The Royal Pawn

I slid the thick, glossy folder across the vast mahogany desk. The heavy paper scraped harshly against the polished wood, coming to a halt right in front of the woman sitting opposite me. Dozens of faces stared up from the open pages—jawlines cut from marble, piercing golden eyes that seemed to glow even in the dim office light, and arrogant smirks. Each one of them was an Alpha. Each one an heir to a powerful, namesake pack. Wolfstrom. Lunaris. Moonforge. Names that meant nothing to me a mere six months ago, but now represented the gilded cage being meticulously built around me.

"I don’t want to get married," I stated flatly, meeting the gaze of the woman across the desk.

Queen Cordelia of the Luna Pack. The reigning monarch of the werewolf world. And, in a twist of cruel fate, my biological mother. She shared the same straight nose I saw in the mirror every morning, the same fiery red hair, and the same dimple on her cheek that I had grown to despise. But there was no warmth in her golden honey eyes.

For eighteen long years, she left me to rot in the cold, unforgiving halls of a human orphanage. I spent my childhood wearing hand-me-down clothes that smelled permanently of bleach, eating stale food, and bouncing from one overcrowded foster home to another. I grew up thinking I was just an unwanted human girl who nobody loved. I lived ignorant of my true heritage, unaware that the blood running through my veins belonged to royalty.

When she finally appeared on the street on my eighteenth birthday, dragging me from that dismal life just as I aged out of the system, I thought my life was changing for the better. I thought she wanted me.

I was wrong.

She didn't bring me back out of sudden maternal love. She brought me back to serve as a replacement in a political marriage.

My adopted sister, Calista, was supposed to be the next Queen. Calista was the perfect she-wolf, raised in the lap of luxury, trained in the ways of their kind. But Calista had a fatal flaw. Her rampant promiscuity and reckless behavior had made her the talk of the territory, severely disgracing the crown and ruining her prospects for a prestigious mating alliance.

So, Cordelia needed a backup plan. She needed her biological bloodline to secure her political alliances and validate her lineage. She needed me.

There was just one massive problem. I was eighteen years old, and I had no wolf. Cordelia had interrogated me when I arrived. Did I feel irritable during the full moon? No. Did I have a deep longing to run through the forest? No. Did I feel an itchy, scratchy sensation deep in my bones? I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. I lacked super strength, enhanced hearing, and every other occult ability. I was exceptionally ordinary. A defect in her pristine royal lineage. To Cordelia, my wolfless state was a profound, burning humiliation, but I was still her biological pawn.

Cordelia stared at the rejected folder, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. She sounded exhausted. "Rhea," she said, her voice dropping into a tight, dangerous register. "These are all lovely men. Excellent alphas who could teach you a great deal about our world."

"No, Mother, I don't need this," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. "I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to get married."

"Do you want to end up homeless on the streets again?" Anger laced her words now, sharp and biting. "You are a princess of this nation now, and you have no idea what that means. The realities of our society are harsh and unforgiving for an unprotected female without a pack. If it weren't for your sister—"

She stopped mid-sentence, catching her slip.

I raised an eyebrow, leaning forward in my chair. "My sister?" I deadpanned, dripping with sarcasm. "If she weren't what? A whore?"

Cordelia’s hand shot up in a fast, threatening arc.

My body reacted before my mind could even process the movement. I flinched hard, throwing my arms up to shield my face, my shoulders hunching up to my ears to protect my head. It was a deeply ingrained reflex, born from years of enduring harsh discipline and abuse from caretakers in the orphanage system. Whenever an adult's hand went up, pain usually followed.

Seeing my defensive posture, Cordelia froze mid-motion. Her hand hovered in the air for a fraction of a second before she slowly lowered it back to the desk. The physical threat stopped, but her tone turned to ice, chilling me to the bone.

"Watch your tone," she demanded, her golden eyes narrowing into slits. "Calista is still your sister. And I am still your mother."

The sheer audacity of her statement made my blood boil. The repressed rage I had carried for eighteen years clawed at my throat.

"Yet you abandoned me for eighteen years!" I snapped, my voice trembling with fury. I shot up from my chair, glaring down at her. "Clearly, I'm not the one you care about. Calista is. So why don't you let her have the fucking wedding?"

I paced away from the desk, unable to contain the restless energy coursing through me. For six agonizing months since she uprooted my life, she had kept me hidden away. I was shoved into a dark, isolated corner of the grandiose castle, treated like a dirty secret. I wasn't allowed to explore the territory where I was supposedly from. I was just left alone to endure Calista's relentless mockery. Every time the pampered princess crossed my path, she made sure to remind me of my place, parading her perfect wolf form and emotionally torturing me, calling me a wolfless failure who would never step out of her shadow.

Cordelia’s imposing shoulders suddenly slumped. The rigid, regal facade cracked for a brief moment, revealing a defeated woman underneath.

