Who Wants a Broken Mate E-Book

Eunice Amnell

• Herausgeber: Sentient Hen House
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Nina Oisin is a fae-werewolf who has suffered through several unfortunate events. After running from her pack with her little brother to avoid an arranged mating with a 40-year-old Alpha, she gets kidnapped by a supernatural trafficking organization. She escapes with the help of the Supernatural Council, who assign her a new pack called the Crescent pack.

As Nina tries to settle into a new life in the Crescent pack, she meets two of her true mates—Future Alphas of two of the three packs in the town she now calls home and gets rejected by them.

Things start to go awry when the future Alpha of the third pack in Caister town sets his sights on Nina and will do anything to get what he wants from her. As if things weren’t bad enough, Nina might also be in danger because the Black Ace Sect and their associates are searching for a Fae Omega, and nothing good will come from them finding her.

Madden, one of Nina’s true mates, is determined to prove to Nina that they are meant to be, while Brogan, a commander in the Supernatural Council and another true mate, tries to keep her from losing her life in her thirst for revenge. And Norah, after recognizing Nina as her true mate while working undercover, has to let go of the prejudice from her past to have a chance with Nina.

As they navigate the life-threatening challenges facing them, Nina must decide what is most important to her and find a way to protect the people she loves.

‘Who Wants a Broken Mate’ is the fourth book in the interconnected rejected mates standalone series: The Fae Omegas Series. 

Join Nina in this captivating and heart-wrenching slow-burn reverse harem/why choose paranormal romance story featuring MF and FF relationships, all centered around the female protagonist.

Warning: This book contains some material that may be difficult for some readers, like incidents of attempted rape and suicide attempts.

Leseprobe

Eunice Amnell

Who Wants a Broken Mate?

The Fae Omegas Standalone Series Book 4

Copyright © 2023 by Eunice Amnell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

For permissions, contact: [email protected] / [email protected]

First Published by Sentient Hen House 2023

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy Find out more at reedsy.com

Contents

Author’s Note

1. Nina

2. Nina

3. Nina

4. Nina

5. Nina

6. Nina

7. Nina

8. Madden

9. Nina

10. Madden

11. Nina

12. Nina

13. Nina

14. Madden

15. Madden

16. Madden

17. Nina

18. Nina

19. Nina

20. Nina

21. Norah Jaxson (Dr Rose)

22. Commander Brogan

23. Madden

24. Nina

25. Nina

26. Nina

27. Nina

28. Nina

29. Nina

30. Nina

31. Nina

32. Nina

33. Nina

34. Nina

35. Norah Jaxson

36. Epilogue: Nina

Thanks for Reading

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The Fae Omegas Series

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Author’s Note

This book contains some materials that may be difficult for some readers, like incidents of attempted rape and suicide attempts.

1

Nina

“I know what you are.”

Although my heart skipped a beat, I didn’t laugh nervously or pull at the hem of my uniform like I really wanted to. Because those were things that guilty people would do.

Instead, I casually looked around the back alley we were standing in and perked up my werewolf hearing to ensure that no one was listening in on our conversation. Because if Miro, a middle-grade guard in Lord Westhouse’s trafficking organization’s headquarters, knew what I thought he knew, I would have to end his life.

When he invited me to the cafeteria’s back alley for a talk, I’d thought Miro was yet another guard who had taken a fancy to me after they’d had their fill of all the other personnel in the enclosed trafficking den we were stuck in and was ready to reject him only to get his confession about knowing what I was.

As a trafficked victim turned battle balloon technician in my trafficker’s den, I had many secrets, but from the smug look on his face and the confident way he was standing akimbo, Miro probably knew the secret that could get my brother and me killed or worse.

Thankfully, the cafeteria’s back alley, a hot spot for many illicit activities among Lord Westhouse’s trafficking headquarter personnel, was fairly enclosed. The back alley, which was directly behind the cafeteria, was tacitly managed by the person in charge of the cafeteria and the cafeteria workers, and since Guard Miro and I were the only ones in the grove, he had probably paid for solo use of it.

This was both good and bad because I could probably get away with killing him if I needed to, but it also meant that a couple of people knew I was the last person he met before he died.

Even though I was calculating the possibilities of getting away with murdering him, I didn’t actually want to murder Miro for obvious reasons like the fact that I could get caught doing it and non-obvious reasons like my fear of my alter ego who would inevitably have to do the killing.

So I gave Miro the deadpan look I’d mastered in my one-year stay in this hellhole of a supernatural trafficking den. “I’m sorry what?”

