She Is The Alpha!

002: Her Masked Saviour!

“Mother!” I screamed out of my sleep, my heart clenching in pain. Two hours ago, my mother was executed in the Forbidden Forest.

“Please don’t leave me.” I sobbed, the gnawing pain of loss digging deeper at me.

“Mother?” Shayla panicked, grasping at the remnant of the fast receding mindlink, but only a hollow silence was left in its place.

“She's dead.” I sobbed. The only kin I had left was dead!

The iron doors clanged, the 4 wolfs behind my pain walked in. “Are you still mourning that old hag?” Norman chuckled.

“You’re all going to pay for this!” I swore in anger.

Tall, blonde with towering muscular frames, my step-brothers took after Aloha Harold and Tamara in looks and temperament. Axel was the strongest. Norman was vulgar and crude. Cohen seemed cold and aloof. Lloyd was sarcastic and non-chalant.

I’d always been the odd one with the midnight-black hair.

“What do you want?” I got on my feet, facing them squarely.

They exchanged looks of amusement before Lloyd revealed a piece of paper. “We’re here to deliver your mother’s last message.”

“I warned you to burn that!” Norman snatched it, ripping it up.

“What have you done?” Lloyd confronted him.

It escalated into a fiery argument, fists and curses flying.

Heart racing, I quickly tried to salvage the pieces. ‘I will be at Mount Carmel, my child. You must-’

Cohen snatched the pieces from me, lighting it up instantly. “Burnt and discarded. Can you both stop?”

I swallowed hard. Did I read right?

Mount Carmel was the most dangerous place in Australia, surrounded by forbidden forests and treacherous ice fields. Legend rumored that it was inhabited by the Moon Goddess, which made it virtually impossible to get into.

“Now that your mother is out of the way,” Cohen’s cold gaze settled on me. “You can choose to remain a slave, or end up like her.”

“You’re evil.” I spat at him.

“Oh. I’m not, dear sister.” He sneered. “Granting you two options is already very considerate.”

“Well, I won’t be picking either!” I shot back at him. “Only I have the royal bloodline, that throne belongs to me and me alone. You'd have to go over my dead body to take it away!”

My courage flickered something dark in Cohen’s gaze. But I didn't care.

“What a load of crap!” Axel burst out laughing.

“You’re just like your b***h of a mother. All talks and no action!” Norman added.

“Bastard!” I lunged forward to hit his face, but Lloyd stopped me. How dare he call my mother a b***h?

“Can a coward like you compete with us?” Norman grabbed my throat, slamming me against the wall. “Even if the Iron-Claw Academy accepted you, how will you bypass the trainings we’ve had since childhood? The intellect. Leadership skills. Special wolf abilities. How will you get all that in 7 months?” His grip tightened on my neck.

“L...Let me go!” I struggled, trying to kick Norman. Shayla snarled, putting in all her energy. But our combined attacks came out pathetic.

“You keep overestimating her.” Cohen sneered. “There’s no way she's getting past the forbidden forests.”

“P..Please.” Norman’s iron grip knocked air out of my lungs. I felt my heart slowing down, my vision going blurry.

“Let her go.” Lloyd held his arm.

“That’s right, Norman.” Axel laughed. “As future Alphas of the Blood-Thorn Pack, we’ve got no time to waste on a slave.”

Normal let me go and I collapsed, wheezing for air as they all left, smirking.

“What’re you staring at?” I barked.

Lloyd was still stalling at the door. He gave me a wierd look before slamming it.

“No.” I broke down, tears rolling down my face in heart-wrenching agony.

If I hadn’t been such a weak b***h, my life wouldn’t have turned out this way! I was born weak, with a wolf of the weakest breed. It's all my fault my mother's dead today.

My wolf purred, trying her best to soothe the wound in my heart.

“We have to become stronger.” I got up, wiping my tears. “And make them pay for killing an innocent soul.”

A low rasp sounded on the door. “I forgot to drop this.” Lloyd appeared again, placing a familiar object on the table.

A deep gnawinv pain stabbed me. My mother’s ancestral ring, stained with blood.

“She was buried in the forest, near the Great Inkling tree.” I felt a pat on my shoulders.

“Get out!” I shook his hands off, my brain going numb from the pain.

