Chapter 10
The Moonwillow Pack.
Viola tried to sneak in through the back door, hoping to avoid being spotted by any of the guests in the moon festival gathering, especially their Luna. But it proved impossible, even with the stranger’s coat wrapped around her, a coat she would have gladly discarded in the forest if she hadn’t needed it to mask her scent so she could walk in unnoticed.
As she slipped through the shadows of the large yard, keeping an eye on Leni, who was talking animatedly with her friends, Viola glanced behind and around her to make sure no one was paying attention to her. Everyone looked busy, and she began to let out a sigh of relief. That was when she bumped into someone, just as she believed she was getting closer to the back entrance door.
All Viola wanted at that moment was to return to her empty room, nurse her rejected heart and wounded soul, because despite the fact that she didn’t have a wolf to share the strong bond, it still hurt terribly for reasons she couldn’t fully understand, and then move on. But it seemed the night wouldn’t end with a single disaster of her own making, because she had just collided with one of the most important guests of their pack.
The force of the bump surprisingly sent the other person stumbling backward, and Viola reacted instinctively, reaching out without thinking to stop the woman from falling. Her grip, however, caught a handful of the woman’s dress instead.
A tearing sound split the air, followed by a sharp yelp and a heavy thud as the woman toppled onto a nearby set of tables under the moonlight. Drinks and glasses clattered to the ground, drawing the immediate attention of everyone nearby.
Viola’s heart sank. Oh no, she whispered, staring first at the torn red fabric in her hand, then at the she-wolf sprawled across the broken table. I was just trying to stop her fall, she thought as she saw the Luna, the Alpha, and others rushing toward them.
Viola wished more than anything that the ground would open and swallow her up; she knew she was supposed to remain unseen, invisible at this event, but she hadn’t only bumped into a guest, her pheromone wasn’t properly concealed. Could the night get any worst?
“Oh my Goddess, what happened?” the Luna demanded, rushing forward with her friend to help the she-wolf who had fallen, while the Alpha reached out, grabbed a handful of Viola’s hair, and tackled her to the ground with a force that made her groan.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing out here?” he demanded through gritted teeth, yanking her head up by her hair.
Viola grimaced at the pain shooting through her scalp and the resentment blazing in his golden eyes that locked on hers. She still found it unreal and utterly baffling that Evan could look at her with such hatred when he had showed her nothing but affection before.
When she didn’t answer immediately, and he seemed to sense her pheromone in the air, he released her in disgust, muttering, “I am going to kill you this time for ruining my event. Just you wait and see p>
This was the first time the Moon Festival had taken place in his pack since he was crowned Alpha of the Moonwillow Pack, and now this useless nobody had shown herself, humiliating a very important guest of the event, a guest he couldn’t afford to offend in any way. Nothing would stop him from punishing her this time. He would make sure her punishment ended in death.
“Are you alright, Ember?” Alpha Evan asked the she-wolf the Hollow had pushed, whose dress was now torn at the front and soaked in spilled drinks.
Viola’s eyes widened slightly at the mention of the name Ember.
Of all the guests present, it had to be Ember, the princess of the North Pack, that she had bumped into. Anyone who didn’t know Ember simply didn’t live in the werewolf world.
She was the only daughter of the Alpha of the North, known not just for her strength but also for her deep arrogance. Rumors had it that she possessed the strength of an Alpha female, a result of her parents not having a son to inherit the position. Long ago, in a time when Viola had still been a princess herself and the pride of her pack, she and Ember had been silent rivals online. That had been before either of them had awakened their wolves.
Now, while Viola had no wolf to make her fit in, people said Ember’s wolf was among the most powerful of all the she-wolves when it finally emerged.
“I am fine, Alpha Evan. I was looking down at my phone when she bumped into me, or else she wouldn’t have had the strength to push me down,” Ember said with a tight smile, wanting to maintain her composure after the fall. Her eyes flicked to the useless Hollow as two omegas covered her with a blanket.
“Isn’t that Viola Linden?” Ember asked as she looked down at the malnourished, skinny woman on the ground, bowing her head. But Ember had already recognized her face, despite how much it had changed and how much uglier it had become, her right eye looking strange and red.
“It’s her. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with her. I’ve been looking for the right opportunity to get rid of her completely, she’s been making things difficult for my Luna,” Evan said, putting an arm around Leni, who clenched her teeth, fuming at Viola’s presence.
How is she here? Leni thought. I made sure this useless thing would have been raped and killed in the forest. And wait a minute… what is she wearing? And that scent… isn’t that a male scent?
“Where are you coming from?” Leni demanded with authority, glaring down at the Hollow.
Viola, resigned to her destiny and whatever the moon Goddess had planned for her, didn’t show any emotion as she replied, “You sent me to go and decorate the clif p>
Her words were cut short as a leg kicked her square in the face, sending her tumbling to the side.
“You lying bitch! My Luna would never send a Hollow to decorate the cliff! You were meant to stay in your quarters the moment the moon rose and the guests came out, but you—” Alpha Evan trailed off as Leni whispered to him, pointing at the black coat Viola was wearing.
Everyone noticed the coat and the faint scent and strong aura that suppressed the rising pheromone.
“Where did you steal that coat from, Hollow?” the Alpha demanded.
Viola belatedly remembered the coat she was wearing and gritted her jaw. Meeting the man in the forest hadn’t only shattered her hope of a fated mate and broke her heart, it would also be the reason she would now be labeled a thief, with no explanation to offer for where she got it. No one would believe her anyway. Viola decided to stay silent, only clenching her fingers around the fabric, hating its owner along with everyone around her.
“It seems she won’t talk. Take the coat off her and see who it belongs to,” Alpha Evan ordered the Gamma, who had already stepped forward.
Though Viola hated the coat’s owner, she didn’t hate the coat itself, she loved it, and its scent. She tightened her fists around the fabric, unwilling to let them take away the only good thing that had happened in her life in the past four years. But it was soon ripped roughly from her body, revealing her torn shirt and exposed torso.
When she was exposed, she didn’t even bother to hide her naked torso. What was there to see, anyway? There was nothing to see except skin and bones. She looked like a skeleton, and she feared that even a skeleton would look better than her own malnourished body.
Without the coat, her pheromone sharpened and strengthened, radiating from her more intensely to hit the guests.
“Fuck, she looks disgusting, but the pheromone is delicious and inviting,” someone muttered.
“Could you at least give her the suppressor before you start punishing her for stealing? She’s fouling the air!” another complained.
Viola was quickly given an injection to suppress it, instead of a pill.
All this happened without her fighting or speaking. If only they knew how disgusted she was with herself.
“Where did she steal the coat from?” Leni asked the Gamma, who was sniffing the fabric. His face froze in shock as he turned to speak.
“I-it belongs to the Silver Pack Alpha, Alpha Kade,” the Gamma announced.
Everyone gasped and turned toward Ember, who they already knew was the future Silver Pack Luna, chosen because Alpha Kade had asked for her hand in marriage from her father. Ember had openly shared this with everyone, which instantly elevated her status and earned her even greater respect, after all, who wouldn’t respect the future Supreme Luna?
“Did she steal it from you?” Leni asked, baffled.
It was impossible, nothing belonging to Alpha Kade should ever be anywhere near their pack, not after the bitter feud between them that had lasted for two decades, a conflict so severe that the Supreme Alpha had blacklisted the Moonwillow Pack entirely. Now, in an attempt to repair that old enmity, they had invited Ember, the future Supreme Luna as a special guest. His future Luna didn’t come with his coat.
So how could a nobody like Viola possibly have his coat?