Chapter 2

He is here.

There I was in the packhouse's main living room, in a small, tight corner on what had to be the most uncomfortable piece of furniture I had the misfortune call my seat, trying to appear small so as not to attract attention to myself- nothing good ever comes from being the subject of scrutiny, especially when you happen to be the most hated orphan in your pack- when he comes in. The bane of my existence. My Lord and Master.

   The one to enter was the Alpha of my pack, the Redstone pack, one of the largest packs in the whole of North America and with one of the largest and most expansive of territories. It numbered in the thousands, a little over four thousand Lycans, give or take a few hundred. It's territory spanned about a fifth of the whole Simmerian Forest, which was larger than the Tongass National Forest, as it had about two hundred and twenty four million acres of land. Wolves of the Redwood pack might more often than not be an arrogant lot, but they had a right to their pride. 

   And no one was more arrogant than it's beloved leader, Alpha Jared Lycan. I mean, the fact that he’d changed his last name to 'Lycan' which is another term for 'werewolf' pretty much said everything one needed to know about how highly he regarded himself and his standing in the shifter world. 

I hate him. So much.

And he hates me. So much.

We have what one might otherwise call a very complicated relationship. Up until about six years ago, back when his father, Ezekiel, had been the Alpha of the Redwood pack and my father had been his father's best friend and the pack's beta, I used to look up to him. No, I was in awe of him. To me, he was the perfect friend who could do anything. We used to play in the rain together, he would seat me down and read me stories, we ran through the wooded areas of our packland in our wolves together.

  When your parents are best friends, it stands to reason you’ll grow up around each other. He’d been a big brother to me. All that changed ten years ago, when 'that' happened.

   My mother began to feel depressed and sad. At first we thought it was nothing, that it was just a phase and that it will pass and she will get better.

She got worse. 

It got to the point when she will suddenly burst into tears  at random times of the day. Father and I kept asking her what was wrong and why she was crying only for her to look at us with what was some times a guilty look and tell us not to worry. That it was nothing. Of course, we did not believe her in the slightest but she refused to open up and there was only so much we could do. And then my father found out. My father as Beta of the pack, had many responsibilities that took him from home. And I spent most of the day at Jared's. Neither of us could have known that in those times, my mother received a certain visitor. Nor did we know what said visitor did to her. Till this day, I don't know how my father found out. All I know is that one day he is running errands for the pack and the next he is accusing the Alpha for violating my mother. We were all shocked speechless. The Alpha, being the bastard that he was, denied my Father's accuse, saying he was innocent. He even claimed my mother seduced him. It was my Father's word against the Alpha's. One man was a serious, stern man who never let anyone in who wasn't his mate or child, and the other was the pack's beloved Alpha, who could do no wrong. It doesn't take a genius to know whose side the people were on. And my Mother certainly wasn't helping things. Throughout my Father's accusations, she opted to remain silent, with her head bowed and refused to speak up. She even tried to convince my Father to stop. My Father, being my Father, instead became more fevered in the defense of my Mother's honor. At least he was until-

"I did it." My mother had said, "I seduced the Alpha, Viktor, I'm sorry."

I think that's what broke him. I can remember the anguish in his eyes as he stared first at her, and then at me. I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to comfort him. To tell him it was all going to be alright. But before I could so much as utter a word, my Father looked at the Alpha Ezekiel with a look so full of loathing, I was scared of my Father for the very first time in my life. Even the Alpha, Ezekiel, paled in fear before my Father's rage. "Vikt-" "I challenge you," my Father had cut him off, his every word saturated in fury.

"I challenge you you goddess-damned bastard!"

The reason my Father wasn't alpha wasn't because he was in any way weaker than Ezekiel, but rather, because he had no interest in politics and the ruling of a pack. I think we had all forgotten that at some point. Well, that day, my father reminded us of the exact reason why he was referred to as the Berserker of Simmeria by all the forest's inhabitants.

   Needless to say, he killed Ezekiel. And it was not painless.

The pack was rattled, shocked at the sudden death in the pack. The death of the pack's head. Challenging and killing an alpha for the right of succession was nothing unusual in the Lycan world, but our pack had done without such for so long that it was never expected such a thing would occur. No doubt, no one was more shocked than Ezekiel' own son and my friend, Jared.

With a cry full of grief and rage, he launched himself at my father, shifting in mid air and clashing with Father, fangs and claws bared. My father might have won the first fight against the Alpha, but he did not come out unscathed. Ezekiel was an Alpha after all, so he was in no way weak. Or perhaps he just didn't really want to fight Jared. Or maybe Jared was just more powerful. For whatever the reason, I lost my father to my best friend that day. 

My mother left me the next.

My friend hated me the day after that.

And ever since, my home became my hell.

A hell I desperately wanted to escape from.

I spotted the wolf I sadly referred to as Alpha as he walked into the room. Seeing him brings up so many dark memories. He was just the alpha’s son back then, and I was just the beta's daughter, back when I was younger and he, eight years older than me. When we loved each other like siblings. Now he is the alpha, at only twenty two, after he ripped my father to pieces who had ripped his father to pieces. Nothing but loathing for the other in our eyes. 

How did it come to this? 

The pack is scared of him, but me?

He terrifies me.