Then I sighed as though I was concerned about his mental health. “Special Guard Miro, did you touch the Iza drugs from Guard James again?”

“Don’t play with me! I didn’t touch any drugs!”

Well, someone was anxious.

I finally looked him in the eyes, then studied his face, pretending to be trying to confirm that he wasn’t on drugs, even though I was trying to stop him from yelling, which could alert any of the cafeteria workers. I knew that he probably knew either of the two secrets that could get me killed or worse. “Okay, okay. So what do you think you know?”

I was still using that deadpan look as usual, as though I felt like he was playing with me.

“I know you’re a woman. Do you know what Lord Westhouse will do when he finds out that one of his balloon technicians is a woman who has been pretending to be a man all along? Ha ha, he’ll order the guards to ravage you in front of everyone in the left house.”

“I don’t have any time for your nonsense. Do you think Lord Westhouse would believe your drivel?” I turned away as though I was going to walk away.

“You better not walk away. I have a friend among the slaves watching your little brother, so you can’t escape even if you want to.”

His words shattered the pretense I was holding on to and I turned to him. “How did you find out?”

“Saw ya taking a bath at Mistress Holland’s.” It took a lot of effort to prevent myself from grimacing in disgust at the thought of him watching me bathe.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave because he knew what I was. In a household like Lord Westhouse’s, having one’s secret, especially one as damaging as lying to the head of the house, exposed to anyone was as perilous as having a hangman’s noose around your neck.

As Miro walked closer to me, I moved back one step at a time, frantically trying to come up with a solution.

Unlike most mixed Fae, my magic didn’t function properly, and I didn’t know many powerful spells, other than the one that worked like a glamor to keep my face masculine, so I couldn’t say any awesome spells to make an idiot like Miro forget everything he knew.

Eventually, my back was against the wall and Miro stood in front of me, a salacious grin covering his face.

“What do you want?” I asked to distract him as I tried to think of another solution other than killing him.

“You. All to myself. How about it, hmm? I won’t tell Lord Westhouse that you’re a woman and then you will be my exclusive woman.”

It was only thanks to the control I’d developed over my facial expressions during the year I’d been kidnapped into the Westhouse supernatural trafficking den that I didn’t curl my lips in disgust.

But while I could hold Miro away from me with both hands and all of my strength, I couldn’t stop his large hands from groping my body.

Trying to avoid his hands and preventing him from embracing me became a wrestling match of sorts. However, despite having performed more manual labor than ever before in the year and a half that I had been posing as a man in the Westhouse trafficking den, I still couldn’t match the strength of a full-grown male werewolf like Miro.

Soon he had me pressed to the wall against my will and his hands were moving to places I didn’t want them to go.

I was gradually losing the cold, analytical way of thinking that I’d adopted since my little brother and I got kidnapped into a deadly trafficking den like Lord Westhouse’s. Unfortunately, Miro couldn’t sense the danger in that because he was holding me down with one hand, pulling at my clothes, and using his body to hold down my thrashing body.

When I pulled a hand free and slapped him with it, he got angry and slapped me right back.

The force of the slap made me lose my hearing to a sharp ringing for a few seconds and pushed me to the ground.

“Stupid bitch! Do you want me to call the other guards? So we can all do you before we send you to Lord Westhouse? A little bitch like you even dares to hit me.” He whispered harshly.

Then he pinned me to the floor by the throat, ignoring my unending efforts to break free.

When he started struggling to pull off my pants, I realized I couldn’t talk or reason my way out of this situation.

As soon as fear took away my rationality and hatred at my uselessness filled my heart, everything stopped around me for a moment and the world turned to a weird tinge of blue for a second. Miro, who was kneeling between my thighs and trying to unbuckle his belts, also went still.

Almost instantly, I connected with her. My alter ego. The part of me I didn’t like to remember even existed. The murderer.

With a flick of my fingers, Miro’s eyes widened and his mouth parted as the light left his eyes. Then he fell down, his lifeless body crashing toward me, but I shoved him away with all my strength so that he fell to the side.

I shivered as time started flowing normally. Then I hurriedly pulled up my pants with shaking hands, trying to avoid looking at Miro’s lifeless body.

Since I had killed him with my instinctual magic, I didn’t need to check his pulse to know he was gone.

But instead of being happy about it, I shivered again. Fear clouded my brain not just because I didn’t know how to hide being responsible for Miro’s death, but also because I had killed again with my instinctual magic.

