1. Portraits

Seff Bleize stared at the oil portraits of the two immortal Alphas beside each other in the main hallway of her apartment building.

In just a few days, one of them will choose her to be a concubine in their harem. Once she was “sold,” she could no longer call Magnolia Manor her home.

Seff tore her gaze away from the tyrants. She wouldn’t be drawn in by their beauty like the rest of her pack. They were the thieves of Omegas too naïve to realize that the Alphas didn’t see them as consorts to shower with affection, but as breeding livestock. No one but Seff seemed to see the reality that their godlike status was grown from the seed of fear.

The late summer afternoon was humid with drizzling rain pattering Seff’s hair and shoulders as she strode across the compound in her human form toward Allium’s apartment.

The Magnolia wolf pack was founded roughly one hundred and thirty years ago, while the Sun and Moon packs were one hundred and ninety-five years old and one hundred and seventy-five, respectively. Their Alphas were not the rulers of the werewolf microcosm, but with their sheer might, they might as well be.

And they seemed to love to flex their power over the Magnolia on sexual whim.

Seff knocked on Allium’s door and at her distant shout, she let herself in. “Hey,” she called down the short entryway.

Her friend skidded into view. “Hi,” she mumbled.

Seff’s gaze dropped to where her hands were pressed to her lower belly—and her heart dropped, too. “It started already?”

“Oh, it did,” Allium said, but she didn’t sound as regretful as Seff hoped. “C’mon.”

She took Seff’s hand, pulling her into her room. It smelled like Allium’s scent—more than just her Omega glands that smelled as sweet as flowers that her pack was known for being, but the multicolored carnations on her windowsill and the rose oil she bathed in.

Seff sat on the edge of her bed and Allium crossed her arms, though it twinged her entire body in pain to do so. “We’ve been over this,” sighed Allium at Seff’s obvious unhappiness. “A heat is nothing new! And we’ve been waiting for this for years, Seff. Being chosen to be a part of the Moon or Sun harem is a privilege. A gift.”

You have been waiting for this, Seff wanted to say.

Allium Ren, daughter of Wisteria and Rush, was a single pup, a rarity to not be at least a twin, and she was beautiful. Like any wolf from the Magnolia pack, white cornsilk hair fell down her back in a cascade of shine, her green eyes as vital as apples in a summer orchard. Seff’s gaze traveled, as they had many times over the years she had known her, up and down her body—supple like an apple, solid but lithe, her legs bared long and smooth, her skin as pale as a petal. She would be desired by both Alphas, especially if they smelled her heat. And when both Alphas wanted the same thing, it usually did not end in diplomacy.

Seff scowled, but Allium knelt and gently took her face between her hands. She stroked her thumbs to soothe damp cheeks. “Seff, I’ll be okay,” she whispered. “We will be okay. We’ll be Chosen together and we’ll live together just like we always wanted to.”

Allium’s words eased anxious hearts, her sweet voice a balm to worries like aloe to a burn. Seff leaned forward to rest her forehead to her friend’s, closing her eyes, breathing in the overwhelming scent of an Omega in heat. So many years had passed since her first cycle that occurred every month for a week, one after another, not one cycle being easier than the last.

Magnolia pack pups grew up too fast. Twelve years old was far too young for a werewolf to learn that their bodies were not their own, but a sacrifice disguised as a gift to be offered up to uncaring masters, a pretty young thing with a bow tied around their neck not yet feeling the leash attached to it.

“I won’t be Chosen,” Seff murmured, wanting to push Allium away at the same time desperately wanting to stay in this moment, warm, close to her friend. Before she could ask, she insisted, “And you already know why.”

Allium’s hands slipped from Seff’s face, pulling back to knit her brows. “There’s still a chance. You’re more than just small boobs and skinny hips.”

In terms of appearances, Seff had almost equal appeal. She had inherited her mother’s Magnolia features of white hair and green eyes. While most pureblooded Magnolia werewolves were pale-skinned, Seff’s was a rich chestnut thanks to her father’s traits from the Lovell pack. But she was lacking in typical beauty standards regarding fertility.

An incredulous laugh broke from Seff’s lips, trying to keep a straight face at her friend’s mischievous smirk. “You know both reasons.”

“Sit down, let me dry your hair,” Allium said instead, ushering her to sit at her vanity desk in front of a mirror. She ran her fingers gently through Seff’s humidity-frizzed hair to free the knots. Seff closed her eyes to her reflection and let herself be lulled by the movements. All Omegas were kind, maternal, loving. “You’ll be Chosen. What you’re really worried about is what comes after they Choose you.”

Seff’s eyes opened. The Sun and Moon Alphas traveled to the Magnolia pack’s stronghold—the Manor, a compound of various buildings and plenty of living space and room for werewolves young and old far away from human civilization—every two months to pick from a lineup of Omegas, male and female, to become a part of their pack.

Kiran Cyrus, the Alpha leader of the Sun pack. Selene Hilal, the Alpha Luna of the Moon pack. If werewolves existed, surely sun gods and moon goddesses, did too, because that was what the immortals looked like—and what power they seemed to possess.

Allium had oil portraits of both hanging on her wall beside her mirror. Neither she nor Seff had seen them in six years, but their lasting impression was hard to forget, and their depiction hardly did them justice.

While Allium favored Kiran, no one could deny the physical appeal of Selene. The “night goddess” was a marvel of cold beauty—dark blue eyes like water under a sheet of ice, her long black hair rippling with a blue-purple iridescence, her skin creamy pale. Unlike Kiran’s boisterousness, the Luna was stoical and calculating.

Kiran seemed to have been born from light: gold hair, gold eyes as piercing as his claws, skin tanned gold-brown, and smiled fanged in a promise of violence camouflaged as charm—all gave him the title, “the gold god.” The Magnolia pack was conditioned to fawn over his sensuality, and even Seff felt something at the mere sight of him—where she felt that something she would never confess—, but she willed herself to not with every fiber of will she possessed.

But the issue was not her falling for Selene or Kiran, but if they wanted her. What an Alpha wants, they get. They always got what they wanted, no matter the means or consequences. Wolves lost their lives if they happened to be caught in the crossfires of the Alphas of the Sun and Moon packs.

And if either Alpha Chose her to be a part of their harem, if either tied that damn ribbon around her throat, that meant the moment they smelled her in heat, they would take her to their bed. Her body would be nothing but a vessel to belong to an uncaring immortal for the rest of her mortal life. Nothing would be hers anymore. When she was brought to bed, they would knot, and she would be expected to sire offspring.

But that required a heat to begin with.

Seff’s scent identified her as an Omega just before her same-age peers participated in the Presenting—when they officially revealed their status as Alpha, Beta, or Omega—as it should when she turned twelve, but…she secreted no slick. Which meant she was faulty goods. If she didn’t have a proper heat once every month, then the chances of her bearing pups were very slim.

But if she was Chosen and then her shameful secret was discovered, Kiran Cyrus or Selene Hilal would not hesitate to rip out her throat on the spot.