The next morning, Danika was sat at the edge of the bed of the small chamber she was in, chewing slowly on the last piece of the chunk of dried meat Damien had given her the night before.
Her appetite had abandoned her the previous day, buried beneath heartbreak and betrayal, which had made her eat only little out of the meat. But now, hunger had left her no choice.
She forced herself to swallow, just as the wooden door creaked open.
Startled, she looked up.
Someone walked into the chambers. She was surprised. She didn't expect any sort of servant on joining Damien's pack, especially for someone like her.
Before she could speak, another woman followed, her arms full of neatly folded clothes. Feminine. New and surely not hers.
But there was no one else in the room.
Danika stared at the fabric. Was it really for her?
The gesture stunned her. First the meat… now this?
Damien had seemed cold the previous night. Stern and emotionally detached. But these gestures were not cruel. And she wanted to believe that he was a nice person because of them. Or perhaps he was welcoming her before he would unmask his facade. Damon had made her learn this lesson the previous day..
But still, a small part of her dared to wonder if there was more to him than his hardened exterior.
"The Alpha wants you bathed and dressed," the first woman said plainly, walking toward her. "You're expected in court soon."
Her hands reached for Danika's old tunic, offering to help her undress but Danika's eyes shifted to the second woman, the one preparing the new clothes.
How dare she be commanded to serve her fellow lowly omega. She knew she was thinking, because she could feel the displeasure etched into her jaw.
They hated this. She knew.
Hated that they were asked to serve someone like her, a lowly omega with no rank or power.
And yet here they were.
She sighed inwardly. It never ceased to baffle her how even fellow omegas could be so quick to uphold the very system that crush them. Instead of lifting each other, they claw their way to hollow superiority, stepping on those just like them for the sake of favor.
But Danika said nothing. Simply raising her arms, letting the first woman help her undress.
****
"I get that we are under Bernard's kindness and that we are alive today because of him, but taking his daughter under our pack is where you went overboard, Alpha. Do you not know what that is?" A cold sounding voice said with displeasure at Damine who was seated at the throne in the grand ball known as the court.
His seat had been elevated by a little podium made to let it stand tall from the normal floor height.
Damien said nothing, he simply stared at his cabinet members as they disputed the girl who had joined their pack.
" She has been rejected by every Alpha's son in the East and when Bernard saw no way out to get his wolfless daughter a mate, he suddenly remembers us? That we are indebted to him does not mean that we are obligated to do what he has asked!" Another voice added, further reiterating what the first had said.
" We're not the dumping ground for rejected weaklings" another said coldly.
Danika was at the entrance of the court waiting for her to be granted entry and for it to be announced. Maybe Damien didn't know that she would be ready on time, because she didn't understand why Damien would invite her here to have her listen to herself being insulted.
" And on top of that she was born to a human! The human mistress Bernard kept despite being fated mates with his Luna!"
Danika felt like walking past the soldiers who were guarding the entrance of the throne room without waiting further to be called.
How could they say that? How dare they?
The Alpha Bernard's Luna was the mistress and no one knew that she was his mate. Her mother had been accepted by the pack when she returned pregnant and her father had wanted marrying her. But instead she died and this caused him to take Lyra's mother as his mate.
If anything, Lyra's mother was the mistress because she conceived after Danika's late mother.
Why were they spreading rumours? Humans who got pregnant for werewolves carried the pup for nine months unlike their werewolf counterparts who did for three and sometimes five. Why were they twisting the narratives that she was her father's illegitimate daughter?
As she stood contemplating the temptation, one of the guards stepped out and bowed.
The twin doors creaked open and Danika stepped into the court with her shoulders straight and chin lifted despite the storm that churned inside her. She was still her father's daughter, abandoned or not.
And she was happy that he was being mentioned before her. So whatever the court would decide today regarding her, they would do so revering her father.
"She even dares to hold her head high," one cabinet member scoffed under his breath, not low enough for her to miss it as she walked towards the podium she was to stand.
"Raised in a human body, what else do you expect?" another added with disdain. "No sense of rank, no understanding of boundaries."
"She was born of chaos and chaos follows her," said the elder advisor in the corner, his eyes narrowing like she were some disease. "We welcome her into our pack and risk infecting our own."
Danika reached the podium of the court and stopped. Her eyes never left Damien's. She refused to give them the satisfaction of looking ashamed.
Damien sat still on the raised throne, silent as he watched.
He couldn't take his eyes off her. She was beautiful, he had to admit.He had seen her the previous night using the lanterns and beams of moonlight but right now, seeing her in day, he couldn't tell if she were the same woman he had seen the previous day. It looked as if her face had changed entirely to another ethereal one.
"My pack does not want me to honour your father's pleas of taking you as my mate, Danika of Crimson Veil" Damien began finally while staring in her direction.
Danika said nothing.
Damien felt an ache in his chest. He wanted this woman. He desired her so greatly but the people he governed over didn't see her as a fit luna for them. And he couldn't go against them. Same time he couldn't provoke Alpha Bernard.
He might have said those words about him making her anything as long as he took her in his pack, but he knew he didn't mean it. No father would.
"Alpha Bernard saved us all, I just want to remind you all as it looks like you have forgotten" he finally began, trying to bring order back to his court.
" We are not one to forget what we owe. And if not for him, none of us would have been here today. Not even our sons nor would we have any generation after us! If we had all died during that war before Alpha Bernard came as a reinforcement for our pack, do you think any of you would have been alive today to say these hurtful words about his daughter?"
Danika was surprised hearing him speak. Apart from Urmaa, he was the first person speaking for her, in support of her and not following the crowd against her.
She wondered if he saw her more than her status as an omega. Or a hybrid who couldn't shift.
One of the elderly men shaked his head as he stared at Damien.
"If you father followed the path you want to, there wouldn't have been a Raven Blood Pack today" he muttered.
"Mark my words, Alpha," he continued, his voice louder now. "She will bring ruin to this pack. Just like her mother did to Bernard's."
"That would only happen when Alpha Bernard comes knocking after finding out what you all want to make his daughter into while she is in your pack!" Damien retorted.
The men were taken aback by his words. This wasn't him. What could Danika had done to him the previous night she arrived in their territory. Little wonder would abound since her mother had been a seductress before her death.
Danika could feel their stinging gazes and if eyes could kill, she would have dropped dead before them a long time ago.
Suddenly a guard came rushing into the court room.
" A day hasn't even passed and her lowly omegas do not know their places any more. What will we see next apart from a low guard entering the court room without being summoned? A hybrid Luna? Or her bringing in more of her kind who can't shift as the new heirs of Raven Blood?" An elder said again on seeing the guard who rushed in.
The guard bowed his head immediately,prostrating before them.
"Speak" Damien commanded.
"I bring news from our spy. Damon, step son of Bernard has become the new Alpha of Crimson Veil"
Danika froze and the breath in her lungs vanished like smoke.