She almost forgot that it’s her birthday if it wasn’t for the Beta smiling in front of her.
“Thanks. I guess…”
Ansel arched his brow. “‘I guess’? What kind of thanks is that?”
Sasha shrugged, not knowing what to feel and what to say. “A gratitude from a lowly slave.”
“Here we go again.” Ansel just eyed her for a heartbeat, sighing. “Will you at least put on a happy face on your eighteenth birthday and stop whining about being a Slave?! I promise, if I become an Alpha, I will make you the Queen of this pack.”
Sasha chuckled. “You have a way with words,” she bit her fingers in order to stop her tears from falling. “But we both know it’s just a mere wish—a whisper and hope under the sea of stars that will never come true.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Ansel countered.
“But everything is not possible as well.” Sasha didn’t so much as glance at Ansel when she laid her head atop the two clothes that serve as her pillows.
“Goodnight, Ansel,” a horse whined nearby.
“You haven’t yet blown your cake.”
Sasha turned to him, eyes scanning whether he’s telling the truth or just making her sleeping time a bit more delayed.
“What cake?” she looked around again, lifting her body for a little from the bed of hay.
“Here it is!” Ansel pulled a palm-sized chocolate cake that she thought was just a pile of horse shit. Ansel, whose veins were gifted with scorching embers and fierce fire, lit the candle atop the cake in a click of his finger.
“Happy Birthday—” Ansel sucked a breath as Sasha kneeled and sat in front of him, smiling as bright as the stars adorning the heavens, “Sasha…”
The candle’s flame danced in Sasha’s eyes, debating whether to blow and make a wish or blow Ansel and make herself pissed. She chuckled at those thoughts.
What the hell are you thinking, Sasha! She scolded herself by shaking her head. Ansel watched her with narrowed eyes.
“I can’t accept this, Ansel,” Sasha finally spoke.
“Is it because I’m a Beta?”
Sasha shook her head. “I don’t even deserve to be greeted by a high-ranking wolf like you.”
“Just this once,” his voice is soft and beckoning. “Just this once, let’s forget about the world. Let’s forget that I am a Beta and you are a Slave. Let’s forget that…” Ansel took a deep breath, “...that we are just friends.”
She gaped, her heart pounded in her ears. Her breath almost felt nothing against her throat. Did Ansel just confess to me?
“Just kidding!” Ansel burst into a laugh that Sasha swore was not. Yes, Ansel is a man of beauty; his broad shoulders, muscular body, eyes like the ripe dates of the desert, his pinkish lips. Everything about him is real and a dream for a Slave like her.
For a Slave like me…she whispered against her thoughts.
“Ansel…” his smile vanished as she inched closer. “What if…what if I was an actual Alpha’s daughter? Or perhaps the lost daughter of Alpha Jonas as many have said. We only know her son has died on the day your father took over the Fire Moon Pack but what about—”
“Stop,” Ansel pleaded, his voice rasped and dull. “I told you to quit talking about my father.”
“I’m just stating a fact and our pack’s history.” Sasha gazed into Ansel’s soul through his warm but smoking hazel eyes.
“It’s painful you know…”
“What’s painful?” She closed the distance between them, digging into the chocolate cake with her bare fingers that she didn’t even know if it’s clean.
“That my father thrived so hard to bring peace to our pack, even sacrificing his loyalty to Alpha Jonas by killing him, only to end up being murdered by the relative he took down in order to achieve the concord.”
Sasha sighed, she couldn’t agree more. During the days that Alpha Ariel reigned as the leader of the pack, peace hums to a song everyday. Wolves always never quarrel or end up in a bloody fight. She had seen it as she grew up day by day, often wishing if only she could turn back time, she would kill Alpha Cal herself with her own makeshift wooden dagger.
But everything has already happened.
“We both lost our fathers in different ways.” Sasha murmured between her eating of the cake Ansel gave to her. “I guess we should be careful with our life now.”
“I baked that.” His eyes darted to the handful of chocolate cake resting in her palm.
“I don’t know a Beta like you could bake.”
“I don’t even know a Slave could devour a chocolate cake in a matter of seconds,” the brown-eyed Beta countered, eyes smiling.
And then they both cackled, their laugh echoing in the barn.
Ansel lifted his thumb to Sasha’s lower lip, brushing away the icing that stuck its way to her face. “Slow down or you’re gonna look like a little starving lamb.”
She smiled at his words. Sasha. Freaking. Smiled.
