Chapter 1 I

HANNAH

"Look at her, the crazy daughter of a traitor."

"I hope she dies and-"

"And then we wouldn't have to see her face around here anymore."

"Why is she even here?"

I held the books closer to my chest. My steps faltered as I looked up and saw a whole lot of other students whispering and pointing at me.

The hallway seemed endless as I stood there, books in my sweaty hands and dread in my heart.

"Traitor!" someone yelled from behind me.

I forced myself to keep moving. I raised the books in a pathetic attempt to hide my face but soon gave it up when I found I couldn't see an inch in front of me. How they would laugh if I fell flat on my face.

It hurt, it really hurt, to be accused of something I didn't do, or to put it more accurately, something my father didn't do.

My father had been accused of trying to kill the Alpha and had been banished from the pack. He was innocent. I knew he was. I was sure he was banished because he had witnessed something terrible that the Alpha had done, something he didn't want to be exposed.

Like it was yesterday, I could see my father's tortured expression as he gripped my hands and said, "I didn't do it, Hannah. I swear I didn't. I know something, and he wants to get rid of me."

What that something was, I never knew because the Alpha's guards had arrived at that moment to take him away.

No one else had believed the story of my father's innocence.

I had never liked school. Never had I fit in with the other kids. I was not from a wealthy family. I was weak, weaker than the average werewolf because I couldn't shift and was not supposed to ever really amount to anything. Because of all these, I had been ignored.

Now, I was the centre of attention. The wrong sort of attention.

Every single minute of every day, I wished I had been allowed to leave the pack with my father, but even I realized the difficulties we would have faced.

Without a home, we would have had to live a life of rogues; never settled, always on the move. Also, the school I attended was the only werewolf school in the entire territory. I knew my father well enough to know he would never have wanted that sort of life for me.

I sighed and walked faster, hoping to get to class before the taunts worsened. Within the four walls of a classroom, I would be safe.

"Hey! Stop right there, wary face!"

The booming voice came from directly in front of me. I groaned before I raised my head. It was Arlene; big, pudgy Arlene who liked to pick on people.

What was worse? She was standing right in my path. I stepped to the side in order to escape, but she moved with me.

"Don't run away, Hannah," she said, her massive arms swinging by her sides.

"Let me pass," I mumbled.

"Let me pass," she mocked in a shrill, falsetto voice.

Raucous laughter greeted this. The other students were closer now. Like vultures, they had all gathered to see Hannah get it.

"I heard it's your birthday today," Arlene said, grinning widely. My heart sank. That was not good. Arlene only smiled when someone was in pain or when she was about to inflict pain. My muscles all tensed up. "Wanna see how we celebrate the child of a filthy traitor?"

Just as I opened my mouth to speak, Arlene nodded to someone behind me. The next instant, I was deluged with a bucketful of water. The brownish, stinking water dripped from my hair down to my feet. I stood frozen, mouth agape, shivering with cold and with the horror of what had just happened. But the horrors weren't over yet.

"You stink!" someone yelled and cackled madly.

A bubble gum wrapper hit me in the face. And then the pelting began. They threw everything they could lay their hands on at me.

"Traitor bitch!"

"Ugly as sin."

"Dirty-looking thing."

I held my hands stiffly by my side, my lips trembling with unshed tears as I looked around at them. Their mouths, their eyes, and their faces all ran together, merged together until it seemed like they were morphing into something evil. These people with their perfectly styled hair and their nice clothes were worse, much worse, than all the monsters of my imagination.

Something, a damp handkerchief with something hard hidden in it's folds, hit me square on the mouth. I tasted blood on my tongue.

I will not cry. I will not cry, I chanted.

But with every passing second, I felt the tears come perilously close to the surface.

"Show her! Show her how it feels to be the daughter of a traitor!" Arlene yelled with glee.

As one, the students closed in on me. I was shoved forward. With a scream of hurt, anger, and frustration, I fought my way through the crowd. I ran blindly down the hall, through a corridor, and burst through the back door of the cafeteria. That spot was blessedly empty. I managed to shut the door firmly behind me before my legs gave out. I slumped on the floor in tears, wishing for the thousandth time that I hadn't been in school.

