River was shocked. She looked at Hector and Victoria incredulously.
On her eighteenth birthday, River had smelled her mate as soon as she entered her school. The mouthwatering smell of her mate made her run in the direction of the main ground of the school.
Excited, she opened the door and realized that her mate was none other than Hector, son of Alpha Maxim. Standing in the middle of the school’s ground he looked gorgeous. She was attracted to him like Icarus to the sun.
She started to walk towards him when suddenly she saw that Hector’s arms were wrapped around Victoria’s waist as he glared at her with furrowed brows and clenched teeth, warning her to come any closer.
Upon seeing her coming closer, Victoria swept her dark hair on the other side, pressed her hand on his chest, and strategically upturned her neck for him.
River halted in her tracks, her stomach getting twisted into knots. All the students had their eyes on Hector and Victoria. Anticipation rippled in the air.
After a few seconds of glaring at her, Hector turned to Victoria and sank his teeth in her neck, marking her as his mate.
Air punched out of River’s lungs as excruciating pain blasted in her chest. She sank to the floor, unable to believe what just happened.
Every student broke into applause and started cheering Hector and Victoria. The whole school, including the teachers and headmistress, congratulated the Alpha’s son and Victoria for being the future Alpha and Luna of the pack.
A sob worked its way up, and River’s throat choked with emotions associated with the worst kind of betrayal she had ever experienced. River took shaky steps back, receding into the shadows. Eyes burning with tears, she turned and ran outside towards the greenhouse at the end of the school’s perimeter.
“This can’t be!” River ran through the woods as she rasped. “This is not possible!” She ran as fast as she could, summoning her wolf, Gia, to come out, but Gia was so stunned by her mate’s rejection that she was numb. Frozen inside her.
As compared to Victoria, River was nothing, being an omega’s daughter. And Hector was the most handsome boy of the pack. He had alpha blood in him. Tall and muscular, he had features like that of a Greek God. Golden hair and gray eyes. Victoria was the most beautiful and curvaceous she-wolf of the Crescent Pack and Hector’s favorite since forever. They were sure they were each other’s mates and behaved as such.
Daughter of an omega and a human, River’s mother abandoned her after a torrid love affair with her father, Kirk, saying that the child would be a ****in the human world. Little did she know that River would be a ***in the werewolves’ world too. Everyone hated her because her wolf was scraggy and weak.
When River was a year old, her father met his mate and married her. After that, River’s life took a serious downturn. Her stepmother, Hazel, hated her. Since they couldn’t throw her out of the house, Hazel ensured that River did every work of the house like a maid. If she would make a mistake, Hazel and Kirk would beat her up severely.
At school too, she was bullied and harassed by other students. River was waiting to find her mate on her eighteenth birthday, hoping to be relieved of this agony because mates took care of each other, but she was not ready for this.
She ran through the woods towards the greenhouse. When she could no longer do it, she leaned against an oak, wheezing and sobbing, rubbing her hand against her chest to ease her pain. Her shoulders wracked as loud sobs burned the back of her throat.
She was an abomination that the Moon Goddess had created. Her body was full of black and blue marks that she received from her parents’ beating, but the new pain she felt right now paled all other pains in her body. She felt as if her world was falling apart and that someone had wrenched her soul on the inside.
“Why me?” she looked up and asked the Moon Goddess, blaming her for every ****. “What have I done to you?” River dragged her feet inside the greenhouse towards her corner, where she had grown numerous roses. She leaned against a shelf of tools, trying to breathe. She didn’t know for how long she stayed there, but suddenly, from behind someone grabbed her throat and squeezed it hard.
“Hector!” she choked as he came in front of her. She grabbed his wrist and tried to wrench it away, but she was no match to him.
He peeled his lips back and bared his fangs as he towered over her. “If you dare to speak a word to anyone that you’re my mate, I’m going to kill you and then rip your body into so many pieces that your father won’t be able to recognize you! You get that?”
River stared at him with wide eyes, as tears continued to roll out. “B- but I am your mate,” she reasoned, hoping to see compassion in his eyes. Mates loved each other. Madly.
He scowled as disgust etched all over his face. With his fingers around her throat, he pulled her and then slammed her against another shelf, drawing out a cry from her. Stars burst in her vision, but she managed to look at him through her dazed state.
“Did you think that a scraggy half human half wolf would be my mate?” he scoffed as he glowered at her. “You’ll never be my mate. Victoria is the one for me,” he snarled.
River whimpered when she felt his dominant aura slipping out of him and affecting her. “Hector-”
Angered, he hurled her towards the pots of roses. She crashed on them, shattering a few in the process.
The thorns and shards of ceramic bruised her skin.
He snarled at her and then stomped out. As she watched him disappear in the woods, she felt her vision faltering. Now. she remembered as to why Victoria would often mess with her. She would simply bump into her or corner her and bash her for the slightest mistake, and Hector would do nothing but laugh at her.
She didn’t know for how long she lay in the greenhouse surrounded by the roses she had so lovingly grown, but when she saw a star peeping out of the sky through the trees above, she heard her friend Lena shouting her name. “River! River!”
Lena was her only friend at the school. A daughter of a gamma, she was the only one River could lean on.
“Hector is my mate…” River whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” Lena whispered as she lifted River in her arms and cradled her head in her lap. “That Hector is a ****!” She understood the situation and couldn’t help but pity River.
After River had again cried in Lena’s arms, she got up. Along with Lena, she walked back to her home, knowing she would be beaten all over again.
However, when she reached home, a surprise was waiting for her.
