CHAPTER ONE
THALIA'S POV
I was just sleeping on my bed when all of a sudden, I heard a splash and my entire body was soaked with water.
I gasped, jolting up from the bed only to see my bed flooded with water. Looking up, I saw Luna Marcella standing at the edge of my bed with an empty bucket.
"Get up and follow me!" Luna's sharp tone sliced through the air, making me flinch. I swallowed my irritation, wondering why Luna Marcella, the alpha female of the pack was in my room this late.
I knew this was a problem. I had already cleaned the entire house and done the dishes and only decided to rest for a few minutes.
“Luna Marcella, I thought this was my resting period,” I said, trying to be as polite as possible even though I hated her for all the mistreatment she had given me ever since I met her.
Just after asking that question, she landed a thunderous slap on my face, causing me to stagger backwards.
Suddenly, I heard a male voice entering the room. I raised my head and I saw it was Luna Marcella’s son Martin.
“Mother, why waste your precious time and energy on this worthless servant, you could have simply called me to do that job of slapping her to put her in order,” Martin said and I clenched my teeth.
“That wouldn’t be necessary son, just go and assist your father with the arrangements,” Luna Marcella said to his son, Martin. I wondered what arrangements they were speaking of.
“Oh.. Okay, mom, that is why I’m here by the way, Father wants you to come meet Alpha Tristan,” Martin said and his mother quickly shot a glare at him and suddenly he stopped talking.
“Just go.... help your father out,” Luna Marcella said and Martin sighed in relief and walked away. It seemed to me like he was trying to say something but was silenced by his mother’s glare.
"Alpha Tristan, as in the cold blodded murderer?" I asked the in shock. I had no plan of talking to her, not after that slap, but I was shocked.
"What is he doing at our pack?" I asked Luna Marcella, still in shock.
Alpha Tristan Ulric, although I had never set my eyes on him, I had heard so many terrible stories about him. He was the son of the late Alpha Atticus Ulric, the fierce killer wolf. Like his father, Tristan was a killer wolf, highly ranked in the society of Alphas. In short he was a cold-blooded murderer.
Luna turned to me slowly with a sadistic smile on her face.
"Yes, Alpha Tristan is right here as our visitor tonight," Luna Marcella said, causing me to wonder what Alpha Rafael and Luna Marcella would want to do with such a terrible monster like Alpha Tristan.
Just before I could mention another word, Luna Marcella threw a bomb at me that left me frozen.
"He has come to take you home," she said and my jaw dropped. I shook my head, unable to process her words.
Take me home? How?? My head was spinning so bad that I couldn't comprehend what she meant until she spoke again.
"You will be officially married to Alpha Tristan Ulric tonight, your wedding ceremony begins in an hour," she said to me and my heart stopped.
"What???!" I exclaimed, short of words to say, stammering, I said a bunch of words that were not properly articulated.
"M..m..me?? H-ow wh...wha-what do you mean Luna??" I asked, and then she quickly seized my throat, wrapping her cold fingers around it.
My heart was pounding terrible as she pushed my against the door, squeezing tightly.
"Now you listen to me, Alpha Tristan has paid for you, and you don't have a choice, you either follow him home or remain here and be killed by Rafael and I, you worthless thing," she said and I gulped.
I still couldn't comprehend...
Paid? Alpha Tristan paid to have me as his mate, a monster of his kind? I was dead, that was the end of me.
I felt cold all of a sudden as I remain standing, dripping in water, my mouth wide open.
"Consider that as a bathe, take this dress, put it on," Luna Marcella said, throwing one beautiful dress at me. I my life, I had never wore such a dress, this showed I was really getting married and she wasn't joking.
I was too frozen to register her instructions so she just walked over and pulled the dress I was putting on initially by herself. She then put the new dress on me like I was a statue as I remained unmoved in shock.
“Now, come!” she said, dragging me by my ear all the way out of my room and into her own daughter’s room. She threw me into the chair in front of her makeup mirror forcefully and I winced.
I wondered what I was supposed to do there, until she walked over to the drawer and pulled it open, revealing a set of makeup kits.
I gulped, realizing all these were for Lyra, her daughter. I just hoped it wasn’t what I was thinking. I hoped she wasn’t going to ask me to use Lyra’s makeup on my face.
“There, your face looks terrible that the groom is probably going to run off, apply some of these,” she said, pushing my neck downward to look at the drawer, almost shoving my head all the way into it.
Just as I started applying the makeup on my face, I knew that I had to be fast because if Lyra saw me, she would kill me. I wouldn’t have agreed to use the makeup on my face, but the Luna gave the instructions, unless I wanted to get slapped again.
I was still shocked by the sudden news, I didn't even know what to say or how to react. I just found myself doing what she asked of me.
I was almost done, then all of a sudden, I looked at the mirror and saw Lyra’s reflection in it. My heart raced faster as she walked hurriedly towards me, grabbing my hair and pulling me off the chair to the floor.
“Mom, what the hell is this thing doing with my stuff?!” Lyra shouted, still holding onto my hair while she talked to her mother. Her voice was really irritating, showing that she was an obviously spoiled brat.
“Lyra, let go of my hair, it hurts,” I said, struggling to get a grip of my own hair and pull it out of her grasp, but as always, she ignored me, knowing I had no worth in the pack.
“Shut up!!” she said in anger as she turned back to her mother, Luna Marcella, pissed about me using her makeup.
“Lyra, sweetie, I was the one who let Thalia use your makeup. Don’t worry, this will be the first and the last time, because today we will be marrying her off,” Luna Marcella said to her brat of a daughter. I was still struggling to get a grip of my hair as she twisted it. I clenched my teeth, feeling like retaliating, but I had to silence my anger.
With those words, Lyra let go of my hair, but purposely did it in a way that my head slightly bumped against the floor, and I winced. Luna huffed as if the scene was funny to her, and then she took her daughter’s hand and they both walked out.
I learned that I was found and taken in by Alpha Rafael when I was just a newborn, my parents supposedly were pack members who went rogue. Growing up, I yearned to dig out the truth about my true parents, but each attempt to uncover my origins only resulted in swift punishment from Alpha Rafael and his son Martin.
“Never cross that border, you owe my wife and me your servitude, you owe us your life, we own you, so you can never cross the border looking for your irresponsible parents who abandoned you,” Alpha Rafael would say this about strangling me each time he caught me trying to go out of the packhouse.
Everyone in the pack hated me, be it the Alpha family or not. The members cleaned my name from anything pack members should be entitled to.
The only one who talked to me was Nova. I awakened my wolf Nova, turning 18 few months ago. With her by my side, I got a friend and someone to share things with; she was always in my head, comforting me in hard times.
I had almost forgotten I was still standing there in Lyra’s room until someone pinched my ear and dragged me. I winced in pain. It was no one else but Lyra, accompanied by her mother.
“She can’t keep treating you like that, Lyra, fight her back, just for once...” My wolf, Nova, said in my head.
“I can’t...” I said back to Nova in my head as she struggled to be released by me, to take out the anger on Lyra.
“No, we can’t fight her; she is the Alpha’s daughter. Besides, I will leave the pack soon because I am getting married,” I said to Nova who was still struggling to break through me.
Just as I battled to contain Nova within me, Luna Marcella stormed into my front and slapped me for the second time that day, anger spreading across her face as her chest pumped up and down.
“Who do you think you are?! You think we should all sit there in the ceremony ground and wait for you to get dressed? Come with me, you fool; your mate-to-be is waiting at the altar,” she said, dragging me along as my eyes watered from the slap, my hand on my cheek.