The rusty bolt of my door clicked into place with a scraping sound, locking the rest of the world outside.
I dropped down onto the edge of my mattress, my knees completely giving out as the weight of everything that happened in the ballroom finally caught up to my chest.
I didn’t try to hold it back anymore.
I curled into a tight ball against the sheet, burying my face into my arms as the hot, bitter tears rushed down my cheeks all over again.
I cried for the justice I was denied, for the monsters who were going to walk scot-free, and for the unfair layout of my entire existence.
‘How could they let them walk free from everything they did to me?
Klaus, Alpha!
How could they?
‘
My throat ached from the silent, broken sobs, until my eyes burned with pure exhaustion and the darkness of a dreamless sleep finally claimed my mind.
Hours passed in total darkness until I was suddenly jolted awake by a quiet, rhythmic knock on my door.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the afternoon light filtering through the window.
My body felt stiff, but the extreme fire in my chest was still dulled from Hazel’s medicine.
I stood up, slid the bolt back, and pulled the door open.
Hazel was standing on the dirt threshold, her usual catchy smile instantly lighting up the dreary exterior of my room.
She looked me up and down, her big blue eyes full of that familiar warmth.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” Hazel said cheerfully.
“I was starting to think you were trying to skip out on me.”
“Hi, Hazel,” I whispered, my voice still rough from the crying session.
I braced myself, expecting her to go on about how their hands were tied and they couldn’t do anything to punish the pack for everything they did to me.
Instead, she delivered a complete shocker.
She gestured toward the path and said, “It’s time for lunch, Ella.
Get ready, because Alpha Alexander wants you to join the rest of us in the dining area today.
“Wait, what?
The dining room?
My throat went completely dry.
“I…
I can’t go in there,” I stammered, my left ear straining to make sure I had heard her correctly.
“Alpha Richard said if any guest saw me in the main house, he would kill me.
Besides, I am an unranked omega.
I don’t belong at the dining table.”
Hazel let out a soft laugh, reaching out to gently take my hand.
“Alpha Richard is sitting in a silver-lined cell halfway across the continent by now, Ella.
His rules don’t mean anything anymore.
And the Alpha doesn’t ask twice.
Come on, I’ll be right beside you.”
I swallowed hard, looking down at the grey sweater she had given me.
I didn’t have a choice.
I nodded weakly and stepped out of the storage unit, locking the broken door behind me as I followed her across the gravel yard toward the imposing stone steps of the packhouse.
Walking into the dining hall this time felt completely surreal.
The last time I was in this room, I was kneeling on the floorboards with a coarse rag in my hand, desperately scraping dried candle wax and polishing the sliverware while the warriors barked orders at me.
Now, I was walking in as an invited guest.
The moment Hazel and I stepped through the double doors, the ambient noise in the room instantly died down.
The remaining members of the Silver Ridge Pack were already seated around the mahogany table, and the look of shock on their faces almost made me smile.
Klaus was sitting at the lower end of the table as the new temporary Alpha, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles in his face were pulsing, his expression completely sour.
The rest of the pack sat in suffocating silence, forced to watch the “freak” sit down in absolute luxury.
Hazel guided me directly to the head of the table, placing me in a plush chair right between herself and Alpha Alexander.
The Blood Moon Alpha was already seated, his huge frame casting a dominant shadow over the dark wood.
He didn’t say a word when I sat down, but he gave a single, imperceptible nod to the attendants, and a steaming plate of high-quality, hot roasted meat and vegetables was placed directly in front of me.
“Eat,” Alexander said quietly, his low baritone voice carrying a weight that brooked no argument.
I picked up the silver fork, my hand trembling slightly.
Klaus was staring a hole through my head from the far end of the table, his eyes promising murder, but with Alpha Alexander sitting like a stone wall right beside me, Klaus didn’t dare to even breathe loudly.
I took my first bite, the rich, hot food tasting like absolute heaven.
I was sitting at the table I had micro-polished, eating a proper meal while the monsters who had abused me were forced to watch in terrified silence.
After lunch was over, the atmosphere shifted quickly.
The Blood Moon warriors, along with Mikko and Felix, stood up to head into a closed-door strategy meeting with Klaus to finalize the border handovers and the regional inspection protocols.
At least that was what Hazel told me.
She also told me she had to prepare some medical logs for the satellite upload, so I quietly slipped out of the packhouse alone.
