Claimed By The Alpha's Enemy

Chapter 1

Sally's POV

"You actually thought I wanted you?"

Jeremy's voice rang across the hallway. I froze by my locker, my books pressed to my chest like a shield.

"Jeremy, please—" I started.

"Please what?" He laughed, and the crowd around him laughed too. "Please don't tell everyone you slept with the school's biggest loser? Too late, Sally. I already did."

Students spilled out of classrooms, phones already up, already recording. My face burned hot. I could barely believe what was happening. I was already beginning to feel dizzy.

"You said I was different," I whispered. "You said you liked me. I didn’t do anything wrong, Jeremy. You came to me."

"I said a lot of things last night," Jeremy shrugged, flashing that grin every girl at Crescent Hollow High fell for. "You're wolfless. Seventeen and wolfless. Did you really think an alpha like me would claim someone like you? A pathetic wolfless thing?"

"Jeremy, please, don’t do this to me. I trusted you," I cried, but he wasn’t even paying attention to me.

A hand slid into his. Tasha stepped forward, chin high, eyes glittering with cruelty, dressed up as pity.

"Aww, Sally." Her voice dripped with sweetness. "Did you think he actually liked you? He's my mate. Everyone knows that."

Jeremy pulled her close and kissed her temple, right there in front of me, right there in front of the whole hallway.

"Sorry, Sally," he said, not sorry at all. "Wolfless girls don't get happy endings."

The crowd howled with laughter. Someone shouted, "She probably begged him!" Someone else said, "Omega trash thinking she could touch an alpha."

I didn't cry. I had trained myself not to cry in front of them. I turned and walked away, my spine straight even as my chest caved in.

‘I should have known better.'

For three weeks, Jeremy had made me feel like I mattered. He walked me to class. He shared his lunch. He kissed me behind the gym and told me I was pretty, that my lack of a wolf didn't matter to him. I believed him because I wanted to believe him. Because for three weeks, no one at school dared to touch me. Being close to the alpha had been armor.

Now the armor was gone.

By lunch, the whole school knew. I sat alone at the end of a long table, staring at a tray I had no appetite for. I could feel eyes on my back, feel the whispers crawling over my skin. People talked about me without minding if I heard.

“Who would have known that she was a w***e?"

“She hides it so well. I almost thought she was a good girl.”

I shut my eyes tightly, and opened them immediately, ignoring the tearing pain in my heart.

"Well, well." Tasha's voice arrived before her shadow did. She sat down across from me uninvited, her two friends, Ruby and Ming, flanking her like guard dogs. "Looks like someone's having a rough day."

"Leave me alone, Tasha."

"Or what?" She leaned in, smiling. "You'll fight me? A wolfless thing? An omega’s daughter fighting an alpha? That's cute."

Ruby snickered. "Careful, Tasha, she might scratch you with her human nails."

"Human," Ming repeated, as the word itself was an insult. "Seventeen years old and still no wolf. Pathetic."

My hands curled into fists under the table. I had heard worse. I had survived worse. But something about today, about Jeremy's laugh still ringing in my ears, made the words cut deeper than usual.

"You used him to get attention," Tasha continued, flicking a strand of hair off her shoulder. "A scholarship omega trying to steal an alpha mate bond. Did you actually think it would work?"

"I didn't try to steal anything," I said quietly. "He came to me."

All the while, I wanted to slap Tasha hard across the face, but I tried so hard to restrict myself from doing so. I didn’t want to get into a bigger mess than I already am.

“Tasha, please, stop. I didn’t plan for any of these to happen. By the way, I’m paying for that already. Why can’t you let me be?”

"Liar." Tasha's smile vanished. She grabbed my tray and flipped it, sending food splattering across the table and onto my shirt. "Alphas don't want broken girls like you. You should be grateful anyone even looks at you."

Laughter rippled through the cafeteria. I looked down at the mess on my shirt, at the stares, at Tasha's smug face, and something inside me snapped.

I stood up so fast my chair scraped back and fell.

"Enough," I said.

Tasha blinked, caught off guard. "Excuse me?"

"I said enough." My voice shook, but I didn't stop. "You've bullied me since freshman year. You take everything from me and it's never enough. I'm done."

"Done?" She stood too, towering over me with the confidence only an alpha could have. "You don't get to be done. Only I get to decide that. Do you hear me? You're wolfless. I'm an alpha. Know your place."

"My place?" I felt heat rise up my neck, felt three years of swallowed anger rising with it. "You want to talk about my place?"

The expression on Tasha’s face was changing gradually. Even her friends blinked in shock. I had never stood up for myself like I was doing now.

“So you think you can talk back now, because Jeremy used you as some play thing for three weeks, and you were so easy that you let him into your pants?”

Before I could stop myself, my hand flew out and struck her across the face.

The cafeteria went silent.

Tasha's cheek turned red. For a second, shock flickered across her face. Then her eyes darkened, gold bleeding into brown as her wolf surged close to the surface.

"You little—"

Her hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of my hair. I cried out, grabbing at her wrist, but an alpha's strength was nothing to fight against. Pain shot through every single part of my head. It felt like she was draining my brain with a pipe.

“Tasha, please,” I begged.

“Shut your mouth, you filthy rat!” Ruby retorted, stepping closer to the scene.

“Deal with her so she can learn not to repeat this trash ever again,” Meng added.

She yanked me sideways and shoved me with brutal force.

My feet left the ground.

I braced for the floor, for the pain, for another humiliation to add to the pile.

Instead, I fell into something solid. Something warm. Two strong arms caught me before I hit the floor, steadying me like I weighed nothing at all.

The cafeteria gasped.

My heart pounded as I looked up, expecting to see a teacher, a fellow student, anyone.

I froze!