Broken Luna, Unbreakable Bond

Mei Ling POV My name is Mei Ling, and I am the weakest person in my pack. Not because I cannot fight. But because I have given up trying. I sit in the corner of the training ground, watching the other girls my age throw punches and kicks with power and precision. They are fast and strong. Their wolves are awake, hungry, alive inside them. My wolf barely speaks to me anymore. Her voice is like a whisper that I can hardly hear through the thick walls of pain and fear that I have built around my heart. The afternoon sun beats down on the dirt ground. I do not move. Moving means drawing attention. And attention means pain. "Get up, Mei Ling," Alpha Roshan yells from across the field. He is not my real Alpha. My father was once Alpha of this pack, many years ago. But he died when I was seven years old, and Roshan took over everything. With him came my stepmother, Siti. And with Siti came my nightmare. I get up slowly, my body aching from bruises that are old and new. I do not ask about them anymore. Questions only make things worse. "Again," Roshan commands, his eyes on his son, Darren, who is showing off his strength to the other pack members. Darren is strong and beautiful, with the kind of presence that makes people want to follow him. Everyone says he will be a great Alpha one day. But Darren does not look at me. Nobody looks at me. I am invisible, a ghost moving through the pack. I raise my fists and prepare to fight the training bag. But before I can even move forward, Siti pushes me hard to the ground. My hands scrape against the dirt, drawing blood, and everyone around us laughs. This is how it always goes. Every single day. They hurt me, they laugh, and I get back up because the alternative is worse. "You are pathetic," Siti says, her voice dripping with poison and disgust. She is standing over me, her arms crossed, her face twisted with a cruel smile. "I do not know why we even bother keeping you around. Your father should have rejected you before he died. At least then you would not be his shame." My chest feels tight. I feel tears coming, burning behind my eyes, but I push them down deep. Crying makes everything worse. I pick myself up off the ground and dust off my clothes. Around me, the other girls are watching. Some of them look uncomfortable. Most of them just look away. Nobody helps. Nobody ever helps. That night, I lie in my small room at the back of the house. It is more like a closet than an actual room. I have a small bed with a thin mattress, no window, and a door that locks from the outside. They lock me in at night. They say it is to keep me safe. I know the truth. They lock me in because they are afraid I might run. I stare at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster. There are forty-three cracks. They spell out my life in broken lines. My phone buzzes quietly on my bed. I pick it up and see a message from Priya, one of the only people who still talks to me at school. The human school, where I have to pretend to be normal, where nobody knows I am a wolf. Priya is telling me about a party at the Blood Moon Pack this weekend. Everyone who is turning eighteen soon is supposed to go. It is tradition. You go to the party, you shift in front of the whole pack, and if you are lucky, you meet your mate. The Blood Moon Pack. Even the name sounds dangerous. Their Alpha is a man named Amar. He is young, only twenty-five years old, but he is already the strongest and most feared Alpha in the entire region. They say he was made Alpha when he was just seventeen, after his parents died in an attack. They say he has never smiled. They say he feels no emotion. I would like to meet someone who does not feel anything. Maybe then I would understand how to be numb. Maybe then I would not have to hurt so much. But I will not go to the party. I do not have the courage, and I do not have the clothes, and I do not have the strength to face meeting my mate when I am so broken. What if my mate rejects me? I put my phone down and try to sleep. But sleep does not come easily anymore. The next morning, something strange happens. I am collecting water from the well when I see Roshan talking to some men I have never seen before. They are big and scary, with the mark of the Blood Moon Pack on their arms. The mark is a crescent moon with a drop of blood inside it. Roshan looks nervous. That is very strange. Roshan is never nervous. "Tell your Alpha I did not know," Roshan is saying. "She was just here. She was nobody. I did not know she was anything special." My stomach drops. Who is he talking about? "Our Alpha wants her," one of the men says, his voice deep and cold. "And what our Alpha wants, our Alpha gets. You have one week to prepare her. If you do not deliver her by then, we will come back and take her by force." Then they leave, walking away with the kind of confidence that comes from knowing nobody can stop you. I watch Roshan's face turn red with anger. He stomps back into the house, and I follow him carefully, like the shadow I am. I hide behind the doorway and listen. "Siti!" he shouts. "Get down here!" Siti comes running, looking worried. I have never seen her look worried before. Roshan tells her what the men said. Siti's face goes pale. "What do we do?" she asks. "If we do not give her up, they will attack. Blood Moon Pack will destroy us." "I know," Roshan says, his voice quiet and dangerous. "Which is why we are going to give her exactly what they want." My heart stops completely. They are talking about me. They are going to give me away. I run back to my room and lock the door. My mind spins. What did I do? Why would the Alpha of Blood Moon Pack want me? I am nobody. I am nothing. I am broken and weak and worthless. But as I sit there in the dark, shaking so hard I think I might fall apart, I realize something that surprises me. Maybe being nobody is about to change everything. And maybe I should be terrified. But instead, deep down where my wolf lives, I feel something else. Something I have not felt in years. I feel hope.