Chapter 1: Truce
• •• •••Merlara's POV••• •• •
The unexpected heavy banging on the door rattles me, causing me to drop the big-sized candle I am holding. I loudly hiss as the hot wax pours against the inside of my arm causing the candlelight to be doused against my dry skin. It quickly cakes in my furious attempt to rub at it, leaving a mushy mess behind.
"Traitor b***h!" A voice I recognize as Ren's—Alpha Kinser's younger brother—barks through the bolted door followed by another heavy knock. "Get dressed!"
I should be used to it by now. The name calling. The startling knocks.
I suck teeth at the stinging pain and forming red splotch on my right arm to—temporarily—join a dozen other bruises. Each telling a story of its own. Be it from hands intending harm or something else equally ill meaning.
Like the ugly scratches on my legs sustained from a specie of poisonous grass that my kind isn't so immune to. There is an ongoing war between my pack, Avarion Mountain Pack and the Carmine Wolves, the largest and a highly feared notorious pack in the East. It's a brutal war and one we are so badly losing as many have died and are still dying.
Yet, I'm the one sent out each day to go deliver food and supplies to the pack warriors at the front while the women and children stay bunkered up. So understandably, my leg scratches are fresher everyday.
My leg scratches and the ugly rings of peeling skin around my ankles and wrists from the chains I'm always bound with.
My name's Merlara Han Thistle. I'm orphaned and have been for seven years now. I would say I prefer to be called Merla, hating to be called Merly or Lara or even Han but I would give anything to have someone call me those or tease me senseless while doing so. Or even, in the least, say my name which no one does anymore—and I wouldn't hold my breath because I'm fast giving up on that—ever since that dreary day seven years ago. And the few that do call my name do it with so much disdain and pure hatred it hurts to breathe.
I blink back to that fateful day seven years ago.
"Mom, where are you going?" I groaned in the way only a sulky twelve-year-old would, not liking what the packed bags on the porch meant.
"Sweetie, your father and I are joining Alpha Patricio and Luna Ellen on an invitation to Faire Moon Pack."
Faire Moon Pack was a sister pack but faraway.
"But you just came back?" I whined, not happy they were leaving so soon after their trip barely four days ago.
"I know, but duty calls. Beta duties." Her eyes flicked to my dad in a way that said 'Help! Say something placating', then back to mine. "Okay, we'll bring you lots of gifts, how's that?"
That brought a little smile to my chubby face which she returned with a winning smile of her own.
"Now, go freshen up." I had just gotten back from school and still had my backpack and the same clothes on. "I made you lunch and dinner's in the microwave. There's also some labelled food containers in the fridge."
My smile got replaced by a teeny frown. That didn't sound like they'd be back soon.
My smiling father stooped down to my height. Reading my face, he said, "Don't worry Cheeks, we'll be back before you know it."
But he had lied because that was the last time I ever saw them. Hours later, the front door of our house was torn off its hinges as a very angry looking incumbent Alpha Kinser, Alpha Patricio's eldest son, and a handful of menacing looking guys breathed fire in my direction.
"Seize her," was all he growled and the warriors who came with him charged at me.
"What's going on?" I whimpered against their hold, startled and confused as hands gripped me tight like I could develop wings and fly off.
The accusation had been that my parents had connived with a rival pack to ambush and kill the Alpha together with the Luna.
I called it an accusation because my parents had sacrificed so much for this pack to go rogue or do anything that'd be likened to it. Not to mention, my father, a Beta, was loyal and very good friends with the Alpha. But that had meant nothing.
I was released weeks later after my involvement remained unclear but I was denied the chance to even mourn my parents and had been turned into something worse than an embittered, packless wolf.
"Open this f*****g door!!" Ren yells once more, yanking me back from the bitter memory to the present.
The telltale sound of my binding chains follow me as I rush and open the door, stubbing my big toe in the process. I howl silently but with effort, I hide my wince.
