Chapter 1 Alpha Academy

My mother abandoned me for eighteen long years. After taking me back from the orphanage I grew up in, she was in a rush to marry me off. Why you ask? Victoria wasn’t only my mother. She was the Queen of the Luna Pack—the reigning werewolf pack.

It didn’t take me long to realize, the only reason I was brought back was to serve as a replacement in a political marriage. My adopted sister was supposed to be thee next Queen, but she had was quite the talk of the town with her promiscuous ways. Somehow, that was be an even bigger disgrace than my own problems.

I was wolfless. I was the ripe age of eighteen and had yet to see my wolf. To Victoria, that was an additional humiliation. I figured it was why she abandoned me all those years ago. Then, she got a new daughter, the perfect She-wolf. She was more of a future queen then I’d ever be.

I stared at the list in front of me. The names looked familiar. Wolfham. Lunerly. Moonraiser. The photos next to the name were of some of the most handsome men I’d ever seen. Each with striking features and shiny gold eyes.

Alphas.

The woman standing in front of me, my mother, sighed. “Zora,” she sounded exhausted. “They’re all lovely men. Each the heir to their namesake. Excellent alphas. They could teach you a lot.”

I let out a sigh. “No, Mother, I don’t need this,” I shoved the list away. “I just want to be alone. I don’t want to get married.”

“Do you want to be homeless again? You’re a princess of this nation now, and you have no idea what that means.” There was a trace of anger in Victoria’s voice. “If it weren’t for your sister—”

She stopped mid-sentence. I raised my eyebrow. “My sister?” I deadpanned. “If she weren’t what, a whore?”

Her hand shot up, and I instinctively raised my arm to shield myself. It was a habit I’d learned in the orphanage. Victoria froze. She didn’t hit me. Instead, her voice turned cold.

“Watch your tone,” she said. “Amara is still your sister. And I am your mother.”

“Yet you abandoned me for eighteen years,” I snapped. “Clearly, I’m not the one you care about. Amara is. So why don’t you let her have a fucking wedding.”

I sharply stood up from my chair and stomped towards the door to the room. I wrenched it open and left Victoria in her office. I felt like we’d had that same conversation a hundred times in the last six months I’d been living with Victoria and Amara. Queen Victoria.

But I didn’t grow up knowing that. I grew up bouncing from orphanage to foster home to orphanage, thinking I was just a human girl who no one loved. The latter was true, but the former was that I was heir to the Luna throne. I only learned that the day I turned eighteen.

I stood on the street with my things in a bag, nowhere to go after being told I was too old to stay in the orphanage. As the tears began to stream down my face, she appeared.

Something told me the woman with fiery red hair and golden honey eyes had to be related to me. Her nose as the same shape as the one I saw in the mirror. When she smiled at me, the same dimple I’d come to hate mirrored itself on her face.

I dropped my bag immediately. Then she told me her name was Queen Victoria Luna. And she was my mother.

I had a million questions running through my head but the only one that escaped from my throat was a “Why?”

It’s a question Victoria has never answered. That gave me all the information I needed to know. My mother never loved me. Never wanted me. I tossed aside like old clothes. The only reason she returned to get me was to validate her lineage and to secure the place on the Luna throne.

I was a political pawn.

That and I was a political pawn without a wolf.

Victoria’s lack of love was further proved as she asked me questions about my childhood. Irritability at the full moon? No. A longing to run? No. An itchy, scratchy feeling in my bones? What the hell was she on about?

Then she told me I was supposed to be a werewolf. A being who could transform into a wolf on the flip of a dime. With super strength and hearing and all the cool occult abilities I’d read about in books. But I had none of it. I was exceptionally ordinary.

Victoria hated that about me—or rather, she despised my plainness. She had even gone so far as to let her own blood wander the world for eighteen years while spoiling a stranger’s child into a rude, entitled brat. The thought was burning in my head as I stormed down the hall, away from Victoria’s office.

Then I heard her call my name again.

“Zora, let’s make a deal,” my mother said. “You are the heir to the Luna throne. You need a mate. I’m just trying to help you.”

“Help me?” I scoffed. “If you really wanted to help me, you wouldn’t have abandoned me. You don’t want to help me. You don’t even want me.”

“Of course I want you,” Victoria replied, her shoulders slumping as she finally looked defeated for the first time. “I had my reasons for leaving you with the humans. I—”

“So tell me!” I shot back.

“I was trying to protect you,” She said “You will learn—"

She opened her mouth to speak again but I cut her off again.

“Is this why you haven’t introduced me yet? Have kept me hidden in this corner of the castle for the last six months?Amara comes out whenever she feels like it. And she mocks me for being a wolfless failure who will never escape her shadow.

I haven’t had a chance to explore the place where I’m supposed to be from. To ‘protect’ me? If you wanted to keep me safe you would have left me alone!”

“Zora, please,” Victoria began to roar. “You will learn it all in time. Just know that I am your mother!”

“You’re nothing to me,” I said calmly. “You’re just some random woman who stumbled into my life six months ago and wants to use me to replace my sister for your own gain.”

Victoria glared me down. Then, she straightened her shoulders and looked at my down the brim of her nose. “You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said, sternly. “You will attend Alpha Academy. If you graduate, I will tell you everything you want to know. You are free to leave.”

“I can leave?” I tipped my chin up to meet her gaze. “So, no marriage.”

Victoria let out a cold laugh. “If you can graduate on your own, then fine. The werewolf world is far more brutal than the human one.”

“I do,” I said. “And I’ll graduate your stupid Alpha Academy and I expect answers immediately. Otherwise, I’m gone.”

With that, I turned on my heel and left her glaring into my back.

It only took a week to get me enrolled in the “Alpha Academy”, whatever the hell that was. I packed what little I had back into my bags and set off in a car away from the castle. It was the first time I’d seen my country, all fading into a blur of green as I was shipped off to my next prison.

When the car rolled to a stop in front of the admissions building, I was left slack jawed. Alpha Academy looked like any other human college. It had older architecture but everything looked the same as the University I’d grown up next to. The people walking around looked like I did. No fancy clothes, no crowns. It was if I was suddenly human again.

I breathed a sigh of relief. This was easy. I could do this. I’d excelled in high school. Graduated with a four-point-oh. Did I have any friends? No. But, honestly, I didn’t need friends. I needed to fight my way through this school and come out with enough knowledge to knock Victoria off her high horse.

I stepped out of the car as the driver helped me with my bags. No one even gave me a second glance. As far as they knew, I was just another rich girl coming to learn. I wasn’t the disgraced heir of the throne. Suddenly, a weight felt like it had been lifted off my chest. I could do this. I could make it through.

I grabbed my bags and started towards the admissions hall. Just as I reached the stairs, a mass of black fur came into my peripheral. I was knocked onto the ground in a flurry of my things.

The weight that had just been lifted came slamming back into me like a ton of bricks. Then, I started to scream as every bone in my body felt a surge of electricity course through it like blood.