The Alpha Rejected A Moon Goddess

Chapter 3

I decided I was going to run away from Alpha Asher Kane while my ribs were still hurting, my palm was still bleeding, and my entire body looked like it had personally lost a war, because staying in that place one more night felt like volunteering to be humiliated again and I had finally reached the very small, very tired part of myself that was willing to choose a forest full of wolves over another breakfast with people who enjoyed watching me suffer.

I did not announce my decision, obviously, because I might have been stupid enough to be an abused Omega but I was not stupid enough to tell the people holding the keys to my cage that I intended to steal the keys.

So I played obedient.

When the guards dragged me into the servant quarters, I stopped arguing, stopped crying where they could see me, and even nodded when one of them told me that if I caused another problem, they would chain me to the wall until morning, because sometimes survival required swallowing your pride so deeply that it sat in your stomach and made you sick.

The room they gave me was barely a room, with a narrow bed pushed against a cracked wall, one small window covered by iron bars, and a wooden table that had one leg shorter than the others, but I looked at it like it was a palace because there was one thing it had that the Alpha's hall didn't have.

A door.

A door I could eventually run through.

I spent the next few hours pretending to sleep whenever somebody passed outside, and every time footsteps stopped near my room, I pulled the blanket over my head and breathed slowly until they moved again, while my mind kept going through every possible escape route I had ever noticed during all those years of carrying laundry, serving food, cleaning corridors, and being ordered around like a piece of furniture nobody remembered they owned.

The main gates were impossible.

The western wall had too many warriors.

The kitchen entrance was watched during the night.

But the old laundry passage behind the servants' quarters led toward the eastern boundary, and I remembered seeing one of the old gates there months ago when I had been sent outside to wash blood from the training grounds.

Nobody used it anymore.

At least, I hoped nobody did.

Near midnight, the pack became quiet.

I waited another twenty minutes because I was not about to ruin the best chance I had ever had by getting impatient, then climbed out of bed, wrapped the torn blanket around my shoulders, and reached underneath the mattress for the tiny kitchen knife I had stolen earlier.

It was pathetic.

The blade was short, the handle was cracked, and I had no idea how to use it properly.

Still, it was better than nothing.

I slipped the knife into the waistband of my dress and eased the door open.

The corridor was empty.

My heart hammered so loudly that I was convinced the entire pack could hear it, but I forced myself forward, keeping close to the wall and avoiding the places where the floorboards creaked, and when I reached the end of the passage, I almost smiled because the laundry door was exactly where I remembered it.

Locked.

Of course.

Because why would anything in my life ever work the first time?

I pulled the knife out and shoved it into the gap around the lock, twisting until the metal scraped against my palm, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying when the wound on my hand split open again.

The lock refused to move.

I twisted harder, but nothing.

I kicked the bottom of the door.

The sound echoed through the corridor.

I froze. Footsteps came from behind me.

I turned and saw a guard standing at the end of the hallway, staring directly at the knife in my hand.

His face changed.

“You really thought you could sneak out of here after the Alpha ordered you to stay?”

I stepped backward.

He started walking toward me.

I raised the knife. My hand shook so badly that the blade nearly fell.

“Please don't make me do this, because I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to fight anyone tonight, but I will do whatever I have to do to get out of this place.”

He laughed.

“You can't even hold the knife properly, and you're threatening me with it?”

He lunged.

I moved almost pathetically. His hand caught my shoulder, and I drove the knife toward him without thinking, but he knocked my wrist aside so hard that the blade flew across the floor.

I kicked him in the knee.

He cursed.

I kicked him again.

He grabbed my hair and slammed me against the wall.

Pain exploded through my skull.

I screamed and elbowed him in the stomach, but he barely moved before his fist struck my ribs, right where I was already bruised.

Something inside me screamed.

I folded.

He grabbed my arm.

I bit him so hard. He shouted and loosened his grip, and I ran without thinking. I didn't look back.

I sprinted down the corridor, shoved through the laundry door when it finally opened, and stumbled into the freezing night air with my bare feet hitting stones so hard that every step sent pain through my legs.

The eastern boundary was close.

I could see the old wall ahead. I could see the trees beyond it.

Freedom.

I climbed.

My fingers slipped against the stone, my dress caught on a broken piece of iron, and I nearly fell backward, but I pulled myself up anyway, scraping my knee open against the wall before throwing myself over the other side.

I landed badly.

My ankle twisted.

A cry tore out of me. I lay there for half a second, staring at the sky while tears burned my eyes, then forced myself upright because the guard was already shouting behind the wall.

“She went over the boundary! Alert the warriors before she reaches the forest!”

I limped, then ran.

I had barely crossed into the trees when a howl exploded behind me.

Several wolves were coming after me.

I pushed through branches, stumbled over roots, tore my dress on thorns, and kept moving until the pack lights disappeared behind the trees.

My lungs burned. My ankle screamed. My palm was dripping blood again.

But I was out. I was actually out.

I stopped beside a huge tree and pressed my back against it, trying to breathe quietly while listening for the warriors.

There was nothing

No footsteps. No voices. No howling.

A laugh almost escaped me. Then something moved behind me.

I spun around. Nothing was there.

I swallowed and looked deeper into the forest.

The moonlight barely reached the ground beneath the thick trees, and everything suddenly seemed too quiet, too dark, too empty, but I couldn't go back, not after everything that had happened, so I pushed away from the tree and limped farther into the forest.

Then I heard a branch snap.

I stopped. Another snapped behind me.

Then another.

My fingers went to my waist but the knife was gone.

I turned slowly. Two yellow eyes appeared between the trees.

Then another pair.

Then another.

My stomach dropped as low growl rolled through the darkness.

I stumbled backward.

More eyes opened.

There were wolves surrounding me.

And the first one stepped into the moonlight with blood dripping from its mouth.