CHAPTER ONE: THE BEGINNING OF A TRAGIC END
The whole room was as silent as a graveyard, save for the loud beatings of my heart, thumping loudly in my chest. My body was frozen, my knees glued to the floor, with my eyes fixed on the elder who was about to place the crown on my head.
"Summer, get up on your feet now before I come and pull you up myself!" Alan's voice boomed as he made his way toward me.
Not only had Alan stormed into the throne room to disrupt the coronation, but he had also begun to make a scene. "Do you really think that someone like you would ever become Luna?!" Alan shot at me.
"What.... What is the meaning of this, Alan?" I spin my head around with a confused expression on my face to address my future mate.
"I said get up from there, Summer!" Alan yelled out again before coming to yank me up to my feet.
The look of confusion on my face intensified as I stared at Alan with disbelief. "We all know what you really are, Summer, I don't even know why I thought someone like you would be my mate...."
"What...what are you talking about?" I stuttered heavily as I spoke.
"Don't even try to pretend...and thereby I'm going to use this opportunity to announce who my mate is to everyone," Alan said with a smirk on his face.
I opened my mouth to say something, but then hesitated and just let my jaw hang down loosely.
"Come on out here, Davina!" Alan shouted, his hand gesturing toward the door, but his eyes were fixated on me, and I continued to shiver like a leaf in winter.
The door flung open, and Davina, my step-sister, along with some elders, made their way into the throne room. "Come on here, my love." Alan smiled genuinely at her.
I felt like a hand had gripped my throat and was constricting the airflow from it when Alan kissed Davina on the lips in front of me.
"Everyone, this is my mate, and the one whom I'll get married to," Alan announced, his hands wrapped in a loving embrace around Davina's waist.
I felt my heart sink into my stomach as tears began to form in the corner of my eye. The so-called elders that had walked in with Davina began to make their way toward me.
"Summer, you are hereby stripped of your position of becoming the Luna of this pack." Their leader spoke up and reached for the crown to take it from the elder who was still holding on to it.
"This coronation will not hold!" He announced, and subtle gasps swept from the crowd that had gathered to witness my coronation.
I stood my ground and just kept staring at the elder who had retrieved the crown, just a mere betrayal from Alan and an abnormality during my coronation wouldn't be able to kill my spirit. I didn't want to appear frail in front of the crowd; they were my people, and I would still protect them, regardless, Luna or not.
"This coronation will not hold because this woman here, who you ignorant fool was about to crown her as Luna, is a murderer." The elder said, wagging his index finger at the one who had almost placed the crown on my head.
More gasps flew into the air, and soon there was an uproar in the midst of the people. My resolve had begun to dissipate into thin air. It felt as if I had been thrust into a whirlpool of devastation.
"Murder?" I couldn't help but let out.
"Do not pretend like you do not know what he is talking about, Summer!" Davina let out to my face. "You killed your own parents, and here you stand to deny it?"
My eyes bulged, and my throat suddenly went dry. It still felt like a nightmare to me, a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from no matter how hard I tried.
"This woman who you people would have agreed to be your Luna is a murderer. She killed her own parents and silenced me from speaking the truth." Davina added.
"But now, I had to summon the courage to tell the world about what she had done when I saw that she was about to be crowned the Luna, I wouldn't sit back and watch a murderer rule this pack." Davina let out, poisoning the people's minds against me.
My mouth was wide open as the false allegations were laid on me, I was so dazed that I couldn't even deny what was being said, and the label on me as my own parent's murderer.
"Hang her, Hang her, Hang her!!" The people had started to scream out. A discreet smile played out on Davina's face as she stepped back.
The elder with the crown tried to quiet down the crowd, but his efforts were futile as guards had already proceeded to hold me down in case I had any plans of escaping.
I, who had been paralyzed already by the allegations, gave in to the guards, who had tied me down like a criminal without putting up a fight.
"Hang her, Hang her!!" The people kept on saying tha one had even grabbed the opportunity to hit me in the face when another elder stepped in.
"Guards, take her to the dungeon, this evil woman will be hanged!"