Usually after they were done eating, I cleaned up but that wasn’t required any longer.
I didn’t have to do shit again in this damned place.
I walked back toward my room, but the moment I stepped inside, the cramped, concrete walls felt entirely too small.
The air reeked of previous terror, and I found myself needing to breathe.
I needed to get away from the packhouse, away from the prying eyes of the guards, and away from the suffocating pressure of my new reality.
Guided by a sudden, reckless urge, my legs began to move on their own, carrying me down the forgotten dirt path that led toward the southern creek.
The path was overgrown with wild weeds and tangled briars, a clear sign that no one had walked this way in a very long time.
My heart began to hammer violently against my ribs as the trees thinned out, revealing the familiar boundary line of my childhood home.
It was the neat little house I had shared with my parents before the rogue clearing took them away from me.
Ever since they died, Alpha Richard had strictly forbidden me from ever coming near this place.
It was his way of stripping away every single piece of my identity.
The last time I had tried to sneak in, when I was a grieving, broken eight-year-old orphan who just desperately wanted to smell her mother’s scent again, Alpha Richard had caught me right at the porch.
He had beaten me mercilessly right there in the dirt, leaving me bleeding as a brutal warning to never return.
He had called me all sorts of names and sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could still hear him in my head.
“Useless” “Bastard” “mute” “you killed them you child of the devil” “Coward”
But today, he was gone.
The guards were distracted by the Blood Moon occupation.
After nine years I was back here.
I stepped across the overgrown grass and reached the front porch.
The wooden door was weathered and cracked, the glass window beside it covered in thick layers of grime.
I reached out, my fingers trembling violently as I pushed against the wood.
With a protesting groan, the door swung inward.
I stepped across the threshold into the abandoned house, and a crushing rush of memories hit my chest so hard I nearly lost my balance.
The dust inside was thick, floating in the columns of afternoon sunlight that cut through the dirty windows.
The old furniture was still there, completely covered in dusty white sheets like a collection of ghosts.
But beneath the musty smell of time and abandonment, the phantom scent of my childhood was still there.
I could still trace the faint, lingering trace of my mother’s wild clover soap and the sharp, clean pine musk of my father’s coat.
A dam broke inside my soul.
The realization of everything that had been stolen from me; my family, my home, my childhood, my security rushed to the surface all at once.
I fell to my knees in the center of the old living room, and I screamed.
I screamed into the empty, dusty rooms, a raw, broken sound that tore from my throat, releasing nine long years of suffocating silence and unexpressed grief.
I screamed until my throat burned, until the walls echoed with the pain I had been forced to hide from my abusers day after day.
What would my life had been like if they never died?
Would I had have a normal childhood?
Would I have friends, would Celia and I still be friends?
School?
What would that have been like?
Would I have everything I ever wanted?
Surely that would have all been possible if they hadn’t died and left me here to the wolves.
When the screams finally died out, the tears took over.
I collapsed entirely onto the dusty floorboards, my body spasming with deep, empty sobs as I clutched a corner of an old, faded rug.
I cried for my mother, I cried for my father, and I cried for the broken girl I had become.
I cried until my muscles felt like lead, until the physical exhaustion of the day completely drained the remaining energy from my limbs.
Slowly, the dark pool of my sorrow turned into a heavy, twilight sleep, and I drifted off, completely passed out on the floor of my parents’ house.
Hours passed, and the afternoon sun completely dipped below the mountains, plunging the abandoned house into the freezing blackness of the night.
I was deep asleep, completely lost among my ghosts, when a sudden, vibration cut through the silence of the rooms.
The front door frame creaked loudly as a huge, towering shadow stepped straight through the threshold, the cold night air rushing inside behind him.
I didn’t wake up immediately, my mind still heavily sedated by the exhaustion and the lingering effects of the medicine.
But through the dark, a large, warm hand gently touched my shoulder, the grip firm and steady and I felt something like electricity shock pass through my body from the touch.
“Ella.”A deep, low baritone voice vibrated through the empty hallway, finding me in the dark.
The scent of cedar wood and winter air completely flooded the musty living room, instantly cutting through the ghosts of my past.
Alpha Alexander had found me.
What was he doing here?
Hi Guys……
sorry I haven’t posted in a while but not to worry I wouldn’t miss a day again.
Thank you for all the love and support you guys have been showing to this book.
it means a lot.