how you like this crooked smile?

The Alpha made his way around the desk and took a seat in his chair.

"You will be given chores to do like the rest of the pack members," he said. "At Shadow Pack, our law is that newcomers must take on the lowest rank, as Omegas. This is only until we come to trust them and believe they are suited for a higher rank."

This came as no surprise to me. I had spent over half my life being at the bottom so my expectations were pretty much just as low.

"You're dismissed," he picked up his file and began reading from where he left off.

I will not be spoken to like that!

I wanted to yell at the idiotbrain sitting in front of me, but the exhaustion from our arguing had taken over as my stomach grumbled.

"Where's the kitchen?" I asked instead, opting to focus on food.

He didn't answer me and I internally groaned. My lips twitched to ask again, but we were interrupted by a knock on the door.

A girl entered, appearing to be roughly the same age as me. Her golden hair fell to her ribcage in beautiful waves and her hazel eyes twinkled as she looked at the Alpha.

"Reya, this is Serena. She'll show you to your room," he said.

"Of course, Alpha," she replied, her words sweet as honey. She smiled only at my mate as she bowed slightly. "Anything for you."

I was torn between gagging at the scene in front of me or ripping the stupid smirk off her face. My wolf was leaning towards the latter, but a quick reminder of our mate's rude behaviour shut her up.

We weren't going to pine after him and we certainly weren't going to be jealous.

Alpha Eastwood didn't spare her a single glance as he waved his hand for us to get going.

Serena glanced my way, scanning me up and down. Based on the glare she threw in my direction, she didn't like me already.

I shot her a tightlipped smile in return, choosing the high road as always.

"Come on, Raina," she said in a bored tone.

A low growl resounded in the room, shocking the both of us. We turned our heads to see Alpha Eastwood glowering harshly at her.

"Reya."

His correction was more of a command.

The way he spoke my name had tingles running up and down my spine; I had to refrain from letting out a shiver of delight.

Serena shrunk back a bit, and the desire to shove it in her face was overwhelming as I bit back a smile.

"Yes, Alpha," she composed herself.

My legs followed after her as she made her way out the door. She must've been speed walking or something because I left the room just in time to catch a glimpse of her head turning a corner that was quite far away.

Annoyed, I followed in the direction she had gone. Rounding the corner, my body slammed into another person and two suitcases crashed to the ground.

"Oh my goddess, I am so sorry!" the words rushed out of me as I hurriedly bent down to pick up a fallen suitcase.

My gaze flew up to see a man who looked to be in about his late 30's. However, werewolves aged very slowly after they passed the age of 25, so even though he appeared to be just under 40, he could've been much older.

He had dark brown hair, along with eyes the same colour, and a slight beard.

"Oh, don't worry," he gave me a warm grin. "No harm done was there?"

I gave him a small smile in return, handing over the baggage before I took a step back. "I do apologize though, I should've been more mindful about where I was going."

"It's in the past," he waved it off. "Say," he cocked his head to the side as he eyed me with curiosity. "I don't think I've seen you around, are you new?"

"Uh, yeah," I stuck out my hand. "I'm Reya."

He clasped my hand with his and shook it with a lot more force than I anticipated. "The name's Conrad. If you don't mind me asking, what made you join our -"

"You weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow."

My mate's frosty voice cut through the air with even more hostility than he had shown me. He walked right past me and came to a stop in front of Conrad, partially blocking his view of me in the process.

I was thankful for the interruption - explanations required a lot of energy and my brain was too tired for that.

"Things changed," Conrad shrugged. He didn't seem to be fazed by Alpha Eastwood's animosity in the slightest.

"You could have sent an update."

Shouldn't he be friendlier to his own pack?

"What's the matter, Rowan?" Conrad chuckled, tapping his arm. "Did you not miss your uncle?"

I sucked in a breath.

Uncle?

This man was despicable. First, he showed so much disrespect to me, his destined mate. Now he was being blatantly rude to his own family! Did he have any values?

"Not particularly," Alpha Eastwood murmured under his breath, so low that I wasn't even sure I heard it.

How was Conrad related to someone as rude as him?

Serena joined us, having rushed over as soon as she noticed the Alpha in our presence again.

"When were you planning on introducing me to our newest member?." Conrad swiftly changed the focus of attention to me.

Alpha Eastwood angled his head to look back at me, his fist clenching.

"She just joined today," he said, holding my gaze.

"I see," nodded Conrad. "For what purposes, exactly? We haven't had someone join in quite some time now" he inquired, causing my mate to turn his attention back to his uncle.

"The Lunar Pack has asked us to train her. She's their weakest member and will be part of our pack for the time being. Her training begins tomorrow," Alpha Eastwood answered smoothly.

My ears perked up at the word 'training.' Aside from Uncle Eddie and the Reds that I occasionally hunted, it had been years since I sparred with anyone else.

"Is that so?" his uncle furrowed his brows. "I also heard there was a trespassing? You've dealt with it correctly, I assume?"

"The remains are in the pit, as usual." Conrad seemed pleased by these words.

"And since you're here," my mate continued, "there's something I need you to take a look at, so if you'll follow me."

He spun on his heel, eyes boring into mine with an unreadable expression, and walked back to his office.

I was extremely confused. Alpha Eastwood had just lied about me being the trespasser and I couldn't figure out why.

