“Let me go,” I cried out against the hold of the guards who held me to the chair while Alpha Derek, the man who was supposed to be my mate, delivered assaults after assaults to my already bruised body.

I could hear the blood rushing to my head as I tried my best to glare at the monster in the form of an alpha in front of me. The haze of pain was too strong, and my body burned with each slap. The amount of beating I had taken tonight would leave me bruised for weeks.

“You deceived me. I am not your mate. I want nothing to do with you. You are a monster, Declan." The pain I felt was not enough to hide the contempt I felt for Declan. How did I ever find myself in love with him? How could I have let him put his filthy hands on me?

Declan leaned forward, so our faces were inches apart. He had an ugly glare on his face as he snarled. Regardless of the front I put, he was still an Alpha, and I couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped me at the sound of his powerful growl.

Declan’s hands gripped my arms painfully, and he jerked me forward. “I deceived you.” He scoffed, “I gave a useless mutt like you an opportunity to be a Luna, a title someone of your status could never dream of, and you dare to say I deceived you?” He growled in my face. His eyes ran over my battered frame with disgust.

“I was never interested in becoming your Luna. I thought I was your mate. I was so stupid to blindly believe you because you saved me, but it was all pretense. I thought an Alpha was a noble person and would never lie, but you are not one. You are a disgrace to all Alphas.” I spat in his face, not caring about the consequences of my actions.

I expected the blow, but expectations didn’t reduce the impact of the blow. Declan was an Alpha, and I was an Omega. The blow forced my face to the side, and I screamed in pain as it blinded my vision. I think my jaw broke from the blow.

Declan’s hands found my hair, and he yanked it back painfully. I cried out in pain while he chuckled cruelly. His eyes blazed with fury like a madman, just like how they did before he would always beat me.

“You think I’ll be moved by words from a scum like you? You are lucky that you look so much like my Cora; otherwise, your guts would line the floors of this room.”

Tears poured out of my eyes, and I was unable to hide the terror I felt for him. How did I get here? It wasn’t as though I didn’t know. Desperation placed me here. I was desperate to escape the harsh conditions I was in when Declan found me that I didn’t think twice when I accepted to become a member of his pack.

I was a werewolf without a wolf, the biggest disgrace that could happen to a pack. My former pack didn’t waste any time expelling me when they found out I had no wolf. No one had taken compassion on me, even though I was only 16. They rejoiced the day I was casted out like an abomination, even the people I had thought were my friends.

I had roamed unclaimed lands for weeks, hungry and almost at the point of death while trying to avoid the rogues. Alpha Declan had found me in the woods when I was on the verge of death. He saved me and offered me a home in his pack, and because I had never experienced kindness as genuine as his before, I didn’t think twice before accepting to become a member of his pack.

I thought the moon goddess had shown me mercy when Declan announced I was his mate. Unshifted wolves were unable to smell their mate, so I took his words for it since Alpha’s were supposed to be an institution of honour. It never occurred to me that he would lie about something as sacred as mates so I blindly believed him.

I should have known when I lived in the pack house with him for three years and he never once asked to mark me. He would always push the topic aside whenever I brought it up.

I should have suspected it when the pack members saw me as nothing more than the Alpha’s prostitute. They never gave me the respect of a Luna and instead treated me like a servant. How would they? Declan had made my life a living hell in the past year, using me as his personal punching bag, and it was something I couldn’t hide.

I would have continued to live like that because I believed I was truly Declan’s mate if I hadn’t overheard his conversation with his sister, Hera, who was also the only friend I had in this pack because she was also an omega.

“You just wanted me here because I look like your dead wife. I was just a replacement. Isn’t that why you never marked me?” I cried out. The anguish I felt as I remembered his conversation hurt more than the bruises on my skin.

“Is that why you wanted to escape?” He scoffed as if it shouldn’t be a valid reason.

“Is that not enough reason? You don’t cherish me. You would never love me like you did your dead wife. Why should I suffer at your hands when it’s not my fault she died? Did I ask to look like her?”