Three-time Rejected Young Luna

Tribute

“Please! She is my only daughter! I promised her mother that I will protect our little girl! Please!” A gray-haired old man was half-kneeling on the ground. His wrinkled hands reached for one direction but two pairs of strong and young arms stopped him from crawling towards that direction.

His tired eyes could not hold his tears anymore. His voice cracked but he continued to shout, to plea for his baby girl who was being taken away from him. “Please, Alpha! We were once people who fought back to back for this land! I beg of you, please save my daughter! Take me! Take me instead!”

The alpha who was addressed by the man merely frowned and clicked his tongue. He sharply looked at his subordinate and signaled him to drag the nuisance away. After all, this was the sacred ceremony to offer the tribute of the pack in exchange for another twenty years of borrowed peace.

The old man, who was looking at one particular direction from the beginning, had his mouth covered by a rag before he was pulled roughly by the sergeants.

“Old Rome, do as some favor and keep your mouth shut!” One of the sergeants hissed behind the old man’s right ear. His action in dragging the crying old man did not show mercy at all. He continued, “Or else, I will shut you up myself.”

The other sergeant frowned. He seemed to dislike the words he heard but he remained silent. Sometimes, silence was not better than the abuse itself. It was a form of cold indifference and disregard tainted with limited self-righteousness.

The unwilling muffled screams behind the stuffed rag did not dwindle. Even when bruises and wounds accumulated from his rebellion, the old man did not care. Even when his life-long glory was trampled by the people he once protected, the old man had only his sight on one particular direction—to the place where a row of women, young and old, were being blindfolded and tied on a stake. Specifically, the old man had his eyes on the young woman at the center.

The tattered dress was now in a color of maroon, a mixture of dirt and blood. What was once a pastel pink dress gifted by him to his daughter a few moons ago, only the shell of it remained, tainted by the horror and cowardice brought by the pack he once offered his life to protect to.

The old man’s limbs may be held behind his back like a criminal; the old man’s mouth may be stuffed by dirty rags to silence his plea; but the eyes—the windows of the soul—screamed in utter agony for being hopeless. As he watched his darling daughter being bound, waiting for her death should she be selected by the abyss.

‘Aria!’ He tried to scream. But only the muffled sound could escape from his stuffed mouth.

‘My baby daughter!’

‘Take me instead!’

He screamed. He trashed as much as he could. But no one would listen to him. No one would hear the broken pleas of a father in exchange for the safety of the entire pack. For the pack, his daughter’s life was disposable—a necessity for survival. But for Roman, his daughter was his entire world.

Unlike the wretched father, the daughter’s mouth was not gagged. Though bruised with dried blood around her left cheek, she was not stuffed with dirty rags. Aria, the object of the old man’s rebellion, heard it all.

The part of the cloth covering her eyes were now drenched in blood. She could not see but her heightened senses could hear every tear that dropped from her father’s shin down to the cold ground. It took everything in Aria to stop herself from answering her father’s call.

For Aria, it seemed yesterday only when her family was complete. Her mother would worry about her mate and her father would comfort her mother, telling his wife how his daughter would have the best man out there.

This glimpse of the past eased the pain in Aria’s heart. The corner of her lips curled slightly. But it was instantly shattered when she smelled a familiar scent followed by hearing the incoming familiar footsteps, stopping directly a few steps in front of her.

Aria did not speak. She waited for him to speak.

“Because you were once my mate, I will spare your father for disrupting the ceremony, Aria.”

A mocking smile evoked from Aria’s pale face. Even when she was blindfolded, her face was facing the direction where the man stood, showing no hint of submissiveness. “Should I be thankful to you then? If you are waiting for my words of gratitude and understanding, then you are in a whole lot of waiting in front of you.”

“Aria!” The alpha in him did not like how Aria spoke to him. His call to her name was tinged with a growl, showing dominance to the woman he once trampled for power and fame.

Aria snorted. “You better pray I died in that ceremony…Jake.” This was not a threat, but an oath…that she will be back to ask for the pack of what they owed to her.

“How dare you call my name in such a disrespectful tone! Are you really tired of living, Aria?”

“Don’t kill her, Alpha Jake. Sometimes, living is more frightening than dying.” This time, another voice came. He came like a wind, catching Aria off guard for a split second. His voice was as cold as the autumn breeze whipping around Aria’s exposed battered back.

This time, Aria did not look at the direction where the second voice came from. Every cell of her blood seemed to freeze. Her breathing got suspended for a minute before she forced herself to exhaled.

If this was her last day on the world, she would not show such a cowardly side of her. Through gritted teeth, she greeted that newly arrived man calmly. “You don’t have to ask me again. I will give you the answer for the nth time. I don’t know where your daughter is. Even if you skin me alive, I don’t have the answer for something I don’t know.”

