Chapter 2: My mother’s wish
AYLA
I could not feel my fingers.
Someone pressed a hand to my back, guiding me through the tight cluster of wolves, but I could hardly register who. The only thing I wanted to do was disappear, melt into the floorboards and let this night be one huge colossal mistake.
I only heard fragments of voices as I passed.
"She is an Omega. This must be some kind of mistake."
"Three Alphas? That is not fate, it is madness."
"Doesn’t she clean the kitchens and their rooms? She must have seduced them somehow.
"She won’t survive the bond. Look at her!"
I kept walking only stopping when I saw my mother. She was pushing her way through, her shawl slipping from her shoulder and her eyes wild with disbelief. Her hair which was always so perfectly braided was starting to come undone in the wind.
"Ayla, come here" She shouted.
I went to her immediately.
"What happened?" she hissed. "What...what is the meaning of this?!" My mother asking, gripping my arms a little too tightly.
"I do not know," I whispered, still shaking. "I did not do anything. I swear I did not..."
"They said all three!" she said. "Do you have any idea what this means?!"
"Yes," I said. "It means it is a mistake. I do not want this and I am going to reject it."
Her face twisted. She let go of my arms and stared at me in disbelief.
"Reject it?"
"Yes!" My voice cracked. "I do not care what the Moonstone says. We will speak to the Alpha. We will go to the Elders. They cannot force this... I won’t be tied to them... the last thing I want is..."
"The last thing you want?" My mother echoed, her voice low. "You think for a minute that you have a say in what is going to happen? Have you lost your fucking mind? You are going to reject the most powerful bond this pack has seen in generations?"
"Mom, I do not want this..."
Her eyes flared. "You have lived your whole life scrubbing floors, Ayla. Watching girls with better bloodlines get chosen. Always on the outside. Always beneath them. We have lived like slaves and now we get the opportunity to be something more and you want to reject it? Over my fucking dead body"
"I was fine with being a slave"
"No, you were not. I was not fine with being a breeder and neither should you be. You think this is an accident? This is the fate’s mercy. We begged for a better life and they have delivered it to us on a platter."
Her eyes gleamed as she said this. They had one faraway look like she could already imagine the riches that would come from her daughter mated to the sons of the Alpha.
I took a step back. "You do not understand. I don’t want them...any of them."
"You do not have to want them," she said. "You just have to use what the moon goddess has graciously given us"
I stared at her like I was seeing a stranger.
"Us?" I echoed. "I am the one who is going to be used, mother... not you"
She tilted her head and regarded me with disdain.
"It is a better life than you would have gotten either ways. Now I want you to go back in, change out of this dress, wear something good because as soon as the Alpha summons us, I need you to be presentable."
My mother sighed, her eyes softening a bit.
"You always were too proud for your own good but do not forget your place and be grateful for this opportunity"
I looked into my mother’s face and I saw something hard there. A hunger that hadn’t been fed in years. She turned around and left before I had the opportunity to say anything else.
I turned away, planning to leave the ceremony never return but as soon as I turned around, I slammed headlong into Willow.
My heart dropped to the pits of my stomach and I braced myself for the slap I was sure to come but she was regarding me with so much anger and she had not slapped me yet... that much was shocking.
"You have some nerve, sister." She grated.
She was the Beta’s legitimate daughter and my step sister and she had always made my life a living hell... she and Damon who thought it funny to make sure the Omegas are punished for the littlest offense.
"I am going to reject the bond" I blurted.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Now why would you do that?"
"I do not want it."
She laughed in my face at this.
"That would be a first from you." she scoffed, brushing past me.
I tried to get out of her way but she still was able to push me so far back that I stumbled straight into the waiting arms of Ares.
Fuck my life, I thought.
I jumped away from him like I had been burned.
"Mate" He stared at me, critically... from my hair to my toes.
I felt myself shrink from his gaze.
"I did not think for a second I would ever be mated to an Omega. I guess the fates are playing a crude joke at my expense" He murmured.
He smelled like the forest, like trees and leaves and dew and it made me very light headed.
"You do not speak?" He asked, frowning. "I am drawing the line at a mute mate"
"I... speak, my lord"
He leaned forward and my throat dried up.
I could see the color of his eyes, a deep shade of green in the light... like the forest.
"Ayla is your name?"
I nodded my head and when he frowned at the gesture, I spoke.
"Yes, my lord"
"My brothers have contrary opinion of what sort of girl you are, Ayla"
I could only think that Damon had spoken the worst evil about me.
"I am going to see for myself, either ways" He smiled.
I felt goosebumps coat my flesh at his smile and when he walked out, I was pretty sure he had walked away with my ability to move or do anything else but stare at his retreating back, my heart hammering in my chest.
I did not sleep that night. I hid in the hollow beneath the kitchen storage, curled under wool blankets and wooden crates, praying no one found me.
By dawn, whispers had spread like wildfire.
The Omega girl...Three mates...Unnatural...Unholy...Unworthy.
By mid-morning, the Alpha summoned me and I knew what was coming.