Chapter 1

Four hundred years later

[Nivera’s POV]

As the men approached with stampeding horses, I ran deeper into the woods, not stopping even for a second to catch my breath. I didn’t want to die just like that, and I was terribly scared of what they would do to me. I came to a halt when I got to a cliff… I was at a dead end. There was no other way out of there.

With time ticking, I realised I needed to make a decision quickly. It was either I jumped and fell to my death, or allowed myself to let them slaughter me like an animal. I decided the former was the better option, but just when I was about to jump off, I saw him and to me, it seemed like time had stopped for a moment.

Standing at 6’4 tall, he easily towered above the men who were after my life. I stood, glued to the ground as he mercilessly descended on them and defeated them without putting up too much fight. They just weren’t any match for him, and the ones that could see that quickly ran off and escaped for their lives.

“You saved me yet again,” I heard myself say.

He slightly turned his head but failed to look me in the eyes, and as he always did, he made to leave. I moved as quickly as I could and held his hand to stop him from leaving.

“Show me your face. Let me know who you are,” I said in a voice that sounded more like a whisper.

I saw long black claws spring out from his nails, but I wasn’t afraid. He made to turn to face me and as he did, I looked on with expectation when suddenly…

“Nivera! Nivera!” A voice I recognised all too well as Alice’s yelled, and the next thing I knew was cold water being poured all over my body, drenching my clothes whole and soaking the mattress I had been using since I was barely ten years old, which I had obviously outgrown.

I opened my eyes and sat up almost immediately, suffering a minor headache as memories of my dream flashed through my mind.

I was angry. “You should have at least let me seen his face!” I yelled angrily.

The pregnant silence that fell upon the room told me it would have been better if I had kept quiet. For a second, I had thought I was still in dreamland and had forgotten that I had no right whatsoever to yell at anyone or to even get angry.

There were about seven girls in the room and all eyes were on me. I climbed out of the bed immediately and fell to my knees, clasping my hands tightly. “I am sorry, Alice. I made a mistake,” I quickly apologised.

“You miserable Omega, how dare you open that filthy mouth of yours to yell at me?” she screamed.

“I didn’t know it was you,” I said, grovelling before her.

She was the biggest bully in the Crescent Pack, and her friend, Delilah was no different from her. She didn’t hesitate to kick me in the stomach and pull me by my hair. “What? You didn’t know it was her? Do you even have the right to yell at anyone? Have you forgotten who you are? Let me remind you. You’re nothing but a slave who was abandoned here as a child. No one wants you, no one needs you. You’re the Pack’s slave and everyone is better than you, never forget that,” Delilah said.

Tears blurred my vision and I swallowed hard, nodding my head in agreement with what she had said.

“Isn’t the mating ceremony today? We should be at the temple already,” Tami’s tiny voice chipped in. She was the closest thing I had to a friend in the Pack.

“That’s true, Delilah. We should be there already. I can’t wait to find my mate,” Alice said, beaming with excitement.

“We can’t just go without giving “Misfortune” here a punishment,” Delilah said, striking me across the face. Misfortune was the name she had given me.

“I have an idea. Let her do everyone’s chores tomorrow,” Brenda, a mindless beauty stated.

A smirk appeared on Delilah’s face. “No, let her do everyone’s chores for the rest of the week,” she said.

Everyone agreed to it except Tami who stayed neutral, and soon, they all left the room one after another. Tami, who was the last to leave, shot me a small smile as if to console me before stepping out.

When they were all gone, I sat on the floor and cried some more. Perhaps, if the man in my dreams was real and always appeared at the right time to save me, my life would have been better by now. We were all maids in the Palace, but somehow, I was the only one who was treated like an outcast. It wasn’t my fault that my parents had abandoned me, it wasn’t my fault that I was an Omega… I was just an eighteen-year-old who wanted to be loved and accepted, but no one ever seemed to care about that.

