The heavy, rhythmic chatter of the dining hall died instantly, replaced by a suffocating silence that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
I didn’t even need to look up from the mahogany table I was polishing to know exactly who had just walked through the grand double doors.
The air in the room turned sharp and volatile, choked by a wave of sour, panicked scent that didn’t belong to a confident, fearless leader.
It was Alpha Richard.
I sneaked a quick glance through my good eye and froze.
The always immaculate, well-groomed Alpha looked completely unhinged.
His hair was a messy nest of tangles, his expensive dress shirt was wrinkled at the sleeves, and his hands were visibly shaking as he clutched a heavy leather ledger against his chest.
Beta Jackson flanked him closely, his jaw clenched so tightly that the rigid muscles in his neck were pulsing like a warning light.
They weren’t just inspecting the progress of the room.
They were absolutely terrified.
A loud, metallic crash suddenly echoed through the dining hall, followed by a harsh, furious roar that made every single omega in the room flinch and drop their heads.
I ducked lower, pressing my coarse cloth hard against the silver serving tray in my lap.
Alpha Richard had just lashed out with his boot, kicking a decorative silver crest shield right out of a young warrior’s hands and sending it clattering loudly across the polished oak floor.
“Are you blind?!” He screamed, his voice cracking with a high-pitched, desperate stress I had never heard from him in my entire life.
His chest heaved violently as he stood over the trembling young warrior.
“There is a smudge right on the center crest!
A blind, wandering rogue could see it from across the valley!
If the Blood Moon Alpha thinks we are lax with our equipment or our discipline, he will use it as an excuse to skin us all alive!
Clean it again until your fingers bleed, or I’ll throw you to the patrol guards to be used as live bait!”
He was completely losing his mind, his bloodshot eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal looking for a cage door, until they locked dead onto me.
I bent my head immediately, cursing myself a thousand times over for why I had looked up at him in the first place.
I heard his boots start to walk directly over to my section of the table, and my mind immediately prepared itself for the standard beating and ruthless curses that always accompanied his presence whenever we were in the same room.
But in that small, forbidden moment I had gotten to look at him, I realized something I had never seen in him before.
Alpha Richard was an untouchable, god-like monster.
He was the absolute king of my nightmares, a man whose very footprint made my knees shake and my throat close up with fear.
But as his heavy steps stopped in front of me, that illusion shattered completely.
He looked tiny.
His alpha aura, usually a heavy, suffocating wall of pure dominance, felt thin, frantic, and desperate, heavily reeking of the sour, rotten stench of raw fear.
Watching him pace the room with messy hair and wild, bloodshot eyes, a strange, dangerous thought bloomed in the back of my mind: He isn’t ready for this.
He is absolutely, completely terrified of the man coming tomorrow.
Somehow, seeing him reduced to a sweating, shaking mess made me start to second-guess my own sudden happiness.
If an alpha this ruthless was sweating through his clothes in fear of Alpha Alexander, then what chance did a wolf-less human like me have?
His own fear had awakened a deep, panic in me.
My whole body began to tremble against the wood of the table.
Instead of immediately throwing a punch or swinging his boot, he reached down and gripped my bruised shoulder so hard it almost splintered the healing bone underneath, threatening to bruise the skin all over again.
He jammed his calloused thumb under my chin, lifting my face with a brutal jerk to make sure I was looking straight at his collarbone.”
When the Blood Moon convoy arrives tomorrow morning, you will stay locked inside the kitchen,” Richard hissed, his face inches from mine, his breath smelling heavily of sour alcohol and anxiety.
“If Alpha Alexander catches even a single glimpse of a wolf-less, pathetic freak like you wandering the grounds, he will think our pack is weak and degenerate.
He will think we are an insult to the Lycan King.
If you step foot out of the dark or let any of his warriors see your hideous face, I will kill you myself before they even finish their dinner.
Do you understand me, bitch?” He spit the words directly at me.
All I could do was nod my head aggressively, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs.
He let go of my chin with a rough shove, but his other hand was still crushing my shoulder, his claws threatening to puncture the fabric of my shirt.
I immediately bowed my head back down, hiding my good eye from his sight.
“Don’t fucking try me, Ella.
If you ruin this visit for this pack, so help me Moon Goddess, you will regret ever surviving that forest attack,” he warned, his voice a low, vibrating snarl.
“Now get back to work, you idiot, and make sure I can see my reflection in that silver thing you are holding.”
He finally released his grip on my shoulder, turning on his heel and walking rapidly away toward the grand doors, with Beta Jackson trailing right behind him like a silent shadow.
My already bruised shoulder hurt like absolute hell.
I was completely sure his fingers had left fresh, purple marks over my old injuries.
I forced my trembling hands back into motion, resuming exactly what I was doing and keeping my head down while the other warriors and omegas slowly went back to their tasks.
A heavy, graveyard silence settled over the duration of the time we worked there, nobody daring to utter a single word.
Exactly ten minutes after the Alpha left the dining hall, a massive shock occurred.
Fifteen more omegas were suddenly sent into the room to assist me with the polishing and sweeping.
It was a complete shocker.
A lot of weird, unprecedented things were happening today, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on the strangeness of it.
The extra hands made the grueling work significantly easier and faster, and by 4:00 PM, the grand dining hall was entirely immaculate.
I headed straight down to the kitchen to drop off my cleaning supplies.
When I was done rinsing the rags, I decided to stay back in the shadows of the pantry to see if I could salvage anything from the massive dinner feast when they started eating.