And just like before, once my fear got a hold of me, I lost control.

Just as I was pondering what to do with Miro’s body, loud clattering sounds echoed everywhere alerting me to abnormal activity in Lord Westhouse’s trafficking headquarters, a place organized with an almost iron fist.

When smoke, screaming, and shouting filled the air along with the sounds of people scurrying back and forth, I knew that Lord Westhouse’s trafficking den was under some kind of attack.

The thought of my brother in danger pushed my shock to the back of my mind and got me moving even before my brain had processed the sudden turn of events.

Taking advantage of the growing chaos, I ran to the tent where I last saw my little brother, Rory.

Thankfully, I met him on my way there as gunshots started echoing around the compound. I embraced my brother as tight as I could so that if any bullet strayed close to us, it would hit me instead of him.

From the people running around, I already knew what was going on.

The Westhouse trafficking den was being raided by the Supernatural Council, which meant we were saved.

No one would ever know that I killed Miro and I no longer had to pretend to be a man in this inhumane supernatural trafficking den.

As soon as my brother saw my glazed eyes and disheveled look, which I didn’t have time to hide, he knew something had happened, so he asked as we ran for our lives. “What’s wrong with you?”

But now wasn’t the time to be chatting, or we’d get hit by a stray bullet. And even if we had time, I would never tell him what happened between Miro and me. “Nothing. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Let’s find a good place to hide. The Supernatural Council is here.”

Sure enough, hearing about the Supernatural Council’s presence was enough to distract him. We had dreamed and prayed for a raid like this to happen since we got here a year and a half ago so we could get our freedom and return to civil society.

And this time, I would try my best to avoid using my disgusting instinctual magic.

I would find a good pack, raise Rory until he was old enough to care for himself while making sure he could pursue his artistic dreams, and then leave the pack to be a rogue once he went off to a prestigious art academy.

Because I knew the fate of women in packs. Most women could only be pawns, trophies, business arrangements to further the pack’s interests, or someone’s whore. And I didn’t run away from the Woodburn pack and the 40-year-old Alpha I was supposed to mate with only to become anybody’s pawn, trophy, or whore.

2

Nina

“Based on a thorough investigation, it has been determined that Miss Nina Oisin is a non-accomplice to the Westhouse trafficking organization. However, her actions, including assisting in the creation of battle balloons for the organization, will be punished with 25 negative points recorded on her Supernatural Council file. Leniency is given because Miss Oisin is also a victim of the organization and several victims testified to her helping them during their stay in the Westhouse trafficking den. This is this jury’s final judgment.”

As soon as the judgment was given, my legs became limp noodles, and I had to hold on to the defendant’s table to prop myself up. Since the Westhouse trafficking den was raided by the Supernatural Council a month ago, I had been separated from my brother, living in a temporary prison camp, because I was a suspected accomplice of Lord Westhouse’s trafficking organization.

When I walked into the room that I was directed to by a security personnel, I saw my little brother standing there. He was dressed in clean clothes without holes in them, a far cry from the clothes he’d had to wear at Lord Westhouse’s trafficking den.

When he saw me, he burst into tears. I hugged him while wiping the tears rolling down my face. He must have been so afraid that I would go to prison and he’d be all alone.

“Don’t cry. Everything will be alright. The kind lady from before promised that if they acquitted me, they would find us a new pack to live in.”

He nodded, with his face still buried in my shoulder, while I patted him on the back.

Eventually, we broke our embrace, and he moved back, wiping his tears with his sleeves and hiccuping once.

After our reunion, we had to stay in a Supernatural Council safe house for teenagers like us for a while.

Thanks to our social worker, Zoey, we snagged a remote scholarship to a prestigious art institution for supernaturals for my brother. Although he still had to make concessions by choosing to be a graphic artist instead of a painter because of the cost of painting materials, I was still thrilled to see him pursue his artistic dreams after my step-father had ruthlessly rejected and ridiculed it.

Before we could celebrate the scholarship, however, our step-father somehow found us and came to ‘get us back’.

Thankfully, there were Supernatural Council guards around or I couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t unleash the wrath of my instinctual magic on my step-father.

Seeing him dug up memories I’d buried deep in my mind of the day he and my pack Alpha drugged me and sent me to an old visiting Alpha’s bed against my will.

The feeling of helplessness, despair, and fear I felt that day led to that old Alpha’s death. And I couldn’t sympathize with him at all.

