Sleeping with the enemy Alpha

ARIA "That one is taking too long to die." I freeze, clutching the rag from which greyish water drips onto the stone floor. There have been whispers, rumours of deaths and disappearances in the pack. I had thought they were all just stories. Until now. From the room where my stepmother holds important meetings, I hear several heavy footsteps, the scrape of a blade, a gasp, a groan. The kind I am sure people make when they die. A thud, and then... silence. My stepmother's voice reaches me again. "Good. Now I can think," she says and I hear her heels click as she paces. I remain crouched on the floor, shivering. The hem of my patched and torn grey dress is soaking in the water I'm using to wash the floor but I barely notice. Only one thought is ringing in my head- I should not be here. I had heard something I should not have. If I was caught, I would die too. Shaking, I try to stand. I almost make it. Then my foot slips on the wet floor, almost knocking over the bucket in front of me. The pacing stops. I cram as fist into my mouth silently praying, 'O goddess. Please let her not have heard me. Please. Please. Please...' "Someone is there!" my stepmother shouts. Before I can move, the door to the meeting room bursts open. As I try to run, I am grabbed from behind by two guards. They start to drag me a short way down the passage and into the meeting room while my stepmother shouts at someone, saying something about there not supposed to be anyone hanging around the place at this hour. I should not have been there at all, but with all the work I had to do around the pack house, I had not gotten to wash the floors the previous day. I had gotten up at dawn to do it before I was whipped again as punishment. One of the guards pushes me into the room. I stumble, fall hard on my knees. Lana, wearing a powder blue dress and my mother's sapphire necklace round her neck, springs out of a chair. My stepmother, Ravenna, dressed all in black, approaches me, her lips twisted with hate. "So you are spying on me now?" she says. I shake my head quickly, clumps of my hair flying across my face. I stutter my explanation for being there. "Liar," Lana hisses. She comes to me, her hands raised to slap me. She suddenly stops. Her nose wrinkles. "You stink. Worse than a pig," she spits. It is true. I am made to sleep in the pig pen every night and I am filthy. But that does not bother me. What does is the way Ravenna is looking at me, with her head c****d to one side and her finger, decorated with many rings, slowly stroking her jaw. A steady dripping sound comes from somewhere in the room. My stomach twists as I recall what I thought I saw from the corner of my eyes as the guards dragged me inside. It is something too horrible to even think about. "Well... well... Aria," Lenora drawls. "It's seems you have finally run out of luck this time. You have heard and... seen too much." I start to say I saw nothing. Ravenna gestures almost lazily to one corner of the room. Unable to help myself, I turn. A scream rises up in my throat. Propped against the wall are the two figures I saw earlier. Only they are not just figures. They are the lifeless bodies of two men. One has a dagger still plunged into his heart. From the wound blood drips onto the floor. I scream. A hand strikes my facee. I clutch my cheek, moaning. "Kill her, mother," Lana says as she grips her mother's arm. Her eyes shine with excitement. " Kill her now. She has seen too much. She will talk. The seer used to say a blood sacrifice to the moon goddess brings luck. We can use her to-" "Not just yet, my sweet," Ravenna interrupts. "Aria here might just be the key to solving our little problem." Lana looks blank for a moment. "You mean the thing with Alpha Jax?" she says. "How could she possibly help? Mother you are worrying too much about Jax. He's just a little problem." "No. Not little, Lana." Ravenna begins to pace again. Her expression hardens. "Jax has crushed almost all my allies. Even Stormridge has fallen to him. It is only a matter of time before he sets his sights here, to this pack and dethrones me as queen of the territories. Before then, I must strike first. I have come too far, killed so many to be stopped now." Her voice rises. Her fingers clench in the air. Killed so many... The words echo inside my head. When I was 6 years old, my mother fell ill. It was a mysterious illness none of the pack healers could cure. Her skin had turned gray. In two days, she was dead. Father, grieving, had left the pack to have some time to himself. He had returned a fortnight later with a Ravenna, looking half starved but still beautiful. She had come with her her blonde pretty little girl, Lana, who was 5. All anyone knew about Ravenna was that she and her daughter had been taken captive for years by a rogue pack father had saved her from. Within a month, Father, had made Ravenna his Luna. When the Valyen council made him king of the territories, Ravenna became his queen. A day after the coronation, father was dead, taken by 'the gray sickness' and I was turned into worse than a slave. Now I wonder... Could Ravenna have had anything to do with my parent's deaths? "Yes," she says. I jerk and find Ravenna's face inches from my own. "I killed your dear mama and papa. I would have killed you too, but I had an idea you would have other... uses." An icy hand closes around my heart at her words. I begin to shake. "Yes," she continues. "You wonder why I had those men over there killed? I will tell you. They were among the spies I sent to Darkclaw to find out it's weakness. They were the best of the best or so I thought. Jax, that bastard, found them out. These two idiots barely made it out alive with no information for me. But you, darling..." Lenora strokes my cheek. I jerk away. She grabs my face. Her nails dig into my skin. "You will enter Dark claw as my spy. Perhaps your beauty will be the way to Jax's black heart." My heart stops. What does she mean? "Mother!" Lana gasps, tossing back her long blonde hair. "I'm prettier than her. If you want someone to seduce Jax, I can do a far better job than this pig!" "Yes, you are beautiful, Lana," Ravenna says. "but I am a realist. Aria has a beauty of a rare kind, the kind that makes men make fools of themselves. Besides, I would never let my only daughter within a foot of that animal. Chances are Jax will have her killed. But if he doesn't..." There is a ringing in my ears. Like everyone, I knew the story of Jax. He was worse than a beast. A barbarian who killed for fun and did unspeakable things to the bodies of his victims. If I got caught, I would die. Horribly. "No," I gasp. "Yes," Lenora purrs. She puts her lips to my ear and whispers terrible things. How she would wipe all my memories as I learnt the ways of Darkclaw. How I would lose my will, be her puppet, forced to do her bidding. Forced to find a way for her to take down Darkclaw and kill Jax when the time was right. Then either Jax's people or her people would kill me when she takes over the pack. My vision blurs. No no no no, I scream in my head. I won't do it. You can't make me. Ravenna seems to hear this. Her smile gets wider and colder. Then something happens. Her eyes glow red. Under her breath, she chants an incantation. I feel pain, look down and see my palm is bleeding. Ravenna is collecting my blood in a black, twisted, shapeless thing that looks like a goblet. I cannot move. There is a strange buzzing sound in my ears. I struggle to hold on to my thoughts, but I can't. Ravenna's face is all I see. Her voice seems to come from miles away. All at once realization hits me, driving through breath out of my lungs. My stepmother is a witch! Terror paralyses me. I try to scream. Nothing comes out. My body locks and I am drifting, drifting... The last thing I hear is Ravenna's high, cold laughter. And then the darkness claims me.