled.

“What is wrong with me?” I spat out in rage. “You don't see anything wrong with sending a little girl into the forest on her own but you see everything wrong with an injured pet? What happened to the pharmacies around Tyrone? You couldn't ask the guards or the maids to do that or even go with her? Do you know that because of your irrationality, our daughter…”

“That's enough!” He cut me short. “I am still Alpha and you will not address me in that tone!” He barked. “She was the one who hurt the puppy so why should the maids suffer for her crime? You spoiled that girl rotten and she is gradually becoming a nuisance! You keep enabling her, and because of that, she thinks she can get away with every malicious thing she does!”

“Tyrone!” I screamed. How could he say such harsh words against our daughter? “Is Lila's safety not worth anything to you? Her life?”

“Now you are being overly dramatic. She plays with the other children in the woods every day! Why are you complaining now? Allison said her puppy doesn't react well to chemicals so the herbs were the safest option. Your useless spawn couldn't even bring back the fruits to show her remorse at least…”

“Are you even hearing yourself speak?” I fired. “You know what, I'm done with this.”

“And I am done talking to you! Bring out that little rascal, else I will fish her out myself and break off those destructive hands of hers!”

I faced him squarely, hate blazing in my eyes as I spat the words. Since he was going to blab about his mistress and her lovely dog, then his presence at our daughter's funeral was insignificant.

He didn't care whether she lived or died. It was all about Allison and her pet.

“I, Alora Stone, reject you, Tyrone Slater, as mate!”

His pain contorted slightly in pain from the severed bond and I fought to keep it at bay.

“You are just childish and pathetic! Grow up!” He said angrily and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.