And when he said remains, did he mean body remains? Had he killed someone to pawn off as me?

"Exceptional!" proclaimed Conrad. "Welcome to the pack, Reya. I expect we'll be seeing each other again."

With a nod of his head, he followed after my mate.

~*~

Serena had given me the worst possible tour of the pack house, or more accurately, mansion. We had walked down a few large hallways and she would lazily point in a random direction saying things like "kitchen" or "lounge." Luckily, I had trained myself to pay close attention to my surroundings, so a good layout of the place had already begun to form in my head.

We ventured further down a more secluded hallway that had a large oak door at the end of it. She came to a stop in front of a smaller door on the right side and opened it.

"This is your room. It's the only one we had left," she stated with clear boredom.

Stepping inside, the first thing I noticed was that it was much bigger than my previous bedroom. The second thing I noticed was it was very white. The walls, bed, comforter, couch and rest of the furniture were all white, although some were different shades of it. There were pops of other colours - green plants were speckled throughout the room, while a dark grey throw blanket and charcoal-coloured pillows sat on the bed.

It was simplistic and I loved it.

"Uhm, thank you. It's lovely" I said awkwardly to Serena. "What's behind that big door?" I asked, nodding my head in its direction.

"The wing for the Alpha and his family," she smirked at me. "Aside from cleaning staff, only special people are invited to go there. So, I doubt you'd be seeing it any time soon."

The triumphant grin on her face could only mean she had been inside before. By 'special people' did she mean ..?

My wolf growled internally at the thought of the Alpha and Serena together.

But why should I care? He can do what he wants.

"Of course," I settled for a snide smile instead of bashing her head in.

"Dinner's in 20 minutes and there's spare clothes in the dresser," she clicked her tongue. "I hope you remembered where the dining hall is."

She sauntered out of the room without another word.

With that personality, she has to be related to Valerie.

Grabbing some leggings and a black shirt, I padded into the bathroom to take a shower. Ten minutes later, my body was free of all the grime and dirt that had covered it for the past three days.

After retracing my steps to the dining hall, I was greeted with strange looks from almost everyone there. Conrad wasn't lying when he said there hadn't been a new pack member in a long time. 

Feeling self-conscious, I tried my best to remain low-key as I grabbed some food. Once my plate was filled, I scanned the hall for a seat, but the amount of people glancing my way made me decide to bring the meal back to my room.

I grabbed a random novel from the bookshelf in the living room and brought it with me. The food was absolutely delicious and I had scarfed it down in minutes. After brushing my teeth, I finally did what I had been to do since the moment I saw my room. 

I sat on the bed.

And it felt amazing. 

With a squeal, I jumped around on the plush mattress.  Smiling, I laid down on the little heaven

After the attack on the palace, Uncle Eddie and I had pretty much lost all of our belongings, leaving us with basically nothing. When we moved to the Lunar Pack, we were pretty much at the bottom of their pyramid, so they never gave us many luxuries. So the last time I sat on a bed this comfortable was in the palace. Back when my parents had been alive.

Saddened, I got up from the bed. It was a reminder of a past life that I no longer lived.  A fairytale life that I just somehow knew I wasn't intended for. Because why else would I have been ripped out of it?

I took a seat on the couch, feeling more at ease with the familiar hardness. This was where I belonged.

Propping a pillow behind my back, I settled into a blanket and picked up the novel. 

The Kite Runner.

A mundane one! It had been a long time since I had read something written by a human.

Two and a half hours later, I put the book away and switched the lamp off. My eyes finally felt relief after I removed the contacts and I hoped Uncle Eddie was on his way soon because I definitely needed a new pair.

I was sure he was going to arrive any day now, but I just hoped he didn't cause a scene. Knowing him, however, I knew that was completely unavoidable.

My thoughts drifted onto my mate. I had never heard of a one-sided mate bond before, so how had that even happened? And why, of all people, did it have to be with me?

Maybe if he felt it, he would be different.

I shoved the idea away as quickly as it had come up. Perhaps, it was better this way. Now I knew how he truly felt, without the influence of the mate bond.

The topic of mates was beginning to severely irritate me, so I cleared my head of all things related to it. With a sigh, I snuggled into the blanket and closed my eyes, letting my consciousness drift away as I fell asleep.

~*~

I woke up to the sound of a wolf whining and the smell of my mate. It was so faint that I couldn't tell if I had truly heard it or not, but the smell of the Alpha was most certainly there.

Scanning the room, there was no sign of anything weird.

He probably just passed by my room on the way to his.

The clock read 1:08 AM, meaning I had slept less than three hours. After a few minutes of silence I was pretty sure I had imagined the sound, so I shut my eyes to go back to bed.

A sad whine pierced my ears again, and this time I was wide awake. The noise came again, and this time it was followed by a light scratching against my door.

What the actual hell?

Sliding off the couch, I turned on my lamp and walked towards the door. With a twist of the knob, I peeked in the hallway to see the same black wolf that I had fought a few nights ago.

The wolf that was none other than my mate himself.

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All I can say is .... I'm so proud of myself for putting out three updates in one week. 

ANDDDDD I HIT 2K!!!!!!!

Thank you all for the kind comments and support, I appreciate it a lot!

Fingers crossed I get the next chap out in a few days, but other than that plz vote and comment :P

Til next time

xo