Hybrid Alpha’s Prettiest Obsession

subtle rebels

But then, as if on a whim, she whistled over to another dancer. "Hey, Claire! What’s all this about?"

Claire smirked, glancing at me before holding out her hand. "A dollar, and I’ll tell you."

I stared at her, disbelief washing over me. I had only three dollars left, and I had already lost so much today. But I needed to know. I couldn’t stand the suspense, the ‘not knowing’. It would be foolish to be the ignorant one here. With a sigh, I handed her one of my last dollars, watching her pocket my money with a heavy heart.

"Thanks," Claire said with a grin. "Subtle rebels. They caught a group of them trying to stir up trouble. Word is they’re going to execute them tonight."

Subtle rebels? A chill ran down my spine, and the room seemed to darken with the implication. Execution. Tonight. The thought of it made my stomach turn. The laughter and banter from earlier had all but disappeared from the room, replaced by a heavy, oppressive silence. Everyone in the room felt it—the finality of those words. And the fear that any one of us could be next.

What other flimsy excuse will the pit use to take us all out? Subtle rebels? Give me a break. It was just a sham to kill us off one by one. I gripped the edge of the bar tightly. Rubbish—that was what it was. We were never given time to rest here, so where was the time to become ‘’subtle rebels'? What a fancy name.

Rubbish.

That night, as I lay in bed, the shadows of the day crept into my dreams. My brother’s voice echoed in my mind.

Very harsh and unforgiving.

“You’re worse than the wolves who killed our parents,” Tito snarled, his face twisted with a permanent expression—anger. “At least they were following orders. You’re just a traitor.”

His words left me breathless, shattering my heat under the falseness of his accusation. I reached out to him, desperate to explain, to make him understand, but he pushed me away, his eyes full of disgust.

“I never want to see you again,” he spat, turning his back on me as the howling of wolves echoed in the distance. "You’re nothing to me now."

Those were his last words to me. The words my brain desperately sorts to shut out.

“I am sorry, Tito…”

I woke up with a start, my body drenched in sweat, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Get up, vermins!” The whistle of the guards outside signaled the beginning of a new day, but all I could feel was the lingering sting of Tito’s words and the overwhelming sense that I was more lost than ever. It was a feeling I would never get off from.

It was seriously exhausting to be myself.

The Pit was alive with the usual sounds of misery and routine as I dragged myself out of bed. It was nothing new. There was the harsh crack of the guards' whips echoing through the air, accompanied by their relentless shouts: Vermins this, vermins that!

Like I said, it was nothing new. Reverse was the case here. We were the weird ones, and they were the ones with the sharp teeth. We all had the same schedule, day in and day out—stand in line, brush, and wait for more orders. I shuffled along with the others, trying to shake off my nightmare. Why today? But Tito’s voice still clung to me like a parasite, eating at my remaining peace of mind.

“Get in line!” the guard snapped, his ugly beady eyes scanning everyone as we shuffled into formation. He was bloody ugly. The mornings in the Pit were always the worst because we were usually exhausted before the day had even begun.

And at night—the Lilith's…

Sweat, blood, and feat loomed in the air. Everything felt… heavy. Yesterday's incident didn't make it any easier for us. Who would be next? The walls of the Pit towered over us... It was like living in the belly of some great, uncaring beast. That beast was Malakai.

Who knew he would come here yesterday?

A shiver racked through me as I stood in line, eyes cast down, and brushing my teeth with the same rough brush they gave all of us. It barely managed to scrape off the grime that seemed to cling to our skin. No matter how hard we tried.

It never came off.

It wasn’t just the physical environment that was hostile; it was the people too. We were all here for a reason, whether it was real or fabricated, and no one trusted anyone—humans and halflings alike.

Now, there were subtle rebels too. You could feel it in the way people looked at each other—sideways glances, suspicious glares, and quick movements to avoid unnecessary conversations. If you stayed too long in one spot or talked too much, you were asking for trouble.

“Mina!” A soft voice pulled me out of my daze. It was Nea, her smirk already firmly in place as she sidled up to me, her eyes darting around like she was carrying some sort of secret. Yesterday, she wasn't nice. Today she was. Claire must have told her about my dollar. I grunted, not really in the mood for her games, but something in her expression caught my attention.

