Chapter 1 BOOK ONE: IT STARTED WITH A COMPETITION

A competition to find a mate? The competition sounded bizarre to Anastasia , but her omega had guided her to this pack for a reason. Did she travel all the way here to escape fate, to only end up in a remixed version of it? This can't be real. As she pondered the logistics of it, her omega spoke to her again. Join, you will find our mate there. So Anastasia entered herself into the competition, even though she was confused as hell. She trusted her omega more than anything.

The few times she actually spoke to Anastasia she made the right choice, from choosing to run away or hiding her hair from that one suspicious omega who asked her about it years ago. She had never been wrong. It didn't mean that she didn't question her decisions though. The journey to get here had been grueling, with her somehow avoiding rogues. If it wasn't for the mass migration of people in this direction at this time of the year, she would've ended up lost or dead. As she sat in the Inn,she reminisced about the events from the past two weeks. so much had happened in that short period of time that her mind and body got whiplash from the change in her already mundane life. Two weeks ago Anastasia had presented a few months after turning 18. It was the start of spring when she felt her first heat. Thankfully, it had only lasted a day, but that was enough to tell everyone that she was mature. Her father, who had lived in a different part of the massive mansion they lived in called for her for the first time in months. He never even bothered to acknowledge her existence after her mother had died the previous fall because according to him she looked like her, finally having no reason to give her the time of day. She lived with the few maids they had in the servant quarters, avoiding her dad like the plague. The man never bothered to be in her life even when her mother was alive, he always disappearing out and dragging her mum with him. The only person she ever interacted with was her brother but he was far away somewhere probably with his mate that he had been searching for. Oh, how she wanted a mate. It was her brother who gave her tales of true mates and love, so she had spent her whole childhood dreaming of such a life when her parents were contradictions. Her mother told her on her deathbed that the one thing she regretted was not fighting more to spend time with her. Her father favored his eldest son, the alpha, the breadwinner over everyone else. So when he left on his own accord, promising to come back for Anastasia one day, she was left alone to fend for herself in the house. She had learnt to make herself invisible. Her brother always took her to the market and let her accompany him on errands so that she could escape the house. One of her age mates and alpha friends, Evan, had been asked to look out for her when her brother left. Evan did the bare minimum, but was always nice and allowed her to join his little family for dinner , and she was often babysitting their 2-year-old pup when they were busy. It was nice, but not the best. Being an omega left her ostracized from others of her age but she never cared,she had her brother and his mates. Her father had been gleeful when he had entered the room, Anastasia had been anxious about how happy he looked . Rightfully so. The older man had talked about how he had already sent out offers to sell Anastasia off as a mate, first heats were particularly coveted. Anastasia had run out of the house crying, knowing that soon an alpha of her father's choosing would cart her off to enslave her to the bedroom, her only use was for pleasure. Not even a week later she had met Rahphel , a horrific alpha in his late 30s whose mate had just recently died and was looking for some fun. The way the alpha had leered at her and commented on the numerous ways he would play with Anastasia in front of her dad had made her skin crawl. It was worse when she found out that he had an alpha son older than her. His son had been particularly nasty his whole life, always taunting the omega and trying to corner her. Her brother had gotten into a few scraps with him until he lay off but his harassment rose when she was now alone. Evan couldn't do much so she just avoided going out. It disgusted her that not only was she getting sold off like cattle to a man twice her age, but having to live in the same household as that villain. She was really sensitive and craved affection. There was no way she would be able to survive in that household. Raphael was especially cruel to his mates, having gone through two already. He would bite the omegas, letting their bond be one-sided so that they suffered through the neglect and adultery whilst the alpha was unaffected. In the end, their bond would leave them hopeless , so no matter what he put them through they would always come back running. It was vile and Anastasia was never going to submit to such a man. That night, her omega told her to run up north because the north would help her find her true mates . When she had presented she had heard the whispers at the end of his bond, silent but strong, like it had been there for years. Not every wolf had true mates, but Anastasia certainly did. It was something that she had spent hours fantasizing about during her younger years, especially after her brother had left four years ago in search of his own mate. For people who had true mates, they would hear a whisper as some sort of clue. She hadn't understood it at all. Would she have to wait a long time for her mate? She didn't know what to think but one thing was for sure, her omega was telling her to escape so she did just that. She spent the following night and day packing supplies, stealing food from the kitchen and preparing one of the horses for her journey. With Her father gone for the next few days for a celebratory hunt with Raphael , she used the opportunity to her advantage and robbed her father of as much money as she could, just like her father robbed her of her freedom. She put as many clothes as she could into one bag, tied her hair up, and left the following night, using the darkness as a veil. After more than a week of traveling, she landed in the largest pack territory in the country, the Sinclair pack . Thankfully there was no hostility when she arrived, as the massive pack was used to seeing travelers due to their central location. It appeared that finding an Inn to stay in would be difficult ,because many people had gathered here this time of the year for something Anastasia discovered to be a competition . The competition to find the Sinclair Twin's mates. The Sinclear twins led the most powerful pack in Valeria . They were known to have the most stable pack as well as with everyone dreaming of being mated to a sinclear. Asking around, people had told her about how the twins had waited years for their mates, who would only be visible to them in their wolf form. As a result, one must shift privately in front of the twins for them to determine whether or not you are their mate. From the looks of it, they craved to have their mate a lot. Anastasia found that odd that they will know by their wolf form. The thing with Anastasia 's wolf was that it was completely white, a stark contrast to the usual blacks, browns and occasional grays . She looked completely unique and had only shifted a couple of times to avoid being caught. To say that shifting was going to be painful was an understatement. It freaked her out to do something like that in front of two powerful people when only his mother and brother had ever seen her shift. They told her to hide her true form or she would be in danger, she never really understood why but looking at how awful her life already was, she didn't wish to make it worse. However, she followed her wolf's advice , and after convincing herself in the Inn that night and shifting a few times to get used to it, she decided .