I pulled myself together and got rid of my wet clothes, then put on a dry outfit… a worn out yellow dress which I had rescued from the waste bin two years ago. I wore my blonde hair in a messy bun and realised I had to walk on bare foot to the temple because once again, someone had played a prank on me and hid my slippers.

Usually, I would search for it, but not today. The full moon was almost up and if I got to the temple late, I was going to be flogged a hundred strokes of cane at the market square. It wouldn’t be the first time, but I would rather prevent it.

I raced to the temple where it seemed like everyone had already gathered, and the minute I stepped foot there, I heard murmurs, indirect comments and boldly direct comments passed at me.

“What’s she doing here? Does she think she would find a mate?” I heard one ask her friend.

“Even if she does, he would certainly reject her,” the friend laughed.

I ignored their comments and found my way to a lonely spot. I had heard far worse in my lifetime, and their words no longer hurt me.

The ceremony was happening right in front of the temple, and soon, we were handed out blindfolds which we used to cover our eyes. Under the night sky when the full moon is at its highest, the werewolves would feel a pull and they would wander through others to find their mates.

I didn’t think I would feel any attraction towards anyone and I didn’t think anyone would feel the same for me. However, as the full moon slowly emerged and shone brightly, I began to feel a tug at my heart.

I couldn’t suppress it, and like I had heard, it was intensifying and magical. I could feel my feet literally being pulled from where I stood, defying my self-will as my heart followed the attraction towards which it was pulled.

Halfway, right in the middle of everyone, I stopped feeling that extreme hunger and desire to meet whom my heart longed for the moment I bumped into his chest. He held me in his arms, and my heart began to thump loudly.

The moon soon disappeared and we were asked to remove our blindfolds. As soon as we did, I could hear the squeals of excitement from the other maidens who had found their mates, but what I experienced was pure horror and I opened my mouth wide in shock, too stunned to speak.

The Alpha of the pack, Tyler Jefferson, stood right before me. He looked even more shocked than I was, and seething with fury, he pushed me away and a drop of tear fell from my eyes, unable to bear the look of disdain in his eyes when he looked at me.

“What kind of trickery is this?” he yelled.

All eyes swung to look at us. They appeared to be surprised, and demanding answers.

“Isn’t that the so-called possessed girl with a spiritual husband?” someone asked.

“She is the one. I’ve seen her go to the cleansing river quite a number of times.”

Enraged, he picked up a stick and began to destroy the temple, pushing off the guards that tried to calm him down.

“The Moon Goddess must think I am a fool. I am the Alpha of the Crescent Pack. I’ve been sitting on my throne since I was five, and I have done everything in my power to bring prosperity to us. Everyone is under my control, but she must still think she has some kind of power and influence over me. How dare she mate me to a lowly Omega? Not only is she an Omega, but she is an orphan… a cursed and possessed one at that!” he growled angrily.

I shuddered at his words, feeling more humiliated than I had ever been in my lifetime as the people began to laugh at me, mocking me to my face.

“What is your name?” he asked.

Like a fool, I allowed myself to hope that he genuinely cared. “Nivera… Nivera Hayes,” I told him, hoping he would accept me and put everyone else to shame.

“I reject you this day as my mate, Nivera Hayes,” he said, looking me dead in the eyes, and without waiting to hear anything I had to say, he stormed off from the temple in a fit of rage.

“Serves her right,” a bunch of them muttered, and slowly, they began to depart one by one.

I wished for the ground to open up and swallow me as I sank to the floor, hitting my hand on the bark of a tree in the process. The pain reminded me of how broken I was, and I sat down there, doing nothing but shedding tears.

I was a plague everyone dreaded. I was a cursed and possessed Omega whom no one wanted around, and as the blood trickled down my hand, so did the ache in my heart multiply. It hurt me even more because although Alpha Tyler had rejected me, my heart had begun to beat for him and it didn’t seem like it would stop anytime soon.