I had no idea how long I stood in tears but when I moved, my blurry sight caught a shiny object underneath the door.

A golden key.

_

By dawn, I was at the outskirts of the Forbidden Forests, a place where no ordinary wolf can survive. But the only path leading to the Iron-Claw Academy.

“I’ll be back, mother. By then, every single one of our enemies will bow before me as Alpha!”

I dashed into the forest, my wolf finally rearing her head. “Free, are we?” Shayla yawned happily.

“Go, Lyra!” We screamed together, shifting into my white fur and dazzling blue eyes.

As we got deeper, growls and grunts sounded left and right and in 30 mins, I was attacked by 3 forest beasts.

Forcefully learning self-preservation skills, I escaped the first 2 monsters. But the last beast was vicious, it cornered me to a tree, baring its fangs, clawing at my legs.

“Shayla, do something!” I scurried on the floor, throwing whatever I could find at it.

I suddenly came into contact with a dagger partly buried in the soil. I lunged upwards, plunging the dagger into the monster’s heart.

It staggered back and died and I learned to moved more discreetly.

I didn’t know how long I walked, but the sun slowly disappeared, the chilly wind freezing my lungs. I was surrounded by tall trees, trunks, and grasses, there was no sound of a single animal.

A mild ache pounded in my head, my limbs sore, throat parched. I stopped to lean against a tree, trying to find where I was on the map.

The Iron-Claw Academy lies somewhere close. And I must find it.

For now, I needed to find a place to hide till dawn. My step-brothers must have discovered I was missing and deployed guards after me.

“Why did you stop?” Shayla whined. “There’s a cave right ahead.”

“You coward!” I snapped angrily at her. “Where were you when those monsters almost killed us?”

“It’s not my fault I’m weak, Lyra!” She hissed. “You always ignored my pleas to join your brothers in warriors training. Look where all the knitting and baking led you.”

Her words stung deep.

“My skills aren’t useless.”

“Yeah, right. Your stupid skills are saving us right now!” She sneered. “If you weren’t so weak, mother wouldn’t have-”

“Shut up!” I shrieked, cutting her off midsentence.

“It’s because I was cursed with a weak wolf!” My voice broke. “You’re so useless it’d take twice the average effort to train!”

“I hate you!” Shayla yelled, recoiling into her shell. I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen, signaling my wolf was hurt.

I sighed, pushing the guilt away.

Looking up, I sighted a cave lodged between the trunks of two trees.

But the relief in my heart was quickly replaced by dread when I heard a familiar chuckle behind me.

“We finally have you right where we need you, sister.” Cohen took a step forward, his gaze cold and brutal.

I swallowed hard, my legs trembling under me.

“We should have put an end to your madness a long time ago!” Norman laughed, unsheathing his sword with a terrifying whoosh.

“P…Please.” I pleaded in terror. “I’m sorry, Shayla.” I stumbled against a root, scurrying backwards, stones and leaves gritting my skin.

“Shayla, do something, we can’t die now!” I shrieked inwardly, as Cohen also unsheathed his sword, a terrorizing glint in his eyes.

“Cohen, please don't-” An overwhelming fear engulfed me. There was no way I could fight them off or even escape.

“A weakling like you was never a threat to us, Lyra.” Norman snarled. “But... That prophecy from the Moon Goddess. You must die!” They struck down against me.

“No!” I snapped my eyes shut, expecting to feel pain and blood.

But I felt a strong wind envelop me, opening my eyes to see a cloaked figure with an overpowering aura that forced Cohen and Norman several steps backwards.

“Who are you? Why’re you getting in our way?” Norman roared, both of them trying to launch an attack.

The figure sneered, revealing a beautifully crafted face mask as it drove them further backwards with a flick of his fingers.

I instantly felt a pull to him, a sweet smell of peach and apples wafting through my nostrils.

“Mate.” Shayla stirred in my head.

But before I could think, an arrow shot through the air, piercing my chest right through my heart. “No entity can save you in this world!” Norman growled.

I collapsed suddenly feeling weak. “Shayla.” I mumbled, but it was already too late, the poison was spreading rapidly through my veins and turning my skin black.

Whatever attempt at healing she made was futile.

“Mate!” Shayla growled. She tried to shift, but the poison had gotten to her.

I felt the burning gaze of that cloaked figure, right before everything went black.