However, I was devastated that I had killed someone. Because even though I had no control over my powers back then, I knew I was the one who killed him.

Fear of my abilities as well as what my Alpha and step-father would do caused me to run with my brother who had sneaked in to rescue me.

Although I knew surviving as a rogue with a twelve-year-old, albeit a very mature one, would not be easy, I also knew that I couldn’t run away without my little brother.

Even though my stepfather was patriarchal and my brother was his first son, he didn’t care about my brother at all. After all, he never loved my mother. My mother had just been a duty hoisted onto him by his Alpha after his Alpha got tired of my mother and the daughter she had birthed for him and wanted to move on to another mistress.

Immediately after my mother’s suicide, my stepfather had mated his favorite mistress and brought his other son into the house. And his new mate was not a simple person like my mother. If I left my brother in her hands, she would probably kill him discreetly to get rid of her son’s status as an illegitimate son.

So, that day, my brother and I escaped our pack with all the money we stole from the old Alpha I killed. We traveled by bus far away from our town until we got to a big city and started living on the streets, only to be targeted by Lord Westhouse’s trafficking scouts.

When the Supernatural Council officers found out that my brother had a father on his birth records, something I had glossed over with the fact that there was no father recorded in my birth records, they got straight to business. They interrogated my stepfather about his relationship with us and then interrogated my brother and me separately with truth serums because I’d already lied to them before.

After I explained many of the things that happened to my brother and me before and after our mother’s death, the Supernatural Council filed a legal dispute. Within a week, the family jury in charge of our case heard our case and resolved the dispute by adding negative points to my stepfather’s file, applying for an audit of the Woodburn pack, and making me my brother’s guardian since I was already 18 years old.

My step-father and pack Alpha also received one of three strikes to their Supernatural Council files for drugging me and sending me to an older Alpha against my will. This meant they were only two strikes from status persona non grata, a status that would make them exiles in both human and supernatural society.

Three days after our names were removed from our stepfather’s family registry, my brother and I received news that they had assigned us a new pack.

3

Nina

“Welcome! This is our daughter, Emery. And this is our home.”

As soon as I was introduced to them, I knew the Browns didn’t want me living in their home.

As they led us into their living room which was carefully designed with expensive leather sofas and draperies to make a statement to their guests, I could see that they were only trying hard to pretend to be genial in the presence of the Supernatural Council representative that had accompanied us but their stiff smiles and the way they sat as far away from me as possible told me everything I needed to know.

Just like my step-father, they must have seen that photo of a handcuffed me getting pulled out of Lord Westhouse’s trafficking den. Most people felt I was part of the organization because I was wearing the Westhouse technical uniform and I was among those handcuffed.

“Mr. and Mrs. Brown, I have little time to spend here. Can we see their room or rooms?” Zoey, our social worker, asked with pursed lips.

“Of course, of course.” Mr. Brown said.

And then they ushered us to a room on the first floor whose door was behind the staircase leading to the second floor of their two-story house. The room was not very spacious, but it was just right for my brother and me. The bunk bed made sure there was space for a desk and chair in the room where my brother could do his middle-grade assignments and art school assignments. Opposite our room was the door to the bathroom that my brother and I could share, which Zoey also checked.

“Please excuse us for a moment. I’d like to talk to Nina and her brother.” Zoey said politely after she had looked around.

“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Brown smiled and led her husband out.

“Do you like it?” Zoey asked.

I nodded with a smile and received one from Zoey as well.

Zoey had been in charge of my brother and me since I got acquitted, and I had to admit that she was an amazing social worker.

She was kind, funny, and sincere. I was sure that it was thanks to her that my brother and I, two kids with no backgrounds and one with negative points, were getting such excellent treatment as our own room.

“Yes, thank you very much,” I said while watching my brother sit on the lower bunk with the box of clothes and stuff that Zoey had gotten funds from the Supernatural Council to buy for us.

She moved closer to me, lowering her voice. “Listen, if you’re not comfortable or they mistreat you in this pack, just send me a message with the phone I gave you.”

I nodded with a smile. If things got out of hand or my brother was mistreated, I would report to her. As for me, I could shoulder all the dislike, hate, and discrimination that I knew I was going to receive not just because of that picture of me sitting on the internet but also because of my status as a pack omega.

I only had one purpose: to watch over my brother and help him achieve his dreams, and then I could find something to do with my life.

I had no intention of mating anyone or finding a sense of belonging in this pack or any pack. Because of the things I had seen and experienced in my old pack, I didn’t believe in Werewolf packs because I’d found that most packs had enormous problems. Mostly because there was one person in charge of everything.

