Fated To The Alpha's Enemy

Chapter 2

Adora POV

“I’m still a Garcia,” I whisper, trying hard not to let the sob stuck in my throat drag me under. Even though the words taste like ash. I’m no more a Garcia than I am an Alpha.

“You are Dad’s biggest disappointment,” Mirabel corrects, crouching down to my level. “Do you know what people say about our family? They whisper about the Alpha who couldn’t produce one last proper daughter. Three successes and one complete failure.”

Each word is like a knife to my chest.

“Stop.”

“Twenty-two and still unmated,” Vivian continues mercilessly. “The only goddamn Omega in the whole Garcia Fang Alpha bloodline. I mean, shame on you, Adora. You are not only broken, but you are the biggest curse to ever descend upon this family. The sooner you understand that, the better.”

This is the part where I’m supposed to shut up and take their insults like the weak Omega everyone in Garcia Fang knows me to be. The cold, dirty water sticking to my skin isn’t the worst they can do to me.

I don’t know what makes me say it. Maybe it’s the exhaustion.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve already died a hundred times in this house.

Or maybe it’s just the truth choking its way out of me.

“When are you going to realize I didn’t kill her?”

The room goes dead silent.

Liana’s slap comes fast and hard, cracking across my cheek so loud it makes my ears ring.

“Don’t you dare,” she hisses, shaking. “Don’t mention our mother! You took her from us.”

I taste blood in my mouth, but the same accusation I’ve heard for years rips through my chest and stabs me right in the heart.

Vivian looks away, her jaw clenched.

Mirabel doesn’t speak. She just stares at me with eyes so empty it hurts more than the slap.

Then, just when I think they’ll keep going, a voice cuts through the tension like a knife.

“Forgive me, but that’s enough, ladies.”

We all turn.

Mara stands in the doorway. Her hands are gently clasped in front of her. Her eyes are tired, and her Garcia hair is pinned into its usual crooked bun. She’s wearing her maid’s uniform—the usual black dress with a white collar.

“Your father wants you all downstairs,” she adds, her tone firm.

Vivian scoffs but doesn’t argue. She turns sharply, heels clicking on the old wood.

Liana glares at me once more.

“You deserve to rot here forever, Adora.”

Then they leave. All three. Like a storm that came to ruin everything and moved on without cleaning up.

And they did manage to ruin me, because I feel like I’ve just been left to drown in the mud, and it’s barely midday.

Mara waits until they’re gone before stepping into the room and closing the door softly behind her.

She looks at me—at the water, the mess, the slap mark still burning on my cheek—and sighs.

“Oh, my poor girl.”

I try to sit up straighter.

“I’m fine.”

I’m nowhere near fine.

“You’re not,” she says gently. “But you will be.”

She grabs a towel from the hook behind the door and starts dabbing my face without asking. Just like she always does.

The silence settles heavily between us as she wrings out the corner of the towel and moves to wipe the water from my arm.

“You didn’t deserve that,” she murmurs. “Not from them. Not from anyone.”

I look away, jaw clenched, but my eyes sting.

“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice barely steady. “For… always being here.”

Mara doesn’t say anything, just keeps dabbing gently at my skin. She never does things for praise. But the truth is, she’s the only one who ever sees me. The only one who’s stayed through every cruel word, every slammed door, every time I was made to feel like nothing.

The sting on my cheek has nothing on the ache in my chest, but her presence eases it, just a little.

Taking my gratitude with a smile, she reaches up, brushing a strand of wet hair from my face.

“The Alpha wants you in the war room.”

I blink.

“What?”

“He’s asked for you. Send word through the Betas.”

I scoff.

“Why would my father want me anywhere near the war room?”

If my sisters dislike me, then my father hates me. He has hated me since he laid eyes on me, which is why it makes no sense that he wants me to go to the most important room in the Garcia Fang mansion.

Mara tries to focus on the positive.

“Maybe it’s about the Mate Hunt.”

That name alone makes my stomach twist.

The Mate Hunt.

Held once a year by the Wolf Regent himself, it’s a royal event every unmated female over eighteen dreams of. He hosts it in the capital, Seattle, under a full red moon, hoping to find the one woman the Goddess has Fated to stand beside him.

He never has.

But the rest of us? We still go. Because even if he doesn’t choose you, there’s still a chance you’ll find your Mate in the Hunt. A flicker. A scent. A look across the ballroom, and suddenly your whole soul is on fire.

Vivian found her Mate at the Hunt. Liana too.

Even Mirabel met hers in her second year since her shift—lucky her.

Me? Father’s cold “no” echoes every year. He never forgets to remind me of the fact that I haven’t shifted. He isn’t wrong either.

I turned eighteen, and nothing happened. I had no pull to the Moon Goddess like the others.

But that doesn’t mean she’s not there. She likes to show herself in my dreams, or when she’s feeling generous. She reacts sometimes.

Like the time I fell into the frozen lake and didn’t breathe for almost three minutes. Somehow, I clawed my way out of the ice like something had taken over me.

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