Aria did not forget that this man, the man who was supposed to be her second chance mate, was the very same man who held the whip and tortured her, ripping her clothes and drenching her with her own blood. Every time she smelled of him, all she could remember was the scene of that small cell as she huddled like a rat in the corner for a crime she did not commit, all because Alpha Jake’s chosen mate pointed at her as the culprit.

Silence answered Aria. Biting the insides of her cheek, she was thankful that she was blindfolded at this moment. She did not want them to see what was being shown in her eyes. At least, this piece of cloth saved her the last bit of dignity that she could keep.

“Go away,” she whispered. Exhaustion evident in her voice. She let the stake keep her body from crumbling down as her head hung down. Aria did not want to give them attention.

“Alpha Luis, if she is not chosen as the year’s tribute, I will personally tell my father and the council to give Aria to your territory as a suspect for the k********g of your heir. But before then, please act accordingly.” Alpha Jake said.

Alpha Luis did not answer. But he crossed the meager distance between him and Aria. His calloused hand pinched Aria’s chin, forcing her face to look up to him in this humiliating and submissive posture. He lowered his face to his left ear, his canines barely brushing the tip of her ear, then he whispered: “Pray to all the gods you know, Aria. If you are not chosen by the abyss, you will wish to die in that prison cell.”

His touch was like a serpent’s kiss against her skin, making her skin crawl. She wanted to move her face away from his sordid touch but his grip on her chin was ironclad. It also did not help that she was tied to a stake.

His fingers seemed to embed into her skin. She knew it would leave fresh bruises out there but Aria did not care. After all, this was not the first time she was subjected to his sadism.

“You’re sick!” Aria spat at him before she moved her face away from his direction. “Go away!”

“Alpha Luis, my father and the council are coming.” Alpha Jake intervened this time. He was afraid that the ceremony would be disturbed again. He could not afford it especially when he was the new alpha of the pack. He looked up at the darkening sky, covering the sun. “The ceremony is about to begin.” His voice was solemn.

Aria’s heart jumped. The ceremony…The tribute…

She was too distracted to notice that the two men, who were once her hope, were now walking away, leaving her along with the whimpering women beside her.

Growing up, she had heard about the ceremony that would take place every twenty-five years in their pack. She had heard about the old tales and myths about it. It was used by many mothers in the pack to keep their pups in check if they misbehaved.

‘Beware or you’ll be chosen by the abyss…Beware, the abyss will take you if you misbehave… Beware or you will be the sacrifice…’

It was meant to scare the children. But now, it had become Aria’s reality.

She did not know about what’s the abyss. Was it a beast? A place? What happened to those girls taken? Were they dead?

Aria fidgeted the more unanswered questions arose in her mind.

It was in this moment that the familiar voice of Jake resounded again. This time, his voice was from a distance. Aria could feel many pairs of eyes pinned on her, on them, the tributes.

“The 12th Tribute Ceremony is now opened! Folks, stand behind the red lines! Follow the rules and not a sound when the abyss arrive! Remember, the prosperity of the pack is now depending on this ceremony’s success!”

The murmurs immediately shut up.

The tension-filled silence broke the last piece of straw for the woman next to Aria, infecting the others as well.

“Please…I’m sorry! Let me out of here! I will be an omega my entire life, just release me from here!”

“Mom! Dad! Save me! Please! I don’t want to be the chosen one! Please!”

“Let me out! Let me out!”

Wails of the women from different ages and varying ‘sins’ broke the silence, but what answered them was cowardice.

Their pleas turned to anger.

“I will come back! And I will destroy all of you! All of you!” One girl finally flipped. Hearing the silence that answered her pleas, she turned her hopelessness to anger.

Others were too tired and scared to be angry, they turned from pleading to silently sobbing, accepting the fact that death was moving closer to them.

Among them, one stood out.

Aria remained motionless. Behind the blindfold, she closed her eyes and felt her surrounding. She was searching for one person among the many people surrounding, watching, the ceremony.

Her ears twitched when she hardly picked up the silent struggle and muffled screams to her east. Her head snapped to that direction and her eyes opened.

“Dad…” It was a whisper at first. “Dad!” She screamed with all her might. She could not see him, but she felt his unwillingness. She felt the only love she ever knew—her parent’s love for her.

Darkness loomed over them. Aria felt it. Even the sobbing around her was stifled from fear. Her instinct was ringing, urging her to leave, to run away, to hide from that feeling that seemed to strip her soul from her body.

Contrary to what others did, Aria slowly and hardly looked up where she felt the penetrating gaze was coming from. She did not see anything but every fiber of her being felt it. The tiny piece of cloth could not stop Aria as she stared at the nothingness hovering above her.

She knew it. Deep down, she knew she would be leaving her father first.

“Daddy…forget this daughter.”