Judging by how long it took me to get the door, if only by a few seconds, I know what's coming so I brace for it. Usually, I would cower defensively behind my hands raised to shield my face. But I do none of that. Instead I stand tall, but reflexively squeeze my eyes shut, waiting, only to peek through one eye when I don't hear his hand connect with my face in a neck-turning slap. As it usually would.
Just as I turn and eyes fully open, my face snaps sharply to the side, making me stumble with the force of his thundering slap. The chains links clank with the motion. I feel a new cut on my jaw seep blood down the thick metal collar on my neck onto my top. My face contorts in a whimper. Expecting more, I flinch and protect my side in a futile effort. But they don't come.
Dreadfully turning, I watch his eyes—filled with murderous intent—take in my appearance.
"Why aren't you dressed?" Ren thunders, sounding nothing like the Ren that was my playmate as kids growing up.
It is marginally impossible to have gotten dressed between his banging on the door and my saving myself from further beating by getting the door in time. Not to mention I am in clothes.
But I don't tell him any of that or I will get my face bashed in, if his clenched fist is any indication. I couldn't decide if his fisted hands are from holding back from giving me a proper beating or in preparation to land me a staunch punch. I should know, it has happened before.
It makes me tremble as I recall how just two days ago, I'd look at him wrongly and he'd kicked me in the face and all over my body until I couldn't feel my limbs. I'd laid there bothering on unconscious before he let up but only because his friends had to physically restrain him.
I look down at what I have on. A simple tee and ratty jeans.
"Get changed. Wear something nicer with no holes in it. And be fast about it. The pack has finally found use for you,"
My lower abdomen pools with a terrible, terrible feeling. I dread the meaning behind those words. And combined with that s**t eating smile on his face, I dread it more. Whatever it is must be worse than the unbelievable amount of chores I am subjected to day in day out, the overlooked maltreatment and physical abuse from any person willing and spiteful.
Even from pack members my age. Including Ren here. He is only months older than my nineteen years but he takes great joy in making me his personal punching bag. And I, ofcourse, couldn't do anything about it. Unless I want it worse.
He comes forward with dangling keys in his hand, undoing the big chain cuffs on my neck and limbs so I can change.
The chain on my neck is totally unnecessary. Cuts into me with every motion. There's no reprieve from them, unless I become too debilitated from the weakening effect conferred on them. Or once in two days when I'm allowed a shower. It's sickening to know there's a pack lot of people who derive joy seeing me like this.
The chain drops to my feet with an ominous sound, vehement chills taking its place.
"Wha—what d—do you mean?" I dare to ask in a trembling voice, not really thinking.
But Ren is more that happy to share. With glee that makes my growing trepidation worse, he says, "Our pack has just called truce on the war. And you—" His mouth shows all teeth. "—are the truce. You are to be in the honourable service of the Alpha of Carmine Creek pack."
The Alpha of Carmine Wolves!! Alpha Daen!!!
My stomach drops sharply to my feet. I can't breath. The fear hits me so hard my vision blur. Hysterical, a foul laugh bubble up my throat.
Alpha Daen, his reputation more than precedes him. A cold-hearted, merciless brute. Not much people have ever been in his presence but the sound of his name alone instills fear in people far and near. He inspires werewolf folklores. Dark folklores.
The Alpha of the strongest pack ever known. And the cruelest Alpha. His wolf and himself are said to be the finest definition of predators. Said to severe heads from live bodies for the mere fun of it, and have an unspeakable mad urge to spill blood. Some say he is the way he is because his mate is gone while others claim he carved out his mate's heart right after he rejected her.
The only reason my entire pack is yet to be wiped out in the course of this war is because it's only been a couple days and has only gotten heated since yesterday which was when bodies had really started piling up.
And that's the man I've just been offered to on a platter. The obvious implication chills me to the bone.
Pure silver straight through the heart would be just as quick because a death sentence is what it is.
