Chapter 1

Sally

“You can’t keep the baby,” Alpha Ashton growls.

Tears well in my eyes as Alpha Ashton’s words strike me like a blow to the gut. He wants me to abandon our baby?

I blink back the tears and try to steady my nerves. I want to be strong and fight him on this, but deep down, I’m terrified of losing everything. “Why not?” My challenge comes out less determined than intended. I sound weak and afraid...probably because I am. “Why can’t we keep our baby?”

Ashton snarls, flashing his sharp canines. “You’re just an Omega, Sally. I’m the Alpha. Our child is a monstrosity.” His lip curls in disgust. “Besides, you aren’t even marked yet.”

His response is filled with disgust and disdain, as if the mere thought of a child from an Omega and Alpha pairing is repulsive to him. I shudder at his coldness. Is this the mate I thought I knew? The one I know and love? He is acting weird and unrecognizable. And if I don’t stand up to him now, I may lose everything.

“And?” I ask. “What does it matter if I’m not marked or not?”

My protective hand instinctively covers my growing belly as he spits out his twisted reasoning. “It’s a bastard child, Sally. An abomination that must be destroyed.”

“How can you say that? It’s your child!”

“No. It’s an abomination that must be destroyed! Since you have been pregnant for longer than two months, it probably is not even a werewolf child! You’re having an abortion!”

I take a step back, one hand protectively covering my swollen belly. “Ashton, please...” I beg, my voice cracking.

But my pleas don’t reach him. His eyes blaze with possessive fury, and fear latches onto my heart.

This isn’t the boy I grew up with, the one I fell in love with. How did we end up here? Just last night, we were laughing over pizza, discussing different baby names. Now, he is scaring me and threatening me. For the first time, I’m afraid of my own mate and the father of my child.

“No. I’ve already decided.”

I look up at him with tear-filled eyes. “Please, Ashton. Getting rid of the baby would be like committing murder!”

“It’s not the same thing!” he growls. “We are getting rid of the baby.”

I’m surprised by the lack of emotion in his voice, and I take a defensive tone when I speak back to him. “What if I don’t want to?” I ask, ready to bolt since I have a sinking feeling I won’t like how this will end. 

His eyes narrow. “Then I will have my warrior wolves take you to the pack doctor by force.”

“What? No, you can’t do that!” 

“I can...I will...”

My bloodcurdling scream pierces the air as two hulking warrior wolves emerge from the shadows. Ashton’s cold threat chills me to the bone—will he really force me to have an abortion?!

I search his steely eyes for any sign of mercy but find only ruthless determination. The wolves close in on me, and Ashton doesn’t even care. I brace for a fight, adrenaline flooding my veins, but my desperate struggle is no match for their brute strength.

“Let me go!” I scream, thrashing against their iron grip as I’m being dragged. When I look at Ashton, he is smirking in a way that tells me this nightmare has only just begun.

An icy chill races down my spine. Why does he look so happy? I search his cold blue eyes, praying for the mate bond to make him regret doing this to me, but that never happens.

Instead, Ashton says, “I, Alpha Ashton of the Claw pack, reject you, Sally, as my fated mate.”

I jolt awake in my bed, heart pounding. I had the same nightmare again. A year has passed. I’m nineteen now, older and more mature, yet the memory still haunts me. How could it not?

That night, I fought with all my might against the warrior wolves dragging me away, but it wasn’t enough. My daughter is gone, and the guilt gnaws at me every day. I know a werewolf is usually only pregnant for two months if the child is born a werewolf, nine months if born as human, but our daughter might have awakened later! She was not an abomination!

What hurts even more is that Ashton has moved on with someone new. He has a new girlfriend - a werewolf strong enough to be worthy of him - and it is rumored that she is pregnant. Her stomach is very round and...they have asked me to become their nanny!

Is Ashton the most cruel man on earth, or what? He knows I can’t refuse him since he is the goddamn freaking Alpha of this screwed-up pack!

I’m startled by a loud, insistent knocking on the door. I’m known as the pack’s slave, always on call to help whenever needed. But today, no one has asked for my assistance. So who is behind the door?

With tears streaming down my face, I approach the door. My hand trembles as I reach for the handle, pausing before finally opening it. What I see is completely bewildering.

A tall, chiseled man stands before me, his sculpted abs on full display. He has a striking resemblance to Ashton, yet there is something alluringly different about him. A sly smirk graces his lips, sending my heart racing with anticipation.

“You don’t happen to have any spare clothes?” he asks casually, as if it’s perfectly normal to show up at a stranger’s doorstep entirely naked. “I shape-shifted for no reason again, and now all my clothes are gone...”

A million thoughts whirl around in my mind as I assess the situation. This guy is clearly a werewolf like me, but I have never seen him before. You don’t forget a man as fearsome looking as this one. He might be beautiful, but goddamn, it looks like he spent his whole life fighting with bears.

“Ummm...who are you?” I ask, wishing I didn’t sound so afraid of him. 

“Me?” His grin widens and becomes almost playful. “Oh, I’m Ashton’s little brother, Ryan—the hot one in the family.”

Little brother? Ashton never mentioned a brother before. Then again, Ashton never bothered to share much personal information with me. We are childhood friends, but what do I really know about him?

“I-I see…and you need clothes?” I feel like a dummy for asking that when he made it obviously clear that’s what he came here for, but Ryan doesn’t growl at me. Neither does he call me a stupid Omega.

Instead, he arches an eyebrow with a playful gleam in his eyes that makes me blush. “It would appear so,” he says in a humorous voice before taking a step closer so that he is looking directly down at me. “Unless you prefer me naked?”

I shriek. “W-what?!”

Deep laughter rumbles from his chest. “Fuck, aren’t you a cute one? So easy to upset...”

“Easy to upset?” I’m not sure if I like this guy. There is a darkness in him…

“Yeah,” he laughs some more. “But that’s okay. I like girls who blush easily.”

I blink repeatedly, unsure if this guy is a hallucination. He is so...weird. Everyone else treats me like a slave, but this guy is messing around and grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat. So damn carefree and mischievous.

It’s throwing me off.

“Anyway, about those clothes...someone told me Sally Fletcher is the girl with all the spare clothes. Is that true?”

“Y-yeah…”

“Good.” My heart thuds inside my chest when Ryan closes the distance between us. Suddenly, I’m face-to-face with his upper abs, and the world seems to come to a stop when he curls his finger to lift my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. “So, my little Omega, what kind of spare clothes do you have for me?”

I stare up at him. Being this close to this handsome man would probably make another girl go all weak in the knees, but I’m a weirdo with PTSD. I don’t like it when people touch me without permission, especially big, burly men. It makes me think of that terrible day when I was taken away by force by the pack warriors. 

The scene from the past plays on repeat inside my head: I’m being dragged away by the warrior wolves while screaming. I’m clawing at their arms, kicking and flailing, but nothing works. 

Why am I remembering this now?!

Panic settles in, and then I do the unthinkable: I slap Ryan’s cheek in pure fear and scream, “Get the hell away from me!”