Chapter 1 The Sanctuary

Rachel's POV

His moves were reckless, absolute and devoid of mercy.

I had lost track of the hours since his wolf had pinned me down. My body ached and vibrated with a suffocating heat.

Alpha Daniel Vance knew exactly how to break me. He mapped my vulnerabilities with precision and deliberate touches.

"Cancel my council meetings for the upcoming week and secure two VIP passes to the Silverwood Echo Sanctuary." He stood beside the bed with his body tense as he pulled on his tailored shirt slowly.

Shifting my bruised hips, a sudden hope sparked in my chest. "You’re taking me to the sanctuary?"

Daniel's eyes flared with anger. "I am going with Elena."

The smile on my lips withered. "Understood, Alpha Vance!"

Seeing my distress, Daniel spoke again, "Rachel, look at yourself. You are a broken Omega with no lineage. Your bloodline is compromised. You can never bear the Luna title."

I forced myself to look up with a bitter smile. "I never asked for your mark, Daniel. But now that Lady Elena’s previous bond has been dissolved and she has returned to Crestwood, shouldn't we terminate this arrangement?"

Daniel stepped toward the bed and dragged his heavy hand through my hair before tossing a black titanium card on the nightstand. "Buy whatever pleases you."

"Alpha, I don't want to be your dirty secret anymore." I held his gaze as a stubborn defiance flickered through me.

I wasn't blind, I already knew the pack elders would eventually force him to claim Elena Cross as his true mate.

"You are overstepping," Daniel warned and his Alpha aura suddenly flared and filled the bedroom. He cast an icy glance at my shivering form and walked out.

As the door slammed shut, a high-pitched ring filled my ears and I plunged into a world of absolute silence.

I was a ghost within the Crestwood Pack, an orphan relegated to the very bottom of the social hierarchy.

During my initiation year, my striking looks had provoked the wrath of Cassidy Vance, Daniel's sister.

Cassidy didn't stop at petty bullying. In a fit of rage, she shifted and hunted me down.

The savage mauling cost me the hearing in my left ear. My right ankle was shattered beyond perfect repair and a jagged scar was left across my cheek.

To make matters worse, someone captured the entire assault on video and broadcast it among the whole pack.

The elders convened an emergency tribunal just to defend Cassidy’s honor. Daniel, her older brother and the new Alpha, also stepped up.

Daniel approached me in the aftermath. The first words he ever said to me, "Do not weep. No one in this territory will ever lay a hand on you again."

Weak. Desperate.

I fell entirely under his spell. At my lowest point, Daniel played right into my desperate daydreams of finding a protector.

For years, I saw him as my savior. But reality had finally caught up with me. He didn't love me, his wolf simply enjoyed dominating a broken thing like me and he wasn't ready to grant me freedom.

At the Central Packhouse, I set a cup of blended tea on the desk in front of Elena. "Lady Elena. Your tea."

Elena glanced up with a sweet smile that didn't reach her eyes.

She was a descendant of pure Alpha lineage, a perfect match for Daniel. Elena carried herself with the innate grace of a true Luna. Her powerful scent alone was enough to send a wave of submission into my inner wolf.

The battle was over before it even began. A true Alpha would never view an Omega as an equal. To Daniel, I was merely a pastime.

Leaving the cup behind, I practically bolted out of the room.

I had nothing left to fight with. My orphan status, the shattered lineage and my physical deformities, every part of my identity branded me as prey for the elite.

"Did you hear? Alpha Daniel and Lady Elena are leaving for their courtship retreat tonight. The elders have already drafted the mating contracts. The ceremony will happen the moment they return."

Down in the packhouse kitchens, the lower-tier staff were busy gossiping and their chatter buzzed through the air.

Distracted and overwhelmed by the noise, my hand slipped and hot water poured directly over my bare skin, scalding my hand.

The ceramic I was holding, slipped and shattered into a hundred pieces on the floor. Gasping, I rushed to the basin and plunged my burning hand in water.

It was official. Daniel and Elena were bonding.

Which meant my time as Daniel's pastime was over and so was my endurance for life in Crestwood.

"Rachel, the Alpha ordered you to prep the transport. You’re driving him and the Luna to the private airstrip at eleven sharp," a Beta enforcer barked from the threshold.

I managed a hollow and mocking smile. This was a calculated humiliation. There were over fifty trained drivers in the pack, yet he chose me.

He wanted to remind me exactly where I belong, to crush any hopes that I might be harboring.

In the end, Daniel and Cassidy were cut from the same cloth. They just broke their victims differently.

One had shattered my body and the other dismantled my soul.

Pulling a burner phone from my pocket, I stared at the screen for a moment before dialing the number I blocked months ago out of loyalty to Crestwood.

The call connected.

"Alpha Silas," I whispered with my voice cracking as my heart hammered violently against my ribs. "You once made an offer... that if I accepted your mark, you would fund my training in the Northern Glades. Is that offer still on the table?"

"Have you finally grown a spine, little wolf?" the older Alpha’s voice boomed through the phone. "Be at the Dawson compound on the 13th at twilight. We will formalize your claiming."

The 13th?

I had just eight days left.