Athena.

For the next three days after Claire gave me the wolfsbane to use on the Alpha, my thoughts were all over the place. I didn’t know whether I should go on with the drugs or if I should just carry on with my life without the man.

“Athena.” Someone called my name, making me realize that the food I was cooking was already burning. I turned off the cooker and turned to look at the person. Turned out to be Grace, another Omega like myself in the pack.

“What is going on with you?” She asked in a gentle voice.

I didn’t know what to tell her was wrong with me. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to tell her anything at all.

“If you had a choice to make your life better or leave everything sour like fate wanted it, which would you pick?” I blurted out. I didn’t know if it was my anxiety that got to me or the fact that I wanted validation from someone else for the action I knew I was going to take.

“Even the moon goddess would curse me if I see a chance to leave this life of slavery and I don’t take it,” Grace said and hissed immediately after.

“Grace, I need you to take the Alpha’s breakfast to his bedroom now,” Dennis, our head of kitchen, called out.

Seeing the opportunity open, I decided to hop on it before I would change my mind.

“I’ll take it!” I said, my voice a bit higher than it was before. I saw surprised looks on the faces of the people present in the room but I ignored them. “I’ll take it,” I repeated as I got close to where Dennis was.

Without waiting for an approval or denial, I took the tray containing the food and walked out. Once I was at the corner and out of the piercing eyes of people, I stopped walking and dropped the tray containing the food on the floor. My hand went to my skirt pocket and I brought out the wolfsbane. Without wasting time, I added some of it to the food.

Claire had instructed that I added three pinches to whatever I wanted to mix it with, but the fear of hurting the man made me add just two.

Better safe than sorry.

I wanted the man to love me and accept me and his pup, not die.

Done with the task at hand, I cleared my throat, covered the food, picked up the tray, and quickly made my way to Alpha Gian’s house. Once there, the guards cleared me instantly since they knew I was always the one to bring his meals in the past before I stopped after the pregnancy incident happened.

When I got in, I didn’t see the Alpha. Seeing as luck was on my side, I quickly dropped the food and went back to the kitchen cause I knew the Alpha might not eat the food if he saw I was the one who brought it.

The next one hour was the longest in my life. So many thought ran through my mind, and I kept asking myself if the Alpha would fall for the bait that I set his way.

Once I was assured that an hour was up - according to Claire, the wolfsbane would take exactly an hour to fully react - I rushed to Alpha Gian’s room. As usual, the guards didn’t stop me. The moment I got into the house, the first place my eyes and attention went to was where I left the food. I moved closer and sighed with relief when I saw that the man had eaten out of the food.

I made my way to the room and saw the Alpha deeply asleep on the bed. Or at least, he appeared to be fast asleep. I moved closer to him and shook him gently.

“What?” He mumbled and promptly turned his back to me.

“What is your name?” I asked the man, testing the potency of the wolfsbane first.

“Gian.” The man replied without any hesitation.

It worked!

“Gian, I want you to mark and claim me completely and also allow me to mark and claim you as mine now. For the sake of our love and our baby,” I said in a tone that could easily pass for a command. “Will you do that?” This part was a plea.

“Yes.” The Alpha mumbled. He got up from his bed and moved closer to me. His right hand bared the collar of the shirt I had on to expose my neck and give him access to the skin where he needed to do the marking.

I closed my eyes, a smile gracing my lips as I anticipated the way I would feel once the mating was done.

All of the sudden, I felt a hand tightening around my neck. I held on to the hand as I began to choke.

“How dare you?!” I heard the venomous breath of the Alpha against my ear. His face that had been down lifted up suddenly and I saw that the man was far from being hypnotized by the wolfsbane as I thought.

“A-al-alpha,” I cried out, my free hand slapping against his hold on me while I used to other to try and free myself or at least create space between his hand and my neck. My eyes watered and I felt myself going limped.

I knew that if I didn’t stop this soon, I was going to be a dead person.

“You think I wouldn’t notice that something was wrong after it was you that brought the food to me?!” He sneered.

“Alpha!” A voice shouted from the doorway suddenly.

Luckily for me, that made the hold the Alpha had on me to slacken. I shifted my body away from him instantly and began to gasp for breathes while I was coughing desperately.

“Do you want to kill her?” The owner of the voice asked. It turned out to be the Alpha’s Beta, Dennis, who had walked in and stopped the man from offing me.

The Alpha didn’t bother to answer his Beta. Instead, he crawled to where I was on the floor and yanked my hair and began to drag me with it.

“Gian!” Beta Dennis protested.

“Do not interfere!” The Alpha cautioned his Beta with those words. He didn’t wait to see if his Beta would listen to the words he spoke. He just continued to drag me along with him as he walked out of the house. He didn’t care whatever my body hit as he dragged me with him. And I was too limp and tired to even protest and try to make sure I was fine.

Finally, the Alpha paused.

I opened my eyes to see where it was he had dragged me to. My breath hitched when I saw that it was none other place than the correctional field. Without being told, I knew I was a goner already.

By now, if not everyone from the pack, then at least 90 percent of the people had gathered to see who was getting punished and how they would be.

“Flog her fifty times!” Alpha Gian commanded two of his warriors when it was clear that every member of the pack was now gathered around us.

Without any other minute to waste, the men bundled and tied me up to the bench that was there for only that purpose. By the time the fifteenth lashes would land on me, I was so sure I wouldn’t survive the next one.

“If you know what is good for you, then die!” The Alpha said in a cool, calm voice. But I could hear all the hatred filled in the words.

As soon as the next stroke landed on me, I lost faith and gave up, my eyes closed and falling into the dark abyss that called to me.