Bound to the Lycan King's Obsession

SCARLETT My resilience was waning with each step I took. I gritted my teeth and wiped the sweat pouring out from my forehead. "You can do it," I muttered, trying to remind myself that I needed to keep up with my peers without passing out or embarrassing myself yet again. I woke up before sunrise this morning to the sound of the drill bells. By the time I’d gathered at the field after rushing to get dressed, I found out that the Alpha had called everyone out for combat drills, insisting that the entire Pack had to be at their best in preparation for his son's coronation ceremony this evening. Normally, I was left out during these drills, but today, the Alpha himself grouped us all according to our age grades. The training session was meant to prove that the wolves of the Darkwater Pack were strong, disciplined, and worthy of their future leader. Unfortunately for everyone involved, my presence among them made that nearly impossible. My lungs burned with every breath, and my legs trembled from exhaustion while the others moved with effortless speed. The difference between us was painfully obvious. Their senses were sharper, their muscles stronger, and their stamina endless. I, on the other hand, had nothing but a human body struggling to keep up with creatures who had been blessed with wolves inside them. "Faster, Scarlett!" Someone growled. "You are slowing down the entire formation." I forced myself to push harder even though my legs felt like they might collapse beneath me. Sweat ran down my temples, stinging my eyes as the ground seemed to sway slightly under my feet. "Keep moving. Just keep moving." I muttered under my breath, even when every logical part of me whispered that I shouldn't bother. Every werewolf in our world was born with a dormant wolf. When we turned ten years old, our wolves would awaken and reveal what we truly were. It was the moment that defined a person’s place in the Pack hierarchy. Wealth and bloodlines meant nothing compared to the strength of one’s wolf. A child born to a powerful Alpha family could awaken as an Omega, while a pup from a lesser household could rise to become a Beta or Gamma if their wolf proved dominant enough. When those awakenings happened, the Pack ranks shifted to reflect the new power structure. But I had never awakened anything. At twenty-five years old, I remained exactly as I had been the day I was born: human and wolfless. In the eyes of my Pack, that made me something worse than an Omega. Omegas at least had wolves. Weak ones, perhaps, but wolves nonetheless. I had nothing at all. Just as I managed to make the next step, my chest seized and my vision blurred. I gasped, stumbling against the person next to me. It felt as if the world was spinning. Fear gripped me. No. Not now. Please, not now. We had barely gone halfway through the drills, and my body was already reaching its limit. I tried taking deep breaths, but it only made things worse. Pain exploded through my body like I'd been thrown into an inferno. My skin felt too tight, and my bones ached with a pressure that made me want to scream. "Scarlett?" Meredith, the training lead, wrinkled her nose beside me. "Are you seriously going to be sick right now? How pathetic." I couldn't answer. My jaw was clenched so tight I thought my teeth might crack. I breathed deeply and tried to draw strength from the depths of my being. "Look at her," someone sneered. "She cannot even run properly without throwing up or passing out." "Honestly, Scarlett," a tall Gamma said with a smirk, folding his arms across his chest as he stared down at me, "I am starting to think you are not even a wolf. Maybe you are just a human stray the Pack picked up out of pity." Laughter rippled across the field. I slowly pushed myself upright, trying to ignore the burning humiliation crawling across my skin. The worst part of all this was recognizing some of the faces staring back at me. These were wolves I had grown up with. Wolves who had once been my friends before their wolves awakened, and our differences became impossible to ignore. Especially Meredith. We'd been best friends before her wolf became awakened and she became a beta wolf. "Maybe she is cursed," someone else added loudly. "The Moon Goddess must have rejected her." "I mean, at this point, even a late awakening is a myth for her." Meredith hissed. "Even Omegas shift before twenty-five, Scarlett. You do understand what that makes you, right?" "It makes her a decoration," someone else answered for her, and the laughter crested again. "You're going to get someone hurt trying to train with us," Meredith added, crossing her arms. "You can't anchor a formation. You can't hold a flank. You can't do anything, Scarlett. You never could." "That's not—" I started. "Don't try to argue. It's embarrassing to watch." She cut in. "Meredith—" A slap cut me short. "Know your place," she hissed, hitting me again. "You are clearly incapable of keeping up with the others. You will not continue training. Instead, you will clean the grounds. Perhaps you can contribute something useful that way." My face throbbed. I pressed my fingers to my cheek and felt the heat radiating off the skin. It was useless to argue, and it would be worse if I disregarded her command, after all, her wolf was a beta. My eyes were burning, not from tears but from something that had no outlet in a world where even the act of defending myself was grounds for mockery. I staggered toward the supplies stacked at the edge of the field with my head lowered. My vision was still blurry. My hands trembled slightly as I picked up a heavy brush and dipped it into a bucket of murky water. Kneeling beside the training circle, I began scrubbing while other wolves resumed training. Suddenly, a boot kicked the bucket beside me, spilling dirty water across the ground. "Oops," the wolf responsible said mockingly. "What is going on here?" A dominant voice growled. Every wolf stiffened as the owner of the voice approached. No one dared answer. As the Alpha’s son and the future leader of the Pack, Derrick Darkwater’s presence alone demanded respect. His brown hair moved slightly in the wind, and his piercing blue eyes quickly took in the scene before him. "Who did that to your face?" He snapped. I exhaled and looked away. I was certain that if I met his gaze, I’d burst into tears. "Scarlett?" He hissed, crouching down beside me. And when I still didn't look at him, he reached out and gently turned my face toward him with two fingers under my chin. His eyes swept over the redness on my cheek, and his jaw clenched. Letting out a frustrated groan, he grasped my arm and gently pulled me to my feet. "Who put their hands on her?" he growled. His voice dropped into something far more dangerous. The wolves immediately stepped back. Even Meredith lowered her gaze. "I don't care what Scarlett said," he continued, when no one answered. "I don't care what she did or didn't do in training or how far behind she was or what your opinions are about her rank or her wolf or any of it. I have said this countless times, she is not to be touched." He let the silence sit for a moment. "This will be my last warning. Touch her again, and I'll make sure you lose a few limbs. Am I clear?" "Yes, Derrick." They chorused. "Come on, Scarlett," he said quietly. "Leave the brush."