The scent

(Anna’s Pov)

“What the heck are you doing? How many times have I said not to do other things while you’re at work?” The headmaid screamed at the top of her lungs while I focused my gaze on the floor. “Why are you so quiet? Don't dare to admit your mistakes, you lazy slacker!”

I flinched as she swung her hand up, and backed away. “M-miss, I already finished my work for today,” I managed to say when she stomped her feet on a dress that I had just washed, and dried.

“Did you mean you completed washing these dirty clothes?” she sneered.

I bit my lower lip and lowered my gaze again as my vision started to blur.

“Do it again without slacking off.” She said, throwing me a basket of other clothes.

I heaved a sigh, picking up the clothes one by one as tears streamed down my cheek.

“What a slacker!” A person jeered while covering her mouth. I looked at her from the corner of my eyes and shook my head.

“Don’t pay any attention to her. She brings bad luck.”

“Brings bad luck? She's the curse herself. Runts are curses to every pack. Goddess knows why she wasn't fired.”

“Hush, she may hear you…”

“When did you get afraid of this little bitch? Like she can do anything to us.”

“Who knows? She fucks around, after all.” Her words sent a shiver down my spine, and I turned to take a look at her when she smirked. “Those nights the Luna sends for her and she’s never in her room. Whore.”

I gulped and hurried to collect the clothes while their words kept piercing my ears.

Their laughter echoed in my ears while they continued to mock me openly.

“Hey, isn't she turning 18 today? Don't you think she would be getting a mate?”

They turned silent for a second before laughing loudly as if they had just heard something funny. “How would you know that? Did she tell you that she is turning 18 today? Maybe she already turned, and she just doesn't know it yet as she didn't even have a mate.”

“Well, now that you talk about it, it's possible… After all, we don't know her age, do we?”

“But, how come you guessed it's her birthday today?”

“I just… guessed. After all, today is the last day of the year. So, if she doesn't get her mate today, she's probably mateless, as well as a runt.”

My hand trembled as I took the last cloth from the floor when they continued to humiliate me.

“And, even if she gets a mate, do you think her mate would accept her? She doesn't even have a wolf and her attitude! Ugh!”

My lips trembled while my heart thumped ferociously as I rushed out toward the laundry. The path was blurry through my tear-filled vision and I almost stumbled over my own foot.

Finally, I got to the laundry room and I instantly locked the door, hoping to block out the voices that seemed to follow me no matter how much space was between us. Like an automaton, I pushed the clothes inside the washing machine to have them cleaned…again…for the fourth time today. My lips trembled as I tried to control myself from crying.

Those girls were wrong. I knew that I'd have a mate. A mate like everyone else whom I could share my feelings with, and whom I'd spend the rest of my life with.

I had waited for this day for such a long time. How could I have no mate? I had even saved up money knowing that I'd resign from the Alpha mansion after getting a mate. I didn't even use a penny out of it all this time, just for this day.

How could I have no mate? My lips parted, and I could feel my heart rate increasing with anxiety. Could it be possible that I may not have a mate? I caught my bottom lips between my teeth as their words rang over and over again in my head.

I was an orphan. I didn't have any particularly tragic story about my parent’s death because I simply never knew them. But from day one, I was told I was an orphan, who didn't even know her parents’ name. I had never seen them and honestly, I didn’t feel bad about them. Did that make me evil? I just have no memories of them. The only thing I remember very clearly was being sold to the pack when I was young.

A child she-wolf definitely could work more, be better at keeping secrets, and be easy to manipulate so the Pack’s Luna paid a good price for me. And I’d be honest, things weren't always this bad.

It all changed when I turned 16. Turning 16 was a great day for a werewolf as that was the coming-of-age day for us, and that was the day everyone would get their wolf. However, I waited and waited like everyone else until the last day of that year but I still didn't get a wolf. I recall crying hard every night and begging the goddess not to humiliate me because being passed as an omega maid was already bad enough, but being a runt…my life would ultimately become a hell-hole. Yet nothing…happened.

Until it did.

I might not have gotten a wolf, but something switched and I was absolutely terrified of the sudden change in me.

When others found out I was wolfless, I became an outcast. It worsened more when I frequently disappeared at night. I tried to explain but I had no idea how to explain it to them. I couldn't tell them the truth, the true reason for me escaping at night. But rumors soon started when a few maids caught me escaping.

I tried to get along with them, helped them even more, and took on more chores but the rumors only increased and became more notorious.

“Is she that girl?”

“You bet! She doesn't sleep at the servant quarters any night.”

“You think she prostitutes herself?”

“Who knows? Maybe, she just opens her leg just for anyone, and free.”

It became more of a problem when I started being harassed, and humiliated by males and guards as they continued to ask me out. Some even offered money to spend a night with me. Yet, I still couldn't tell them the truth.

So I was cast away like a leper, and nobody dared to get too close to me. Even those, whom I once had something like friendship with, avoided me as if I were some sort of a ghost or plague. I tried to shake it off, but I was only human. It really hurt not having any friends.

I hoped that things would get better once I had my wolf but nothing changed. I was still a runt.

“I just… guessed. After all, today is the last day of the year. So, if she doesn't get her mate today, she's probably mateless, too.”

I flinched as her words repeated in my mind. “And, even if she gets a mate, do you think her mate would accept her? She doesn't even have a wolf and her attitude!”

The walls began closing on me and my chest expanded as I broke out of the laundry room, sobbing and gasping for air. “W-what if I really don't have a mate?” I whimpered on the verge of a panic attack.

“Hng,” I cried while I tried to rub my eyes out but a thousand questions flooded my mind, and my tears couldn't stop flowing. I only hoped for a mate all this time. And, if I was mateless as well, what was I going to do?

Suddenly, I caught a whiff of something that made my next breath hitch. it was a scent that I had never smelled before, but oh, it was intoxicatingly familiar--like sunshine after a thunderstorm. Wood, spice, earthy soil, and something else I couldn't identify.

When I turned my head to the right, the scent intensified, drawing me in like a moth to a flame. it wasn't just a fragrance; No, it was a feeling, a primal pull deep within my being.

My head went blank and the only thing I could think of was the source of that scent. I needed to find it. Whatever it was.