While you should beware of the Alpha that secures the head, the Theta that secures the rear might prove to be even more formidable.

ZINA

Zina felt the sharp edge of a cold blade against her neck as she rubbed her hands together in prayer at the only temple of the moon goddess near her small pack. The sudden sensation made her breath catch, and she stilled, her thoughts racing. 

Who could be here, daring to disrupt her prayers?

Her hand darted out instinctively, reaching for her staff in defense, but the hot breath of the intruder against her skin froze her in place. The man's next words sealed her fate.

"I will advise against that. Besides, you still reek of the pain of your rejection. Do you really think you can fight against me in your state?" His voice was rough, guttural, and it sent a wave of terror crashing through her.

Zina's hand fell back, her body betraying her as memories she had tried to bury began to surface. The stranger's words had triggered something deep within her, an echo of a voice she could never forget but wished to forget.

'I, Jacen Vampage rejec… no, I shall not reject you. However you must be my mistress, you simply do not have the makings of my future mate, but I might find you agreeable in bed.'

"Who are you?" Zina asked in a fake strong voice although she already knew the answer. Not to who he is, but perhaps, to what was his purpose.

"I have the ones that you're currently praying for." The rough voice answered, his voice laced with glee at Zina's predicament. There she was—blind, wolfless, rejected, and struggling to hold onto the last sanity that existed in her life… her pack members.

Another errant memory of her encounter with Jacen Vampage zapped through her mind, this time around, it was her response to the son of the Vampage Pack's beta.

'Your mistress?! The heavens will fall off the day I shall be anyone's mistress!'

Zina shook off the memory. She had no time to dwell on her own pain when she had more important things at stake.

"What do you want?" Zina asked the man the only reasonable question she could think of. If they had kidnapped all her pack members save for her, then they must want something from her although Zina could not fathom what it could possibly.

She had nothing to offer to anyone, not even to herself.

"Follow me and make no noise while you're at it. Try anything and we shall massacre all twenty-five members of your pack, including your brother Pia." He growled the last words menacingly, pushing Zina who was kneeling upright, and leading her out of the temple.

Zina scrambled after her staff as she stumbled blindly under the lead of the man who was anything but gentle with her.

She was shoved in a carriage, and as the wheels ran on the rough roads leading to the underworld, Zina became painfully aware of the pain of her rejection that she had all but acted as if didn't exist when she realised her pack members were missing that morning.

She curled into herself, hugging her body as a familiar constant darkness greeted her sight. She removed her white blindfold, allowing the darkness of the carriage to caress her eyelids that were hardly exposed to the sunlight.

Ever since her birth, Zina was born without a sight. But then, the gods had blessed her with another terrifying kind of sight… the rare ability to see the future.

But in the face of her despair that morning, even as she rubbed her palm together, praying fervently, asking the moon goddess for a vision. Her spiritual sight had woefully failed her. She met a darkness different from the one she was used to in the physical world, and in this darkness, her spiritual sight taunted her, making her realise that she was just a tool, and it, her master.

The sight was hers, but the seeing was not for her to decide… it was for the gods and the powers unknown.

The gods, they were funny people. The carriage halted abruptly, shoving Zina forward from the impact. As her head hit the side of the carriage, another errant memory washed over her.

'What makes you think I, or anyone for that matter, will want you for a mate! You're blind, have this weird haunting white hair, and your eyes… I've not seen them but I can only imagine what kind of sight it would be!'

"Out!" Her captors' command jolted her from memories of the past as he dragged her out of the carriage. Zina had tied back her blindfold as she was more comfortable with it. With the fold on, people stared at her less, without the fold on, people stared at her more.

Jacen was right about one thing; the colour of her eyes scared people, even her pack members felt some sort of trepidation on seeing it. They told her it was a terrifying clear white that pierced into the soul of anyone who dared to look at it.

The man dragged her up what seemed like a short flight of stairs, uncaring for the fact that she stumbled in her attempt to catch up with him. She fell, sprained her ankle, and her skin scratched and tore.

Throughout it all, Zina clutched at her staff like her life depended on it; it was afterall the only gift her biological mother had left her, alongside her small young body on the day she had abandoned her in a forest, only for her current pack members to find her and adopt her.

On the wooden staff was inscribed the words 'the abandoned one' in the ancient language of the mountain wolves.

Thralgor.

Throughout her life, those words rang true like a horrifying prophecy, following her like an ugly tag. In everything she put her hands in, nothing ever seemed to go right with her, and her rejection by Jacen Vampage was just the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone abandoned Zina, save for her pack which was why she would fight harder with everything in her to save them. No one, not even the heavens and the earth will take them away from her.

Another dialogue from her horrid encounter with Jacen filtered through her mind. This time, she was the one responding,

'I believe it is you who is weak and incapable. Have you thought th…that you're not what a woman is looking for in a mate?! I too reject you Jacen Vampage. The gods m…must have been crazy to have paired us in the first place!'

Okay, she might have stuttered a bit, but she believed she managed to convey her intentions nonetheless.

"What is it that emboldens you so?!" Jacen had screamed in horror.

In a false attempt at bravado, Zina had responded. 'I've always had a dream of a man even more handsome than the stars. I might not be able to see Vampage. But believe me when I say that you do not hold a candle to him! Es…especially not with that rotten, immoral attitude of yours!'

Jacen Vampage had bolted off, calling her crazy because however could a blind, Wolfless girl like Zina be anything but crazy? With his permanent exit, her first chance at a mate abandoned her too.

Everything happened two weeks ago when Zina had just clocked eighteen years old, and the days that followed saw her in a daze. Despite the false bravado she put up, despite the façade of nonchalance she had, the truth was that she was in so much pain.

…pain beyond the pain of losing the mating bond, and a pain beyond her entire pathetic existence.

Her pack members in an attempt to console hadn't been the most helpful in her situation.

The Alpha's godmother had consoled her saying, "the people of our world have finally run mad. No one has regard for the blessed mating process ordained by the moon goddess. Mistress! Mistresses are all they want!"

Then their Alpha had said to her, "Oh Zina, between you and I we both know that Jace Vampage holds no candle to you! He might be the son of the beta of a prominent pack, but your divine powers are nothing he could ever possibly comprehend!"

Then their beta had told her, "dear dear Zina, I know you have only longed for peace and quiet, the Vampage pack won't be able to give you that. Surely, this rejection is a good thing, no?"

No one had asked her how much pain she was in; no one had asked her how much it hurt, Zina knew it that they had all assumed it couldn't possibly hurt when she was without a wolf.

Zina was forced back to her present situation when her captor roughly shoved her to the ground. From her senses, it seemed they had entered a sort of room.

"Well, well," the clear sinister voice of a middle-aged man rang out. The man stared down at Zina who turned to the direction of the voice, her hearing as sharp as ever from almost two decades of honing. "Look who we have here."