I was suddenly distracted by a moan and a loud kissing noise somewhere to my right. I felt my cheeks go bright red before I sat up and looked around for the source of the sound. A few paces away from me, Asher, the Alpha's son, was kissing Julia, his girlfriend, the Beta's daughter.

I wanted to move away before they couldn't notice me. But I couldn't move.

My body was frozen, and my gaze was fixed on Asher. I could hear my heart beating, and then my wolf, Mace, screamed, "MATE".

No. No. No. I screamed in my head. 'How can Asher be our mate?' I asked my wolf, but she remained silent.

I thrust my fist into my mouth to keep from making a sound. My vision blurred with unshed tears, and my wolf crept back in sadness.

I was not ready to have a mate, and even if I were to have one, how could it be the Alpha's son? How could the moon goddess play such a cruel trick on me?

As I struggled to get to my feet, Asher opened his eyes and turned to look directly at me. He slowly took his lips off Julia's, who murmured a protest.

"You!" he barked. "Get up and come here."

There was nothing more I wanted to do than to hightail it out of there, but my wolf and every cell of my body compelled me to obey him.

Julia turned her light blue eyes on me. Her lips immediately curled in disgust.

"Was she spying on us?" she asked, addressing Asher. Her eyes widened, and her hands flew up to cover her nose. "What's that awful smell? It's from her, isn't it? Why does she stink so bad?"

"The stink is from her," he said in an undertone. He gave me a once-over. He looked repulsed at the sight of me. Ashamed, I took a step back.

"You are the daughter of that traitor, right? The one who tried to kill my father?" he glared at me. I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn't know what to say. "ANSWER ME!"

I flinched and nodded, the tears spilling from my eyes. Asher swore under his breath and grabbed me by the chin.

"Listen to me," he growled. "If you breathe a word to anyone about me, I'll fucking kill you. You understand?"

His grip tightened, and I was forced to nod.

"Asher," Julia said peevishly. "What do you mean? Why are you even bothered about her?"

He shoved me so suddenly that I fell to the ground and landed on my bottom.

"She's my mate," he ground out.

"What?" Julia shrieked, her eyes going wider. "She can't be your mate. You have to reject her."

Asher drew Julia to his side. "Relax, sweetheart." A smile curved Asher's lips as he watched me whimpering and sobbing on the floor. "What's the point of rejecting her when we can punish the bitch to our heart's content?"

Even though Julia didn't seem completely pleased, she nodded and led Asher out. Sobbing, I crawled to my backpack and left through the way I came.

***************************************

I endured the rest of the day by lurking in restrooms and rarely used corridors until it was time to go home. Despite my measures, people still shot me disgusted looks as I passed them.

When I got home, I snuck into the house and was almost at the door of my room when my mum's voice rang out.

"Hannah!" I turned to see her staring at me in shock. " What happened to you? Did you fall into a puddle or something?"

I forced a smile. "I'm fine, mum," I said. "I just... got wet. It's nothing. I have to get started on my homework..."

I shut my door behind me, cutting off what she was about to say. Slowly, I took off my clothes. One look in the mirror sent tears rolling down my cheeks again.

There were marks on my body from all the times I had fallen and been hit. My skin was filthy. With a towel, I rubbed myself down as I lay on the floor. My insides felt like they had been hollowed out. I had never felt so miserable in my life. I wished with all my heart that something would happen that would take me out of the pack forever. I didn't know how long I lay there, thinking. Eventually, I pushed to my feet, about to take my bath.

And then it hit me. The worst, most excruciating pain I had ever felt. It came from inside me, from deep within me. The force of the pain knocked me off my feet and to the ground.

In my head, my wolf howled in agony. I knew, as she knew, that Asher was sleeping with someone else. "He is punishing us." She cried. He was punishing me instead of rejecting me.

I clutched at my chest, where it felt like invisible talons were ripping through. A scream escaped my throat. Then another as I fought to stop the pain from ripping me apart.

My mother burst into the room seconds later, screaming my name.

"Hannah," she shouted. "What's wrong? Hannah!"

I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to block out the pain.

"He's hurting me," I cried. "Mum, he's hurting me!"