In many packs, the pack council was fully under the control of the Alpha so they couldn’t even serve their purpose as buffers to the Alpha’s power over the life and death of pack members. This meant that the top members of each pack, from the Alpha to the Beta to the pack enforcers to the pack council members, were usually very corrupt.

As such, I didn’t really like pack life. But I had no way to stay behind in the Supernatural Council not only because of my poor qualifications as a warrior but also because, along with those poor qualifications, I also had a little brother that I needed to care for.

So I could only wait in the pack until my brother was 18 before trying to become a warrior or a mere soldier in any of the eleven organizations I could get into, or even a rogue werewolf.

“If you have any problems, make sure you call me, okay?”

I nodded and waved at the departing Zoey, who was returning to the Supernatural Council. I was sure that even though she was concerned about me now, I would become a blur in her memory in the next few days when she got her next ‘case’.

But I was still grateful for her help, even though I knew I wouldn’t call her unless things got really bad. Choosing to rely completely on her for help like she had suggested was impossible. After all, I had been betrayed and backstabbed so many times that the only person I truly trusted was my brother.

The last time I trusted someone, I’d gotten into a lot of trouble. The person I trusted, Aunt Wayne, who gave my brother and me leftovers for doing the dishes and working as a temporary waitress in her restaurant, practically sold us to Lord Westhouse’s trafficking organization.

As if to prove the hypocritical nature of people, as soon as Zoey left, the stiff smiles on the Browns’ faces disappeared and they started laying down the ground rules.

“Lilah, is that your name?”

“It’s Nina.” At least, Mr. Brown was trying to keep the entire thing civil even though Mrs. Brown was rolling her eyes with disdain written all over her face.

“Yes, Nina. There are rules if you’re going to live here.”

I nodded. “Can my brother go back to our room? I’ll tell him everything he needs to know when I get back.”

Mr. Brown nodded.

I only needed to pat my brother on the head, and he was off.

He didn’t need to be here to hear whatever Mrs. Brown was going to say. With the disdain in her eyes, I knew she had a lot of rude words to share and I would rather they didn’t get into his ears.

“This is it. The first rule is that we don’t want you, a loose girl who thrives by selling her body in a trafficker’s den, anywhere near our daughter. You must not bring your inappropriate behavior into our home. If you want to deal with your . . . customers, please get a room elsewhere. We will not tolerate any bad influence on our daughter.”

I nodded indifferently. Trying to convince complete strangers that not all women in Lord Westhouse’s trafficking den were prostitutes, or that it was immoral to mistreat women who had done what they needed to do to survive in trafficking houses, was unnecessary. I couldn’t even be bothered to tell them I’d pretended to be a man in Lord Westhouse’s trafficking den and was, thus, protected from sexual harassment of any sort. As far as I was concerned, they could think whatever they wanted.

“Also, we would prefer if you and your brother stay in your rooms all the time. You can eat and live there, so please remember to stay away from our living room or dining room. The second floor is also off-limits. If we find either of you there, we’ll immediately report attempted theft to our Alpha and the Supernatural Council. And I don’t want to see a loose girl like you anywhere near my kitchen. As agreed with the Supernatural Council, we will provide your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I’ll leave your meals on that table beside your door.” Mrs. Brown said curtly.

I nodded. That was fair. They were not as bad as I had expected.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Yes, for now. But we will add new rules as we see fit.” Mrs. Brown said.

Unlike her husband, who was trying to be polite, she kept using offensive language and expressions as if she was trying to provoke me to anger. But that was useless because I couldn’t care less what anyone said about me.

I nodded and then walked away, straight to my room, ignoring Mrs. Brown, her husband, and their daughter, who was peeping from the top of the stairs.

When I got to our room, I narrated the entire conversation to my brother without the insults and rude comments.

Although I was trying to protect him, I wasn’t planning to protect him from the reality of the world. It would be useless even if I did that, anyway. We were both survivors of the Woodburn pack’s dog-eat-dog environment. We’d both lived in a trafficker’s den for a year and a half and we’d seen terrible things even though I had worked very hard to protect us from being on the receiving end of those terrible things.

4

Nina

I woke up the next day to a text message from the Crescent Pack Luna asking me to meet her at the Alpha house after my first day at school. I knew what it meant. Pack chores.