She did not grin or smirk, but smiled. And he addressed her by her name, not Slave. It sent a little joyous voice in her head. Finally someone recognized her for who she is, not what she is now. “You just called me Sasha…”
Ansel whipped his head to her, brown eyes shining. “Yeah, I did. I’ve been calling by your name for a long time too”
“You forgot that I’m Slave. And Slaves’ names are taken from them ever since Cal became an Alpha, hence we are just called Slave. ”
But Ansel instead pinched her cheeks playfully. “You may be a Slave but you’re a Queen to me.”
There was never a time that Sasha’s cheeks heated as far as now. “Qu—Queen?”
“Yes. And if I ever have a chance to take you as one, I will definitely crown you on my own.” He brought his hand to the air, “ Sasha, wife and Luna of Alpha Ansel. That’s the most beautiful thing I've heard.
Their eyes met, and both did not look away. Staring and gazing at each other’s soul never felt so good for Sasha. Ansel’s so calming and positive.
‘Maybe it’s really his attitude and not just because he’s a Beta…’ she pondered.
“Tell me, Sasha…” he wiped her chocolate-covered hands with his black skirt that he took off (the one he only wears during special occasions). “If you ever have your wolf and found out that I wasn’t your mate and you have another mate, will you reject your original mate just to be with me?”
Sasha’s mouth fell open. “How—I mean, maybe…”
“Maybe what?” his brows furrowed.
“Maybe yes, maybe no.”
Ansel cackled, his laugh reverberating inside the barn house where the horses are sleeping peacefully. “You are literally still indecisive until now,” he barked, softly hitting her shoulder while laughing in a feminine style.
Sasha fell in her bed of hay on the opposite side. But in a second, Ansel was now atop her, his breath warm and heart throbbing against her palm.
They just fell silent, unable to know who should break the silence. Sasha watched Ansel’s chest rise and fall as he inched closer to her face. “If you ever have your wolf and found out that I wasn’t your mate and I have another mate, I will gladly and proudly reject my original mate just to be with you.”
Sasha gasped—incredulous, leaving Ansel to brush his lips in her open mouth.
Ansel was on fire like the candle in the lamp. This was his first time, and her first time. Their first time ever together, bodies danced to the song of pleasure. Clothes discarded on the cold floor covered by the darkness of the night. “Dawn is nearing,” Sasha murmured between Ansel’s flesh. “Who cares about the dawn?” She shrugged, letting his material slide inside her mouth again. Devouring him whole, tongue playing and lingering. “Even if vultures surround us, we have all the time in the world, Sasha.” “We don’t.” Sasha released him and sat. Though Ansel’s weight made the half of her body still pinned on the hay earth. “Am I going too fast? Am I too big?” Sasha shook her head in answer. “No. Can’t you see the sky from the window? It’s already the break of dawn!” But the Beta pressed his hand on her bosom and entered at her back, continuing their interaction. She sighed and just laid he
Sasha is shaking, her body unable to get a grip of its own. But she ignored the throbbing of her heart. Ignored the beads of sweat that threatened to blurry her vision. Ignored the little voice inside her head to get the shard of the vase she slid inside her pocket and plunged it deep in the Alpha’s dark heart. She remained stiff and frozen to the bed where Cal had thrown her. “Judging by your face…” she felt a dark caress in her skin courtesy of the Alpha’s heavy hand. “You’re not really the one who broke that ancient thing, aren’t you?” Her lips remained pursed. She denied speaking even when asked by him. All Sasha did was let her tears stream down her face and accept whatever punishment Cal would bestow her. “You’re still not answering me.” The sea of silence becomes deeper, spreading between them second by second. “How many times have I told you to ANSWER ME WHEN I ASK!!!” Cal is already gripping her jaw, squeezing her face unt
Sasha wished she never lied that she was the one who broke the vase. She should have not welcomed Ansel at midnight, eaten his cake and made love with him for the first time. “Alpha…” Sasha whimpered, bile rising up her throat. She must endure the pain; she is Cal’s property. She has no freedom. She has no right to tell the Alpha to stop. Above all, her life has never been hers in the first place. The Alpha can just end her life any second. Sasha is at Cal’s mercy, and she deserved this. All of this. She should have listened to her thoughts yesterday: once a Slave, always a Slave. Glancing up at Ansel, she smiled at him.Weakly. Giving him a look that says “I told you we can never be together.” She watched as Ansel’s fingers curled at his side, his expression stoic and deadly—the face of a warrior and killer. She whipped her head behind her, where Cal was laughing devilishly, relishing the tightness of her flesh and the blood that splayed her skin.
