“Why did you do it?” He asked, the words bubbling from his lips as if he’d tried hard to keep them at bay but failed.
“Do what?” I blinked in the face of his anger.
“Why did you jump?” He shouted. “Because of you -” His brown eyes lit up with unconcealed rage. “As a pack, we have helped you despite your irrelevance to us and when it’s time to do one good thing for the pack, you attempt to kill yourself.” He glared at me.
“A – Attempt what?” I asked with a dumb expression. Laughter bubbled up from inside me. “S – Sui – ” The laughter burst out, my entire body burning with pain as I laughed. “Is that the story?” Tears spilt from the corners of my eyes as I laughed. My laughter turned to sobs in a second.
“Alpha Noah hasn’t eaten a meal in the week since he found you jumping out of his mother’s balcony. That’s how much your actions traumatized him.” The accusation shining in the doctor’s eyes would make even an innocent man feel guilty. “How could you be so cruel? Is this how you repay us for taking care of you all this time even if we didn’t have to? You’re not even a member of Red Lake pack but we helped you!”
It was true that I wasn’t a member of Red Lake pack. It was possible that I had a pack, a family out there, but I didn’t know of them. According to the stories I heard, my birth mother came to Red Lake pack heavily pregnant and distressed. Her boyfriend left her when he found out she was with child so she came to Red Lake pack to escape the grief.
They say my mother was a beautiful woman so Alpha Howard let her stay but the minute she gave birth to me, she ran from the pack, abandoning me with them. It was the reason I served them so diligently. I didn’t have a home or a family and didn’t know a life outside of Red Lake pack. Despite how bitter I felt having to serve them as a cheap servant, I didn’t have anywhere else to go if they kicked me out. So I endured. I wiped my tears silently in my room and came out every morning with my head held high and my heart heavy. The bullying, the abuse, the humiliation, I endured it all because I had nowhere to run to.
“Thank you for keeping me,” I answered the doctor.
For the longest time, I felt I had to repay Red Lake for keeping me but now, I realized I had long since paid my debt. I earned my keep in this pack, worked through rain and sunshine to cater for the wolves in this pack without pay or appreciation. They gave me the protection of a pack but I would be better off in the wilderness.
“What are you saying?” The doctor sneered. “How can a nobody like you be so arrogant?”
It was my greatest flaw in the eyes of the wolves of Red Lake pack. No matter how much I bent over, my back remained stiff and no matter how much they beat me down, I still rose from the dirt with my head held high. I didn’t know why or how I did it but something in me couldn’t stand me wallowing in dirt and pity. I wouldn’t call myself a fighter but I fought to retain even a shred of my dignity.
The door burst open before I formed a reply for the doctor. Noah rushed in with eye bags surrounding his bloodshot eyes. “You’re awake.” His shoulder hunched forward and relief echoed in his voice.
“You tried to kill me.” I felt a peal of familiar maniacal laughter bubbling in my throat.
No matter what these people did to me, I never considered taking my life. It was a flitting thought I had the other day, one that I didn’t let take root, but Noah Howard – he pushed me off his mother’s balcony.
“What are you saying?” It was the doctor that jumped to his defense. “You tried to kill yourself because you didn’t want to mate with Alpha Norman. Do you understand the stigma that puts on us as a pack? Do you know how much talk has been circulating about Alpha Norman now!? A lowly omega would rather kill herself than be his mate!” He turned red in the face as he shouted, spittle flying everywhere.
“Doctor,” Noah called in a cold voice. “Please, leave us for a minute.”
“I haven’t conducted the necessary checkup yet -” The man argued but one look from Noah had him clamming up, going as white as snow before he nodded and scrambled out of the room, shutting the door with Noah and I alone.
The air of regret and anxiousness around him faded and his downturned lips rose to form the ghost of a smile. He still looked tired but his eyes were alive as he smirked at me. Then he opened his mouth.
“I told you I would break you completely, didn’t I?” Sadism gleamed in his eyes as he smiled.
“Did you think I would let you die?” He laughed, the sound low and guttural. “If you wanted to kill yourself, you should have done it before I found out we were mates.” I smiled as he continued to hound me.
“Do I make you feel inferior, Noah?” I asked with a broad smile. The cruel look on his face faded to a blank one. Then his face went red and his body stiffened.
“Who are you to make me feel inferior?” He snarled, a bit of his wolf pushing into his words.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking.” I wore a pensive expression, gritting my teeth against the pinpricks of pain turning to sharp stabs. “Does my pride upset you, Noah?” He wanted me to beg on the floor to be his mate.
He wanted to savour the sight of me broken and humiliated in public because of him but I didn’t give him that satisfaction. The wolves of Red Lake told me several times that I needed to know my place and over the years, I learnt my place. My place was not beside the Alpha. It was the reason I let him go so easily despite my heart breaking that day. I knew on instinct that I would never be Noah’s mate whether I licked the ground he walked on while crawling on my hands and knees.
“Yes,” he answered with a casual shrug. “Your pride upsets me.”
It wasn’t as if I was proud – I just retained a bit of my self-respect in the face of bullies who wanted me to crawl on my belly and kiss their feet. They hated me because they could not crush me into fine powders and mould a perfectly submissive slave and now, Noah had taken it upon himself to break me.
I didn’t want to admit it out loud but I was scared. My insides shivered as cold spread through me. I was deathly terrified that he would succeed. For the twenty years of my life, Red Lake tried to knock me down permanently but I always found a way to stand. Now, Noah Howard may find a way to break me forever.
“It’s upsetting to see a nobody like you go about like you have the world at your feet.” His eyes blazed with malice. “I’ve hated you since I set eyes on you and now, after you so calmly accepted my rejection, I hate you even more. Garbage should act like garbage, not like the queen.”
“This garbage could be the queen one day,” I muttered, tired of this sickening conversation. He burst into laughter.
I just woke up from a near-death experience and the first person to enter my room was this devil. It wasn’t my fault that Noah had such a big ego that would not be assuaged unless he trampled on everyone in his pack, including the one already trampled upon. He had issues, more issues than I knew or cared to know of. His issues sent him to the Alpha Academy to learn some sense of responsibility but he came back as a sadistic bully instead.
“Yes, you’re totally the Alpha Prince’s type.” He snorted. “An ugly, wolfless wench like you will make a good queen,” he added with a derisive chuckle. “Tell me, Carrot, do you have a crush on the prince? Is that why you calmly accepted my rejection? Do you have a stupid dream of meeting him by chance and falling in love?” His eyes sparkled like he’d never heard a bigger joke than this before.
“I accepted your rejection because I don’t want you.” The words felt like a partial lie as I spoke.
“But you can’t help but want me.” His eyes and tone softened. “We are mates, after all, so when I’m with another woman, it’s going to tear into you and you’re going to feel miserable.”
I opened my mouth to cuss at him but the door banged open. The Alpha and Luna walked in with scary expressions on their faces.
“You lowly hussy.” The Luna was the first to speak and the first to strike me.
I’d fallen from the balcony of her room and almost died but to show her thankfulness that I didn’t die, she hit me as hard as she could, and then her hands wrapped around my neck.
“Mum!” Noah grabbed her hands wrapped around my throat. “What the hell are you doing!?” He bellowed, trying to wrestle her off me. The more he fought her off, the tighter she choked me.
I couldn’t say anything. My shoulders tightened and my stomach became rock hard. My heart raced, almost exploding in my chest, and everything felt as if it was going to end in a second. My Luna, the mother of my pack, squeezed the air out of my lungs with cold malice in her eyes.
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