Lucy’s POV
2 Years Ago
“Oh Lucy, he’s so dreamy!” Rosa squealed, flopping down on my bed like it was a cloud made to transport her to the land of her dreams. She wore a big grin on her face and kicked her legs up and down like an overstimulated child. “I can’t believe that he’s really my mate, you know? It’s all so . . . surreal.” She took the pillow I was resting on and squeezed it to her chest with a hug. “Ohhhh!”
“Disgusting,” I deadpanned. “People are going to think we’re up to no good up here, Rosa.” I rolled my eyes. “What’s so special about him anyway? You know he’s had sex with like . . . half the girls in this pack, right?”
Rosa swiped my arm. “Lucy! That’s so horrible of you to say. Those were just rumours. You know better than that.”
“Uh, yes, I know better, and that’s exactly why I’m telling you this. I caught him once with Brenda Jenkins back at the stables, and that wasn’t enough to stop them from gyrating their hips like lusty wolves.” Rosa’s lower lip trembled, and the light that had been in her yees minutes ago dimmed. I breathed out softly, hating the part of me that didn’t know how to say things carefully. “Look, Rosa. I know he’s your mate, and I’m happy that you found a mate, but I just don’t think he deserves you, uou know? I hate that he’s been promiscuous, but no one seems to care about it. If it were you in his shoes, trust me, he wouldn’t be so happy to take you as his mate.”
Rosa gasped and sat up sharply. “Lucy! I didn’t come here for you to lecture me on this, okay? I thought you’d be happy and we’d celebrate together, not-not you saying all these horrible things about him.”
A dull sound thundered from somewhere within the house, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. It was probably my brother, Klark, practicing new warrior moves.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I just wanted her to see my own point of view. “Rosa, I am happy, but I can’t help but feel like the Moon Goddess just made a mistake.”
Indignation shone in her eyes. “I know what this is about. You’re just . . . angry you haven’t found a mate! Well, don’t take your anger out on me, okay? I had nothing to do with that.”
Her words stung deep, but I tried my best to keep it in. “I’d rather be mateless and rejected by my mate than me bound to a prostitute! Do you think that just because he’s now your mate, he’s going to change?” I scoffed, “If that’s what you think, Rosa, I’m sorry, but you’re being delusional. He doesn’t deserve someone as wonderful as you.”
Tears slipped down Rosa’s face but she didn’t make a move to clean them up. I had hurt her and she wanted me to see it. “Well, who are you to decide that?”
With a heart-wrenching sob, she rushed out of the room, her long dark hair flowing behind her.
I reached out towards her, “Rosa-” but it was already too late. A groan shook my throat. “Shit.”
Something crashed somewhere within the house, followed by panicked shouting. I got off my bed, ready to go out of the room to see what was happening in the house.
I had almost reached my room door when it flew open and Rosa rushed inside. She pushed the door closed and leaned against it, her chest heaving with laboured breaths and her eyes wide with terror.
Our fresh dispute dissolved to ashes. I touched her arm. “Rosa, what’s wrong?”
She placed a hand on her chest, as though she needed strength to speak. “B-blood. It was everywhere. They’re all dead.”
Fear sliced through my heart. “What? Who?”
A fresh wave of tears poured out if Rosa’s eyes, but this weren’t just tears of sadness they were tears of unadulterated fear and pain all wrapped into one. “Oh, Lucy. Your mom and dad . . . Klark too . . .”
“I’m not understanding you, Rosa. What are you saying?”
Heavy footsteps approached my room door and I quickly pulled Rosa off it. If I had been a moment late, the door would have pushed her off ut with the force that was used to kick it open. She squealed and crouched, curling herself into a ball.
“Get up Rosa!” I tried to pick her up, but stopped in place when a large werewolf stepped into my room.
On two feet, he stood close to a muscular seven feet, with massive claws and sharp teeth coated with blood; man and wolf merged into one powerful being. His dark grey fur also had splashes of blood here and there, indicating that he was likely just coming from a recent kill. The stench of blood of him nearly overpowered me.
A deep growl poured out of his chest as he loomed over us, predator and prey.
Rosa’s whimpering intensified. I stepped forward so that she was behind me.
I didn’t know if I could shift before the beast before me snapped me into two, but I did know that I couldn’t just stand there and keep looking at him.
Unfortunately, the decision on whether to flee or fight was made for me when the beast grabbed me by the waist harshly and started to sniff me.
“Let me go!” I screamed, and kicked him in the knee, although the act seemed to hurt me more than him. He made a mocking sound in his throat and dragged me out of the room. “No!”
All other words died in my throat once we got out of my room and I saw that he hadn’t come alone. Other strange men with exposed torsos coated in what looked like black war paint stood around, wielding all sorts of jagged blades. One of them went past us into my room, and Rosa’s screams followed.
“Leave her alone!” I screamed, onxe again trying to look back and see her, but the beast holding me wouldn’t let me budge. Frustrated, I unleashed a roar of rage.
But that was just the least of it all. As we entered the main area of my home, bile rose in my throat as the stench of blood. The red liquid painted the walls and the floor, and the house looked like it had been turned upside down.
When had this all happened? Or had I and Rosa been so engrossed in our petty argument that we hadn’t been able to pay proper attention to rhe sounds?
I looked around the room, already searching for my family. That was when I finally saw the bodies that had been dragged into the corner of the room in a pathetic heap.
My mother, with terrible gashes across her neck and torso, broken like a doll by the fireplace, with her head resting at an awkward angle on my dad’s legless thighs. My father stare into space lifelessly, with his face so ripped apart that I almost couldn’t recognise him. Finally, my only brother, Klark, who looked like he had been made to suffer the most. His limbs had been chopped off and placed before him in a stack like some kind of sick offering.
Bile rose in my throat. “No . . .” Rosa started screaming wildly behind me, but it sounded so far-so distant and drowned out by something else . . .
. . . the sound of my own pained howls.
–
“The pack has been completely neutralised, Alpha,” a man said after coming into the tent where the beast had dragged me into after I had seen my mutilated family members.
Bloodbath pack was . . . gone, swallowed up in flames, and with its people slaughtered worse than animals hunted for food. Bodies had been everywhere . . . filling up the streets and paths with red rivers of blood.
The Alpha of the pack that had attacked us waved his subordinate away. Once we were left alone in the candle-lit tent, he turned to me. He had transformed into his human form once I had been dragged into this tented carriage, revealing a man that looked no older than my own father.
He looked at me intensely, like meat for devouring. “When we return to your new home, you will become my wife, and my Luna,” he said. He didn’t seem to mind that I had been dragged from a place where he had murdered dozens.
I spat on the floor beside his feet, as he was too far for me to get a good aim at his face.
He smiled, revealing canines that hadn’t reverted to normal human teeth. “Very fiesty. Exactly what I like.” He turned serious. “You will learn to obey me, girl, and if you don’t, I’ll teach you how to.”
The carriage got to a start, jolting me on the seat. I turned to the window, exhausted and overwhelmed with grief. As we started to roll away from what was left of Bloodbath pack, I finally allowed my tears to fall.