"Rhea, let's make a deal," she said, her voice losing its sharp edge. "You are the heir to the Luna throne. You need a mate to survive. I'm just trying to help you."

"Help me?" I scoffed, turning back to face her. "If you really wanted to help me, you wouldn't have thrown me away! You don't want to help me. You don't even want me."

"Of course I want you," she insisted, practically begging me to understand. "I had my reasons for leaving you with the humans. I was trying to protect you. You will learn—"

"Is this why you haven't introduced me to the pack yet?" I yelled at the top of my lungs, cutting her off. "Is this why you hide me away? To protect me? If you wanted to keep me safe, you would have left me alone! You're nothing to me. You're just a stranger who stumbled into my life to selfishly use me to replace my sister for your own gain!"

Silence stretched across the large office. The air grew thick with tension. Cordelia stared at me, her chest heaving slightly. Then, the tired mother vanished, and the formidable Queen returned. She straightened her perfect posture, looking down the bridge of her nose, hardening her features into an unyielding mask.

"You are leaving tomorrow," she declared sternly, offering an unyielding ultimatum. "You will attend Alpha Academy. If you manage to survive and graduate, I promise to tell you everything you want to know about your past. After that, you will be free to leave me and this pack behind forever."

I paused, the anger simmering down into cold determination. I tipped my chin up, meeting her piercing gaze with equal ferocity. "I can leave? So, no marriage."

Cordelia let out a cold, humorless laugh. "If you can graduate on your own, then fine. But do not underestimate what you are walking into. The werewolf world is far more brutal than the human one."

"I'll take my chances," I challenged. "I'll graduate your stupid Academy, and I expect answers immediately. Otherwise, I'm gone."

Internally, I made a vow. I would survive her brutal, terrifying world. I would use every ounce of grit I had learned on the streets to extract every single answer I was owed, and then I would vanish without a trace.

Without another word, I turned on my heel and marched out the door, leaving her glaring into my back.

Exactly a week later, I found myself packed into the back of a black SUV, speeding away from the royal estate. I watched the dense green forests of the Luna Pack territory blur past the tinted windows, feeling a strange mix of anxiety and anticipation. I was being unceremoniously shipped off to my new prison, but any place had to be better than being a hidden, mocked secret in Cordelia's castle.

When the car finally rolled to a stop in front of the admissions building, a massive sigh of relief escaped my lips.

I stepped out onto the pavement and took a long look at Oakhaven Alpha Academy. My jaw dropped slightly. It looked exactly like an ordinary, sprawling human university. Older brick architecture covered in ivy, wide manicured lawns, and students walking along paved pathways. There were no fancy clothes, no heavy crowns, no grandiose thrones, no suffocating royal expectations weighing down the air. The people walking around looked just like I did. It was as if I was suddenly human again.

As far as anyone here knew, I was just a normal, everyday rich girl arriving to learn. I wasn't the wolfless defect. I wasn't the disgraced heir of the throne.

A breeze swept through the campus, and the crushing, suffocating weight of the Luna crown lifted from my chest.

I felt a surge of confidence. This was easy. I could do this. I had excelled in my high school studies back in the human world, graduating with a perfect four-point-zero GPA despite my circumstances. I possessed lifelong, battle-tested academic survival skills. Did I have friends? No. But I didn't need friends here either. I just needed to put my head down, fight my way through this curriculum, and come out with enough knowledge to knock Cordelia off her high horse. I convinced myself I could easily survive this place.

The driver unloaded my luggage onto the curb, offered a brief nod, and drove off, leaving me standing alone at the edge of the campus. I firmly grabbed the straps of my heavy bags, hoisted them onto my shoulders, and set my sights on the main admissions hall at the top of a wide stone staircase.

I marched forward, my boots clicking against the pavement. The closer I got to the building, the more my confidence grew. I was ready to take on whatever this school threw at me.

But I didn't even make it past the entrance.

Just as my foot reached the very first step of the stairs, a blur of motion caught my peripheral vision.

Before I could even turn my head, a massive, terrifying mass of solid black fur blindsided me out of nowhere. The impact was like getting hit by a freight train. My bags flew out of my hands in a flurry as I was knocked helplessly to the hard ground. My shoulder slammed into the concrete, the breath exploding from my lungs in a harsh gasp.

The crushing, suffocating weight of the beast slammed right back into me, pinning me down against the rough stone steps like a ton of bricks. Heavy paws pressed into my chest, trapping me in place.

Panic exploded in my chest, a primal terror gripping my throat as I stared up into the shadowed mass holding me captive. I opened my mouth and started to scream at the top of my lungs.

But the scream wasn't just from the sheer fear of the attack.

The moment the beast's fur made contact with my skin, an agonizing, fiery surge of raw electricity coursed through my veins. It shot through every single bone and nerve in my body, erratic and brutal, burning like boiling blood under my flesh.