I felt something warm against my back as I stirred awake.
"Don't move so much dear." Urma's voice cooed.
I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying face-front on my tummy and that my back was exposed down to my waist.
I watched as Urma dipped the water inside a pail of bucket and squeezed it, then she gently pressed it over my open wounds.
"Ahhh." I cried out.
Urma smoothened my hair. "My child don't worry, the pain would soon be over."
I felt my throat choked up as I reminisced on my suffering.
For nineteen years, that was all I had known.
No happiness, no family, no future, no escape.
I was trapped.
"That useless girl." Urma snorted. "A good number of times I want to give her a good beating."
"You shouldn't say such." I managed. "What if they hear you?"
I couldn't afford to lose her or put her in trouble.
I had come to learn that people had been put in trouble for helping me.
When I was younger an omega had offered me some of his food.
Luna Maria had accused him of stealing and had his hands cut off.
Everyone steered clear of me after that incident.
The omega had grown to hate me. I was only six years old when this had happened.
"There is nothing they can do," Urma said to me. "How long will they treat you like this?"
I was silent.
I had asked myself that same question too.
She picked up one of her ointment bottles and rubbed it over my back.
The pain burned.
If I had shifted then I would be able to heal all my injuries.
But I had not. That was another thing.
It was a further abomination that I had reached the age of nineteen and still hadn't shifted.
It meant that you were never going to find a mate and that you were useless.
How much more could fate be cruel to me?
Urma picked up a knife and cut her palm.
"Why did you do that?" I asked her in shock.
She pressed the blood over my back and I felt my back burn.
I screamed in pain.
But she held me.
"I'm so sorry my child." She said.
Then the pain slowly eased.
"I had to use my blood to heal you, or you might not heal on time." She said. "The marks are becoming too much."
I couldn't even tell her thank you.
I was too weak for that.
There were loud bells ringing around the entire castle.
Urma turned to me.
"The Alpha is back." She said.
I swallowed.
My father. My father didn't want me or anything that had to do with me.
He had never openly acknowledged me as his child and sometimes I doubted it, but Urma had confirmed the rumors and told me it was true
Throughout my growth, he had ignored me and acted like I didn't exist.
I had grown to be so scared of him.
When he would speak to the thousands of our pack members from his balcony with Luna Maria, his son Abel, and their daughter Jessica, I would cower watching them.
Wondering if one day I would be up there too with them.
But I had grown up to realize that that was a dream that would never come true.
I knew that he had gone to fight with some of the other enemy packs as usual.
Our pack frequently sang his song of praises and how he made every other pack go down on their knees.
They all feared him.
Even the Wolf Council.
I started to get up.
"You need to rest." She stopped me.
"But I have to attend to Her Majesty," I said.
Urma snorted. "Ignore that spoilt brat. You need to rest. Don't worry. She won't do anything."
Exhaustion took the best of me and I nodded slowly and fell back to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alpha Bale paced his throne room.
He was furious.
He had just returned and he had lost the battle. Horribly.
It was his first loss in almost thirty years and it had been to the Crescent Moon pack.
And to put further humiliation to his name, it was to a young alpha.
Xaden who he had remembered to be a child when he had murdered his family was now a man and had grown so powerful and hungry for revenge.
It had shocked him as Xaden's wolf army wiped all his men in a clean sweep. Only he had survived.
Never had he witnessed such disgrace and like a coward, he had had to run and beg for help from the wolf council who had agreed to intervene.
But Xaden was asking for too much and Bale had been forced to agree.
Or his own head would have gone.
The door was opened and his wife Maria came in.
"What happened? I didn't see your party outside. Is everything al-
"Where is Jasmine?" He asked cutting her short.
She stopped in her tracks blinking at him in shock and her face became grim.
"You mean the bastard child you fathered?" She asked him.
He glared at her. "Do not push me, Maria. Not today. Where the fuck is she?!"
Maria flinched. "She is down with that healer."
He rubbed his face.
"What's happening?" She asked.
"We lost the war." He said. Her mouth dropped. "We lost every fucking thing. We're at the mercy of that bastard Xaden."
"Xaden? Who is Xaden?"
Then she paused and it dawned on her. "Wasn't he Orion's son? Didn't you kill him?" Maria asked.
He hissed ignoring her as he raked his hair. "I didn't see it coming. It was an ambush. I didn't know he was alive. He had been growing his strengths for years I had no idea."
Orion and Bale had been best friends but it had come down to power and Bale had attacked Orion's pack and massacred them.
He had rendered the entire pack useless, killing Orion and his entire family.
He had thought he had killed Xaden too, but somehow the child had survived and when he had seen him on the battlefield he knew that it was over for him.
"He would have killed all of us if I didn't go to the council. They intervened and the accord demands all my children to be handed over to him." He said.
He banged a mirror with his fist and it shattered.
"Give out? What do you mean?" She asked.
"Xaden is going to own them and the entire pack as his. We will be at his mercy."
Maria looked like she was going to faint.
She shook her head as she gripped his armor. "No, not my son. Not my daughter. Not my children! How could you let this happen?"
"We have no choice." He said.
"We can send them off away. To hide somewhere." She begged as she fell down to his feet crying.
"They know what Abel looks like!" He said.
It was his own son. His only son! Did she think he liked this too?
"The council and Xaden's pack is coming, they are already on their way here," Bale said. "We can save Jessica. Jasmine is my blood. They would sniff to be sure that she is mine and confirm it."
"But she is a bastard," Maria said tears in her eyes.
"But they don't know that," Bale answered. "You don't understand. He is here for blood. And he will never stop. Where is Jasmine?"
Maria blinked at him.
"She was whipped today."
Bale wanted to scream and kick his wife.
"THEY ARE ALREADY ON THEIR WAY AND WILL HOLD US SEIGE HOW WOULD THEY BELIEVE SHE IS A PRINCESS OF THIS PACK WHEN THEY SEE SHE IS SICK?????!!!!!!!