Then he notices me. The room goes silent. He stares. I stare back. The silence is damning; Damning and hollow as I stare into the unfeeling hazel eyes of the wolf shifter who I had once had the misconception could be my fated mate. I was under no illusion now. I saw him for exactly what he was. A monster. A handsome monster, but a monster nonetheless. A man with no soul and a scar on his chin I caused when I was fifteen. The source of all my suffering. I could use a thousand words to describe him and what he was and they still will not be enough. The alpha doesn’t move as wispy strands of gold energy crackle around his body, picking up his fur cloak that hangs off his large shoulders. Thick black hair falls to his shoulders in a straight line, not a strand out of place, and his stern face is stoic as he looks at me. Then the Wicked Witch of the West, the Queen Bitch herself walks in, gracing us with her presence. She looks at the direction Jared was looking at, sees me, then smiles a smug smile of contempt at me.

Cassie Rain, the most likely to become alpha chick of the pack, started to circle me. "Well, well, well," she begins, “ If it isn't Lisandra Skye,” she drawled, “the orphaned little bitch of our pack. I take it it's time you went to work isn't it? Bait?”

She took great pleasure in pointing out on the regular that no one else had my particular job designation and just how much of an honor it was for me to even have that. I so badly wanted to punch her, to break that straight and slightly too long nose of hers but I knew that doing that was going to open a whole can of worms that I am much better off not opening.

“Cassie Rain,” I shot back, “the next Luna of the pack. You and our Alpha are going to make such beautiful babies.”

Beautiful, evil little shits, but I refrained from mentioning that. I had a feeling it would not be appreciated 

Cassie's smile spread as she drifted closer to Jared. They did look great together, with her perfect brown mane of hair and bright azure eyes so striking against his coloring

Cassie and Alpha Jared have been dating for the past four years now. Though they haven't mated yet, we all knew it was just a matter of time before their wolves recognized each other as mates and bonded to each other. It was painfully obvious. Their mate bond was all but pre-ordained. A magical fucking miracle.

I had a mate out there too, but if it was any of the assholes in my pack, I’d rather chew my own arm off. Not that I needed a mate though, I mean, in the end, it was the bond between my parents that led to their deaths wasn't? Why the hell would finding my mate do me any good? I'd much rather keep to myself.

Done flirting with the alpha, Cassie returned her full attention back to me. Pity that. I would much prefer she forgot my existence. The pack’s punching bag would do well not to advertise herself. Stay low. Stay alive. Survive a few more days. Then get freedom. I repeated that mantra in my mind to remind me that I wouldn't have to keep up with all this for much longer. Cassie's jasmine and lemon myrtle perfume drifted with her, and I almost gagged. This was her signature scent. And I fucking hated it to the point that one whiff induced nausea.

At least it did usually give me a heads up that she was close by, so I could escape. Not today though.

She bared her teeth, chest rumbling, and knowing what was coming, I braced myself as she slammed me into the wall behind me, the back of my head hitting it so hard I thought my cranium would crack. Lycans healed fast, but that by no means meant we are immune to the feeling of pain. We felt pain as keenly as any human. If not more. “You are worthless, slave.” she spat. “Weak, being bait fits you so well. I can think of nothing better to show you just how insignificant and expendable you are.”

“You wish,” I replied, shooting her a dark smile of my own. What she called weak, I called staying the fuck alive until I could escape them. An entire pack versus one wolf? Yeah, who could win against those odds?

I had fought back at the start, especially when they so wisely decided I would make excellent bait for the rogues,  but it only made the beatings worse. So now I instead chose to grow mentally and emotionally stronger, forged in a fire of their hatred, and mine, all the while biding my time until I’d be free. Vengeance can wait for after.

Cassie’s growls grew lower and more menacing, but I was beyond giving a shit.

"I see you still have a mouth on you, here, let me take a quick look at it."

Her hands formed into fists as she bent her arm back and punched me right in the mouth. Blood flooded the inside of my mouth, so I spat it out, right to her face. She slapped me. Hard. I could feel the sting of the four red lines dripping blood on my cheek from her clawed fingers.

"You are really are a little bitch. Perhaps we should keep you on a leash, a short one. We don't want you whoring yourself like your bitch of a mother now do we?"

Rage rushed through me, robbing me of my cognitive functions. I knew what she did. I knew she just wanted to make me angry. I knew that's what she wanted. I shouldn't play so well into her hands but what could I do? She insulted my mother. The woman who birthed me. Who for however short a time it was, loved me. There was no way in  hell I was going to just let her off. And so before I could take a second to think over my actions, I balled my hand into a fist and proceeded to slam it onto her chin from under her face, an uppercut, and very powerful one if I do say so myself, which sent her flying across the room. She probably wasn't expecting that. She probably thought I was going to bitch slap her. Well tough luck. Then I heard a low growl. I froze. I realize I might have made a grave error a moment too late. I did not even see him move. One minute  was standing and the next his hand was wrapped around my throat, raising me a couple of inches above the floor. 

   "That was stupid of you." He said, looking into my eyes. I glared at him. He stared back. "Submit," he said. I continued to stare at him. This always seemed to piss him off, and always gave me a small sense of satisfaction. For some reason, I was totally immune to his Alpha dominance vibes. For as long as I could remember, no matter how more dominant  a wolf was than I, they could never really, truly make me submit with just their with their vibes. I resisted them flawlessly. 

   Jared sneered, then threw me across the room like I weighed nothing, apparently bored of me. I was feeling a small sense of triumph until his next words totally crushed the fleeting sensitivity.

"It's time to hunt," he said, "..and I need my bait."