Most pack omegas were given the dirtiest jobs in the pack to do. As the former step-daughter of a pack beta, I had seen it happen repeatedly. And I was ready to deal with the loads of work and insults.

I’d take that over pretending to be a man and working as a battle balloon technician in a dangerous supernatural trafficker’s den any day.

And hopefully, I could work in a kitchen. That way, I could take home leftovers for my brother because, based on the breakfast of simple cereal and a cup of milk Mrs. Brown had given us, we wouldn’t be getting enough food to cope with our fast werewolf metabolisms in the Brown house.

“Are you ready?” I asked, staring at my little brother dressed in the town’s middle-grader uniforms.

It was stupid that middle graders in Caister town’s middle school had to wear uniforms, but I still felt like the uniform looked super cute on my brother, whom I had never seen wearing a uniform.

As usual, he allowed me to pat his fluffy hair as he nodded, beaming at me. “Yeah.”

“Remember what I said. Stay away from trouble, but if it comes for you, protect yourself first, ask questions later. Got it?”

“Noted, general.” He stood straight and mimicked a soldier’s salute while smiling at me.

I couldn’t help chuckling as I pulled on my backpack, tucked a hand in my jean pocket, and walked him to his school.

The pack the Supernatural Council assigned us was called the Crescent pack, but they lived in a small town with two other packs. With that many werewolves in the same space; living, working, and schooling among humans; it was inevitable that the humans in this town knew about supernaturals or, at least, about werewolves.

Because I knew how bad my reputation was among those who followed Supernatural news, I didn’t want my brother to suffer any bullying from being my sibling. So I made him tell anyone who asked that he had an elder brother.

He was also never to tell anyone that I was in any way related to him.

The only ones who knew we were siblings were the Browns and the Crescent pack’s Alpha and Luna.

I couldn’t bear the thought of my brother getting bullied, so this strategy was the best way to protect him, regardless of his protests.

After all, in this town, I was the loose girl who had lived and worked for supernatural traffickers, and discrimination based on that impression was inevitable.

After escorting my brother a few blocks to Caister middle school and watching him walk into the school gates, I walked to Caister high school, hoodie up and shoulders slumped.

If no one looked closely, I didn’t look like a girl at all.

All day long as I went from class to class, the question remained, “Who’s the new boy?”

With my head bowed, my short hair locked in a small ponytail, and the masculine gait and demeanor I had mastered, no one knew I was the girl from the ‘pictures’ and I hoped to keep it that way.

And because my previous pack had a similar setting to Caister town, Caister high school was familiar, making it easy to adapt.

Without a guide, I got my schedule and books from the school administration building and went about my day.

When I got to the Crescent Pack Alpha’s house, I removed my hoodie, got rid of my confident-boy-from-the-slums attitude, and imitated the shy and weak pack omega demeanor that would make my Luna have mercy on me in the tasks she would assign to me.

Sure enough, as soon as she saw me, all she did was sigh as though she pitied me while I played along, pretending I couldn’t see the indifference in her eyes.

Unlike Mrs. Brown, she wasn’t hostile, but she was a seasoned actress. She pretended to care about how I was doing before assigning me to work in the cafeteria kitchen every day after school and during the weekends, as well as another chore to clean the pack public toilets on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Although I was happy to work at the cafeteria, I didn’t show my Luna that.

My former Luna was the kind of person who always tried to make others as unhappy as she was with her husband who was always cheating on her. And since she spent a lot of time picking on me, her husband’s illegitimate daughter whose mother was mated to the Beta, I had to learn how her mind worked.

After understanding that she was the sort of person who would switch your chores or pack duties if she found out that you enjoyed doing them, I learned to conceal my feelings very well.

I wasn’t sure what kind of person this new Luna was, but from her acting tendencies, I feared that she would be quite similar to my former Luna and maybe worse since my former Luna couldn’t act that well.

* * *

It was late in the evening when I got back to the Browns’ house, but as I walked in through the front door, I met a boy standing with Emery in the hallway.

He was very handsome with strong angular features and was definitely an Alpha Werewolf. He was the type of boy I used to swoon over in movies and magazines when I was younger.

But the older me just looked him in the eye when our eyes met and walked away without glancing back.

After all, I understood what Alphas were now. People with all the power.

If you were fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of their interest, even temporarily, your life could feel great. However, when they didn’t want you anymore, your life could become as unfortunate as my mother’s, who went from being the mistress of the pack Alpha to being his leftover thrown over to his Beta.

This didn’t just apply to Alphas, too. It also applied to most werewolf men.