Cravings

Faking it

"You have some audacity!" Alpha Duncal snarled, his brusque speech matching his seething rage. I whimpered and winced in pain as he grabbed a handful of my hair and threatened to rip it out of my scalp. He forced my head up to ensure I was looking him dead in the eyes as he trounced me with his venomous, mordant words. "How dare you call your Luna a liar! You are not even remorseful! When I am done with you, you are going to wish you were never born."

"Yes, Alpha," his beta, Cullin, urged him on and I could tell just how much he desired to spit on my face the same way he did when he collected me from my cell last night. "Our Luna almost lost her life because of this worthless, pathetic creature, you must show her no mercy. Her punishment must be no less than what she deserves." Alpha Duncan's head snapped to his side and he growled at beta Cullin.

"Shut the f**k up, Cullin. I do not appreciate your tone and I did not ask for your f*****g input." His jaw clenched as he locked eyes with me again and I feared that he would wrap his large hands around my neck and strangle me to death if not bludgeon me lifeless with his fists.

"You have crossed the line, Allesia, death would be too good for you, you little shit." My tough act crumbled down at his words and my salty tears rolled down my cheeks.

My heart was torn apart by pain, my chest was tight and I could not take in air properly. Being wrongfully accused is the most unjust, hurtful thing that has ever happened to me.

I was being set up, Luna Diana was using me to cover up her lies. For whatever reason, Luna Diana loathed me just before she "fell pregnant", before that she just disregarded me, she barely noticed me and I was stunned when she started paying more attention to me. For the last five months, she has went out of her way to make my life a living hell and now she is accusing me of pushing her down the stairs and causing her miscarriage and she has recruited her loyal puppets to back her up.

She started devising ways to get me in grave trouble with Alpha Duncal after I overheard her asking one of the pack doctors what she could do to increase her chances of falling pregnant five months after her pregnancy was announced and celebrated with a grand ceremony. There was immense desperation in her voice, you could tell that the walls were closing in on her and that she had tried and tried and tried to the point of frustration and distress.

I am not furtive in nature, unlike the agile predators around me; stealth is not my strongest point, so I was caught eavesdropping and had to carry on as though I had not heard anything, but Luna Diana knew that I knew about one of her biggest secrets. Her belly was as flat as ever when she faced me with the deadliest of glares, so the truth was indisputable. She had faked the pregnancy. For whatever reason.

Then only nine days go by and in a strike of "uncanny coincidence and convinience", she happens to be at the top of the stairs as a wave of pain hits her, and she decides to ignore all her other servants and instead calls for me to help her. I had not even put my hands on her or assessed the situation for that matter, when she screamed and tumbled down the stairs. She had literally thrown herself down the stairs and did not injure herself fatally, because the fall must have been rehearsed a million times. Then right after her body hits the bottom of the stairs, Benicia, one of our gamma's daughter and Luna Diana's favourite subordinate comes out screaming, "You pushed her! Allesia pushed our luna down the stairs!"