Cal is raping her in front of him. Before his eyes. In his very presence. In a fucking bright afternoon, where all can hear Sasha’s distorted shriek and cry to stop. The Alpha is hurting her—the woman he promised to protect even with his last breath. The young lady whom Warner Forster left in his care. Yet he failed. He failed to protect her and even show his love for her other than the lustful thrusts his cock has made inside her. And now, Cal is playing with her, torturing her with his every breath. Cal had long been torturing her ever since he seized the crown and throne from Alpha Ariel, Ansel’s beloved father, and proclaimed himself as the ‘rightful’ leader of the Fire Moon Pack. He has brought this upon her—upon both of them. All he thinks is about himself: his honor, his name, his reputation as a Beta and the supposed heir of the Alpha if Cal didn’t slit his father’s throat. Cal is a murderer and a rapist.
“You must be relieved that I did not demote you as a Slave like your whining pup!” Ansel endured the one hundred whipping of Cal, orchestrated by Giro, his most loyal bestfriend. The silver-edge of the whip carved his back, bleeding it like watercolor in a canvass. But his head remained lifted. Ansel’s expressions did not so much as falter. ‘I will not yield.’ Those words reverberated in his mind. ‘I do not yield.’ Cal demoted Ansel for a week as an Omega, where he will be denied of his former privileges as a Beta and live and act and breathe as an Omega for seven days. Though Cal can bury Ansel alive, he still needs two Firestarters—Giro and Ansel. That punishment was a mere show-off to display his dominance, his Alpha-ness. His brutality and devilish works. In the corner, with his arms crossing as the healers tended to his burnt woods, Alpha Cal was smirking, savoring the moment that he was finally able to whip the son of
“I don’t care if I’m an Omega for a week or for a month or for eternity, as long as Cal will never breathe again!” Ansel Vaughn breathed to the sky, to the earth, to the waters that appeared before him. It is his vow and his promise, a challenge to the beast inside him—to the wolf of fire that lives inside him. “Indeed,” a voice from the shadows of the tree emerged. One that he did not expect to hear near The Red Lake. “Did you know why Cal sexually abused Sasha in front of you?” “No.” Giro jerked his chin towards his direction. “It’s because someone has told the Alpha that you and Sasha made love in the middle of the night.” He slowly shifted towards his bestfriend, his knees on the verge of giving up. “And did you know who it was?” “Of course I do.” Ansel wrapped his palms into a fist. “I was there when that Slave deliberately told Cal while the Alpha was having his morning coffee.” “Who was it?” He brought his
“Giro…” Ansel patted his bestfriend’s shoulders at the back. “I believe you.” Giro smiled at his words. “I told you—” Then a deafening sound of a bell rang three times. Then another three. “Shit, the Shadow Rose Pack is already here!” Ansel froze, feet nailed on the floor. Big drops of cold sweat stream down from his face. “This will not end well.” “As much as I’ve predicted, yes.” Then Giro vanished towards Alpha Cal’s fortress. People around him began shouting, some Omegas were even panicking. But the Slaves, including Klea and Sasha, did not even halt for a second while doing their daily chores due to their fear of being whipped for the every minute they leave their post is equivalent to one strike. “The Shadows are here! The Shadow Rose Pack is here!” The shriek of the people didn’t stop Ansel from gathering a bucket of water from the well nonetheless. He’s no longer a Beta; he’s an Omega now. And
Cal Steele’s eyes went wide, throat bobbing and brows knitting in confusion but he managed to let himself remain quiet. The Beta with wavy blonde hair is aware Giro and his fellow Betas are talking via their minds but he just smirks at them, yielding an expression of ‘you know it, don’t you?’ to Giro. Giro blinked back in a way that said ‘I know you are here to kill him and I thank you. Cal’s a pain in the ass anyway.’ The sound of rushing footsteps registered in their ears and the next thing they know, Ansel is standing before them, hand blazing in the light of a bright fire. “Where’s Cal?!” “Ansel—“ Giro was immediately in front of him. But the other Shadow Rose Betas have shifted in their enormous wolf forms, their sizes nearly as big as horses. The moon is just brightly shining above the night, its light aiding them. “You are not allowed to enter while the Shadow Rose Alpha and Fire Moon Alpha are discussing business.” It