“You heard about the Subtle Rebels?” she asked in a low whisper, leaning closer, the stench of last night’s booze clinging to her breath.

“The what now?” I muttered, pretending to brush a bit harder as I tried to focus on something else, anything else. Subtle Rebels sounded like some made-up rubbish, another distraction from the mess we were all stuck in.

“They’re real,” Nea insisted, her eyes wide with excitement. “There’s talk some of them are still around and they’re planning something big.”

I snorted, shaking my head. “Bullshit. No one’s stupid enough to go against the Vipers.”

But Nea wasn’t the only one whispering about it. The slaves—the workers, even the cooks—they all had this look in their eyes. Fear mixed with something else. Hope, maybe? I didn’t know what to make of it, but the Pit didn’t allow for hope. Not here. Hope was a dangerous thing.

Pompeo would crush it.

I ignored Nea, trudging toward the next station. That was when the whispers grew louder. I could hear bits of conversation as we passed through the courtyard. It was almost yesterday.

“They’ve been around for years, but no one’s ever caught them…”

“Well, they caught them yesterday.” I deadpanned, wondering if they were all blind.

“I heard they sabotaged one of the Alpha’s supply lines last month.”

“Don't call that unnatural beast an Alpha.” They began to snap at each other.

I scoffed.

“People say they’ve got connections outside the Pit.”

Each whisper sent a tremor down my spine. Could they really be real? It sounded insane, but there was a weird, unshakeable certainty in their voices. They were convinced. Subtle Rebels—people who dared to go against Malakai’s regime in secret, in small, calculated ways.

“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” one of the older women whispered to me as we walked by. Her voice was raspy, probably worn from years of toil in this horrible place. Or out of it. “If they’re real, maybe there’s a way out of this hellhole.”

“They were caught yesterday, old lady. Move on!” I snapped, facing my line with a seriousness that wasn't me. The thought jolted me. A way out? Of this? I wanted to scoff as usual, but a small, irritating part of me clung to the idea, even though I knew better. There was no way out of the Pit, not for us. And no one could challenge Malakai and live. The man had power—raw and terrifying. He had something called the council elders to back him up. He had warriors and guards. People like me didn’t survive that kind of wrath.

But then again... what if?

I was lost in my thoughts when a sharp voice barked from the front.

“Listen up, vermin!” It was one of the guards, his tone harsh and filled with authority. “All of you are to present your contracts. Evidence of your service to the Pit.”

The pit of my stomach dropped. My contract? My mind raced back to the day I’d signed it. That was f*****g yesterday! Of course, I didn't submit it. A lot happened, and it made my memory foggy, clouded by fear and desperation. But one thing I did remember, clear as the f*****g itself, was the blood. My blood. It had felt wrong, signing something in my own blood. But I didn't have a choice.

My hands trembled as I reached for the scrap of paper hidden in my waistband. The edges were frayed, stained from the dirt in my room, but there it was—my name, Lilith's Nightclub’s letterhead, and my thumbprint—in dark, dried blood under my new wolf master’’s signature. I didn’t even know what I had signed away. My life? My freedom? My soul?

Nea nudged me, her voice low. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I… I signed in my blood,” I whispered, feeling sick. The weight of it all suddenly crashed down on me. “I don’t even know what it means.”

Nea's eyes widened slightly, but she quickly shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter now. You’re in this, same as the rest of us.”

But it did matter. It mattered more than anything. I could feel the walls closing in around me, the Pit suffocating me from all sides. Tito, the f*****g guards, the whispers, the bloody subtle rebels—everything could be a trap, and unfortunately I was caught right in the middle of it.

When the line moved forward, I clutched the contract tighter. My heart hammered in my chest heavily. What had I done? What had I agreed to?

My mind spun with a thousand thoughts. Everything was in ten folds… Every whisper, every glance, and every breath in the Pit felt like hell on earth. And I was claustrophobic all of a sudden. I needed to keep my head down, blend in, and survive. But even with all the intensity swirling around, something else caught my attention.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Stacy biting her fingernails as her eyes darted around nervously. She was biting so hard it looked as though her fingers might bleed.

Hm