The Forbidden Alpha

Chapter 2: Expelled

The first thing Amelia heard when she woke up was her father’s voice. He was thanking someone for something she couldn’t quite grasp. Her head hurt too much to focus on his words. For a moment, she thought about going back to sleep, but something was wrong. It wasn’t just her head that hurt; her whole body was engulfed in a persistent pain, as if she’d been hit by a truck. And why did her bed feel so hard…?

Suddenly, the memories of the previous night came rushing back. Her father’s conversation with the alpha, Ana’s invitation to the party, the soda, her body’s strange reaction, the things Ana had said, and…

Amelia’s eyes flew open in alarm. She tried to get up, but her head spun, and she fell back to the ground. Her vision was blurry, but she could make out that she was in the forest, lying on fallen leaves and surrounded by at least four other people.

“She’s awake,” came Ana’s voice, tinged with a note of tears. “I’m so sorry, Amelia. If I’d known what you would do, I would have tried to stop you,” her words dissolved into sobs. Amelia was confused. What was Ana talking about? Why was she crying?

With sudden urgency, Amelia realized the sky was already lightening; she needed to get home before her parents woke up and noticed her absence. Why was she still lying in that forest? How had she gotten there?

“It’s not your fault, Ana,” Amelia’s father’s voice, rough and firm, echoed through the trees. Amelia’s body froze, a shiver of fear running down her spine. “You can’t be held responsible for that b***h’s actions.”

“Raimond,” Amelia’s mother called, her voice choked with tears.

Amelia forced her body to react and sat up, feeling a sharp pain in her head but ignoring it, staying as steady as she could. Blinking slowly, she noticed she was indeed surrounded by others: her father, her mother, Ana, the alpha, and Aidan. They all looked at her with varying degrees of disgust and judgment.

“What did you do to me?” she directed at Ana, becoming more aware of what had happened with each passing second.

“What are you talking about?” Ana sounded surprised, furrowing her blonde eyebrows and placing a hand on her chest. Amelia noticed she was no longer wearing the tight dress from the previous night when she found her in the forest. Now Ana wore a long pink dress, the kind Amelia’s parents approved of. “I came as soon as I got your message.”

“You brought me here!” Amelia retorted, even through the confusion, it didn’t take much to understand what Ana was trying to do. “You brought me here and gave me that soda that made my body feel weird, and then you said all those horrible things and called that man who… he… Oh my God.”

The rest of the memories from the previous night came flooding back, and she vomited. She couldn’t hold back the nausea, even though there was nothing left in her stomach. Her father, Aidan, and the alpha watched her with evident disgust, her mother kept crying, unable to get close to her, and Ana continued to pretend she felt sorry.

“I need help,” Amelia murmured when she realized she couldn’t breathe properly. Her mother tried to approach again, but her father held her back.

“You need to leave,” he said, his voice impersonal, with just a hint of anger seeping through the mask of coldness he wore.

“Dad, they hurt me,” she tried to argue, supporting her body on her knees. “I didn’t want to, but Ana handed me over to him and he… The man, he…”

“Enough,” her father roared, this time unable to contain his anger. “You should be condemned for lying with a human and dishonoring your commitment to Aidan.” He approached her as she still tried to rise from the ground. “But I will not allow you to tarnish our family name like this.”

“I let your father decide what should be done with you,” the alpha intervened for the first time. “It was a concession given to him in recognition of his long years of service to our pack.” He moved closer to Amelia, walking with the posture that was his trademark, as if the whole world were a pile of excrement he was forced to step on. “Your father decided it would be too shameful for the Goés family to have a dishonored female among its members for lying with a human.”

“I didn’t do it, he violated me…”

“Shut up,” the alpha interrupted her, and with just one command from him, her body succumbed to the dominant power he wielded. Amelia could no longer speak, not even blink. It hurt, her wolf protested under her skin against the injustice, but it wasn’t strong enough to resist the alpha’s will. “Your father decided you must leave without a trace. We will tell the rest of the pack that you were assigned to serve in one of the clan’s monasteries.” The alpha paused. From the way he looked at her, Amelia knew what he would say next would be cruel. “But your father wasn’t the only one offended by your actions. You were promised to my son, Aidan, the future alpha of the pack. And even if you didn’t know that yet, you know how disrespectful it is to give your purity to anyone other than him?” Amelia wanted to scream how unfair it was, but the effort only sent a greater wave of pain through her body, bringing tears to her eyes. “That’s why Aidan also got to choose what should be done to you.”

She fought against the alpha’s control, even with the excruciating pain it caused. She needed to run, the smile on Aidan’s lips told her she needed to escape whatever he had planned for her.

“I, Paul, alpha of the Marlon pack, of the Marlon clan,” the alpha continued, with the formal tone he used to make announcements and deliver sentences. “Declare that for your actions, Amelia Goés will be expelled from the clan as punishment for dishonoring her parents, and will be separated from her metamorphic half and marked with the symbol of rejection, for dishonoring her commitment to the future alpha of the pack. So that everyone knows she is impure.”

Amelia began to growl and struggle against the invisible hand holding her in place. Her desperation was so great that, even under the alpha’s control, she managed to throw herself to the ground and crawl. She heard her mother’s crying intensify, heard her father reprimand her. She saw the alpha’s eyebrows rise in a mix of surprise and amusement. Sadistic, he was as sadistic as Aidan.

“Let’s do it the hard way then,” he murmured. The grip of his power against her intensified, completely stopping all of Amelia’s movements, including her breathing. The alpha knelt in front of her, locked her gaze with his, and began to chant words in the ancient language. Amelia’s wolf writhed under her skin, her bones burned, her mind seemed to stretch to a breaking point…

Before passing out, Amelia saw the smile on Ana’s lips as she consoled Aidan. She wished for the two of them to be together. She wished Aidan would choose Ana to replace her and that Ana would suffer a thousand times more for everything she was causing her.