But now they’re going to sacrifice me?
With a huge lump forming in my throat, the measly appetite I had dissipates and turns to dread, fear thumping in my eardrums as I back away from the door. Shaking my head in disbelief, I realize the extent of my being an outcast in the pack.
I’m just a disposable pack member they’re going to sacrifice to a dreadful spirit that’s been killing lone werewolves in the forest.
I must be cursed, I think as my heart begins pounding, leading me to the back door of the pack’s cafeteria, where I can sneak out without being seen. It’s not like I’ll be missed. Unless someone comes looking for me to throw me like a bone to the demon dog.
Once I’m safely behind the closed door of my isolated cabin on the outskirts of town, my heart sinks. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the alphas would pick me to be sacrificed to the demon, but the revelation is a sting to my already dwindling ego that had been hanging by a thread ever since I was old enough to understand that I was different. Sure, I’m weaker than all the others, but surely the alphas would want to protect everyone in the pack, including me.
You’re a nobody to them,a tiny voice chides scornfully in the back of my mind, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to drown it out. But it only makes things worse when tears pool behind my eyelids.
I’m not shocked, just disappointed that the alphas would stoop so low that they’d offer up one of their own.
I was expecting better from Alpha Elias, the leader of this pack. Out of all the alphas, he was the one I thought had a heart purer than the rest.
I shouldn’t be surprised at that, either. He’s proven me wrong before. Maybe it’s just my personal feelings getting in the way again, like they did years ago…
Opening my eyes, my fists curl at my sides with a sense of determination stronger than any flicker of hope I might have had that I’d ever be safe in a pack where I have nothing to offer.
My only hope of survival is running away. Besides, I have nothing keeping me bound to the pack. I’m the last member of the Sinclair family. Not even loyalty should keep me here.
The pack is undeserving of such loyalty when I’ve been treated like scum. Because of my size and my weaker wolf, I am nothing to them.
There’s no point in hanging on to a pack that dismissed me all my life. There’s no point in hanging on to the hope that my other skills are valuable enough to perpetuate my worth in the pack.
It’s not like any of them care that I’m only a werewolf because of my father’s bloodline. My mother was—
“Aurora,” comes a familiar voice from behind the front door, jolting me from my wallowing thoughts in which I was debating whether I should stay or leave without anyone knowing.
That voice startles me, because I haven’t heard him call my name in half a decade. Like a deer caught in the headlights of my almost-escape, my eyes widen when a firm fist bangs on the door.
I must have missed the first time he knocked, because this one sounds urgent, and I wonder if he has an army of Snehvolk wolves behind him, here to drag me into the forest toward my demise as the sacrifice for the demon.
Gulping hard, I turn around slowly, hoping that I can be careful enough not to alert the alpha that I’m inside. But when the floorboards creak under my weighted movement, I wince just as he calls my name a second time.
My bottom lip trembles with the fear coursing through my veins, my arm leaden as I reach for the door. The missing handle means my fingertips are the first thing he sees when I tentatively pull on the edge of the cracking wood. There’s no way I can hide now.
My breath hitches in my throat when I look up to find the Alpha of Snehvolk standing on the porch. The tresses of his platinum blonde hair catch the rays of silvery moonlight shining behind him, and his usually light hazel eyes appear darker when I meet them. My heart skips a beat when I’m ensnared by those hypnotic eyes, and for a moment, I’m whirled into a memory that I’d buried long ago.
It feels like it was only just yesterday when I was a teen on the brink of receiving my wolf—at least, that’s what I thought when I turned eighteen, and just like everyone in the pack, I expected my wolf to come on my birthday.
When it didn’t appear, and I found myself on the edge of mountains, having wandered there through heartbreak, it was Alpha Elias McGruff who’d come looking for me to take me back to Girdwood. That was when a childhood crush turned to the deepest love I’d ever felt; I thought he actually cared about me. I ended up spewing the declaration on the spot, and heturned around and looked at me as if I were the most ridiculous, hideous creature on Earth.
“You love me?”he’d scoffed back then, his eyes full of wild disbelief.
“Y-yes,”I’d murmured, my breath catching when Elias took a step forward and stared deeply into my eyes.
The only frightening part was how dark his eyes had become, staring into my soul with an empty expression.
“I could never love you, Aurora Sinclair. I reject your love, and I reject you as my mate. I never want to hear you breathe a word of this.”
His brutal rejection back then left a gaping hole in my heart, and for the past five years, I’ve barely set foot in front of him. His rejection was too heartbreaking, and apart from burying my feelings for the alpha I thought was kind and honorable, I’d seen him for what he truly is.
Cold and heartless, just like everyone else in this pack. I’d been foolish to think that the alpha could ever consider my love. I was only a teenager back then, while he’d been a mature thirty-year-old who couldn’t accept the love of a naive child. I might be older now, but he has twelve years on me, and there’s no way we could ever see eye to eye.
Now that he’s in front of me again, after spending the last five years keeping as far away from him as possible, I realize there must have been a small ounce of hope that made me believe he might have a semblance of goodness in him. Maybe I hadn’t buried it all away, but I should have.
Elias strokes the stubble on his chin as if he’s hesitant, giving me a moment to gather my composure with a deep breath. The reminder of the pain he’d caused me also serves as areminder that I’ve done well at keeping my distance all this time, showing him that I didn’t care about his rejection.