The Alpha had strictly forbidden anyone from eating in the formal indoor dining area today so the rooms would stay perfect, so the pack would be eating outside in the grand courtyard where they normally throw bonfire parties.
Some of the omegas were already starting to carry heavy wooden benches and iron grates outside to set up the area.
I decided it was a smart choice to volunteer among the people who plated and served the food from the big pots.
That way, it was entirely guaranteed that I would be able to sneak some meat and bread for myself without anyone noticing.
I hadn’t eaten anything throughout the duration of yesterday because I had been completely knocked out by the Alpha’s bi-weekly drink, but now, the hunger was back with its own violent vengeance.
By 6:00 PM, the outdoor courtyard was already beginning to come to life.
The torches were lit, casting long, dancing orange shadows against the gray stone walls of the packhouse.
Some pack members were already sitting by the roaring fires, tearing into chunks of roasted beef and talking in low, muted whispers, while others were still coming down from the residential wings to grab their plates.
The normal celebratory vibe of a pack dinner was completely missing.
The pups weren’t playing, the teenagers weren’t laughing, and the warriors sat with their weapons tightly strapped to their belts.
The entire valley felt like a string pulled too tight, waiting for something to snap.
When the night was finally over, it was late, and the stars were high in the dark sky.
All the massive mountain of dishes had been washed, the kitchen counters thoroughly bleached, and the outdoor bonfire area had been cleared of every single bone and scrap, leaving the territory ready for tomorrow’s arrival.
The weary omegas were beginning to file out of the back doors to head to their basement rooms.
I quietly retrieved my own portion of dinner, a plate of thick meat and potatoes that I had been hiding in a container behind the industrial sink and walked out of the kitchen into the cool night air.
The packhouse was dead silent now, the lights shutting off one by one as everyone tried to get some rest before the morning arrived.
As I walked out of the shadows of the packhouse towards the direction of my storage unit, a strange sound caught my ear.
Vroom.
Vroom.
The low, heavy rumble of powerful engines was heading straight towards our southern border.
Were they already there?
I couldn’t tell exactly because my room was so far out from the border.
I stopped in the dirt, my heart skipping a beat in surprise.
We had a few utility trucks in the Silver Ridge pack, but everyone was already fast asleep to prepare for tomorrow.
Suddenly, I heard the faint, distant voice of the patrol guards echoing through the trees.
They were either shouting at the top of their lungs or making a frantic radio call, I couldn’t tell which was which from this distance.
I strained my ears, trying to make out what was being said through the mountain mist, but the only clear words that sliced through the dark were: “Open the gate!
Open the gate right now!”
The borderline was miles away from the main house, so I wondered how their voices could possibly carry this far.
They had to be screaming in pure, panic.
Almost instantly, the lights in the main packhouse began turning on in a chaotic chain reaction.
Windows lit up, and I could hear the panicked shouting of warriors waking up upstairs.
Realizing I was standing completely exposed in the middle of the yard, I immediately ran to my room, threw the door open, hid my plate of food deep under the rubbish pile, and made my way right back outside to see what was happening.
Before I could even cross the dirt lot, the pack’s main perimeter alarm system didn’t just buzz, it let out a high-pitched, deafening shriek that tore through the valley.
That was sure going to wake every single living soul in the territory.
By the time I rounded the corner of the packhouse, pressing my spine flat against the stone wall to ensure I wouldn’t be visible to the guards.
Giant, midnight-black SUVs with reinforced tinted windows and massive, monstrous wolves, beasts that were easily three times larger than the largest Silver Ridge wolves flooded into the courtyard, kicking up blinding clouds of dust and gravel.
The wolves had thick, battle-scarred fur and eyes that glowed with a terrifying, golden intelligence.
They looked like creatures that could crush your skull with just their minds.
This was definitely the Blood Moon Pack.
But their formal arrival wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow at noon.
Why on earth were they here this early, in the dead of night?
Through the blinding halogen headlights of the lead black vehicle, the heavy doors clicked open.
Two massive, imposing men stepped out into the freezing night air.
They were built like brick walls, their broad shoulders covered in heavy coats, and their dark, calculating eyes immediately began scanning the packhouse as if checking for any hidden sign of danger or resistance.
I watched from the shadows as Alpha Richard and his son Klaus frantically scrambled out of the packhouse front doors, their faces pale and their clothes completely disheveled.
Close behind them were Beta Jackson and the Gamma, both of them trying to smooth down their hair.
Alpha Richard looked like he was about to faint, but he forced a fake, trembling smile onto his face as he walked forward to shake both of the men’s hands.
As they spoke, Alpha Richard kept shifting his eyes nervously behind the two giants, peering into the tinted windows of the lead SUV as if expecting a third, even more terrifying person to step out.
The two people he was talking to noticed his frantic glances and let out a low, rough chuckle that sounded like grinding stones.
“Our Alpha couldn’t come with us tonight, Alpha Richard.
Urgent pack matters kept him at the pack.
But not to worry, he will be arriving here personally in two days’ time.”
Alpha Richard’s entire posture sagged with a massive, visible wave of relief.
He smiled wider, nodding his head aggressively, and warmly invited the vanguard inside.
There were twenty of them in total, a small army of elites wolves moving into our home.
Even after the heavy oak doors shut and everyone went inside the bright warmth of the house, I kept standing completely frozen outside in the dark corner of the yard.
The heavy, intoxicating scent of the Blood Moon wolves was still hanging thick in the air, a wild blend of pine, winter frost, and raw power that made my human chest tighten.
Alpha Alexander wasn’t even here yet.
His warriors had just given my abusers a two-day reprieve.
Boomer.