Too Late For Redemption: Rise Of The Lycan Queen

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE: I could just crush you with my hands

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♧ Ariela's P. O. V

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The greatest lie I've ever been told is that time heals.

Time doesn't heal, time just numbs. Time doesn't mend, time doesn't recover and put back in place, time just conditions. Instead of healing, all that time has taught me is to be accustomed to pain, is to naturally suppress my response to it so it hurts less each time and in so doing, the scars just thicken and deepen within a festering wound. But as my bestie Camila always used to say, "there's not much remedy time can give if the cure is closure" and closure is the one thing I've never gotten.

Two years ago, my entire world collapsed overnight when mother vanished into thin air; disappeared, gone without a trace and I just couldn't believe it. I never received any explaination, there were no signs, she left me no clues.

Since the day she disappeared, I've been told by my new keepers that she left me, that she willingly abandoned me to start a new life and ruin another alpha's life and even though I tell myself each day that my mother would never do that, there's a part of me still that does believe I am worthy of such abandonment, so why wouldn't their words be true? This has been the worst two years of my life and I've wished for death more times than I can count.

Sometimes I wonder how my life would've been had my mother never crossed paths with that deranged man; Alpha Regan Blackthorn. Four years ago, my mother met her second- chance mate, which is extremely rare for wolves born after The Red Moon's Curse to experience and they got married almost right away. I never even knew that mom was dating, she only told me about him when the wedding was a week away.

I missed the wedding because of a school trip and honestly, because I felt betrayed and didn't want to see my mother give herself away to a strange man I didn't know. Since I missed the wedding and mom's appointment as Luna, I was only introduced to alpha Regan the day I officially moved into his mansion.

Alpha Regan did not particularly give the worst first impression; he was extremely attractive, tall, built like a warrior God, tanned, nice beard, even nicer dark hair, well groomed and clad in a very fine, very flattering three piece designer suit. Looks wise, I could tell why mom fell for him so quickly. He did also have an undeniable , beguiling charm to him, he was attentive and gave the warmest reception so I thought that finally I'll have a normal family, that finally I'll have a father and siblings…until I met him; Hayden Blackthorn.

The very first time those magnetic green eyes pierced into mine, I knew that my relationship with my new step-brother was not going to be a good one. Hayden only gave me one look and that was enough for him to despise me with every bone in his body. At first he just ignored me and pretended I didn't exist, then he started pulling me into corners and threatening me every chance he got.

"Well look at you, Bambi, innocent, little angel, cute, little birdy, I could just crush you between my hands. You and your leech of a mother might think you've foooled everyone but you're not fooling me. I know your kind. Don't think you can just come here and steal my place because your own useless father didn't want you. I won't let your mother ruin my father, if you dare try anything there'll be hell to pay."

His words only got increasingly hurtful and offensive and I was grateful that I only had to endure his hatred for three months because Eighty eight days after we met, he had to move to another country on the other side of the world to complete one of the leadership phases of his alpha training at the most prestigious, well- acclaimed alpha academy in the world since he had turned twenty years old. I was only sixteen when he left, I thought I'd never see him again but a few months after my eighteenth birthday, he returned to find his accusations were exactly true.

My mother had ruined his father.

His father was dead and my mother was nowhere to be found.

Alpha Reagan had always been undoubtedly unhinged, hot- tempered and insanely dangerous but after my mother left, he became even more frighteningly psychotic and deranged and ended up killing himself.

I never got the rest of the details, I didn't even understand how he died, all I knew was that I had to silently accept the blame and suffer for the rest of my life. The Black Claws pack lost an alpha and gained a new slave and defenseless enemy.

Since the moment alpha Reagan died, I have been trapped in a never-ending nightmare and Hayden has promised me that things will only get worse. When we met again after two years, it was immediately made obvious to me that he still resented me, and that in fact his hatred for me had risen by the fury of a million Hells.

The worst part of all of this is that I have to share the same roof with him, I have to see him everyday. I thought after accusing me of pushing their alpha to insanity they would kick me out to the rogues or have me killed but since alpha Reagan had put my mother and I in his will, they were supposedly forced to "keep me."

It's been two years yet I've been through enough to last me a century! I spent my twentieth birthday locked up in a cold, musty cell and I exhaust most of my remaining brain cells trying to keep the Acting Alpha; Hayden's uncle, Alpha Landon, satisfied. Before alpha Reagan died, I never had much of a relationship with my step- uncle, we rarely saw each other but from the few encounters we had, I could always tell that there was something dark and omnious about him and my hunch was very right.

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