The Lycan Offering

Jessamine's P.O.V.

I pushed through the sneering crowd of onlookers blocking the doorway. Their harsh laughter and mocking whispers battered my ears, but I barely registered the sound. Hot tears scalded my cheeks. My boots pounded against the polished floorboards as I raced down the long hallway, desperate to put as much physical distance as possible between myself and that filthy bedroom. Just moments ago, I watched the man I loved stand thick and hard for another woman. Right now, Max was fucking my sister. The mental image of her manicured fingers wrapping around his bare cock burned behind my eyelids, making my stomach churn with fierce nausea. Four years of shared laughter, quiet promises whispered in the dark, and sworn vows of protection had evaporated in a single heartbeat. All because Sloane was a powerful wolf shifter with a fated bond, and I was an unshifted, ordinary human runt.

My vision blurred so heavily with salty tears that the walls seemed to bend around me. As I stumbled down the main staircase, my chest heaved with ragged, panicked breaths. I reached the bottom landing, my hand outstretched to grab the carved wooden banister for balance.

Before my fingers could brush the wood, a brutal shove slammed directly between my shoulder blades.

My boots slipped right off the edge of the stair. I pitched forward into empty air, screaming as I tumbled headfirst onto the hardwood landing below. My hands instinctively shot out to brace for the harsh impact, but my right wrist folded awkwardly beneath my falling body weight. A sharp, sickening crunch echoed out loud, slicing through the noise of the pack house. The sound of my own bone snapping made my stomach heave.

Blinding agony exploded through my fractured arm, hot and merciless. The pain radiated from the shattered bone straight up to my shoulder joint, causing a ragged, pathetic scream to tear from my raw throat. Dark brown hair spilled over my face, tangling in my eyelashes and sticking to my wet, flushed cheeks. I writhed on the cold floor, clutching my throbbing arm tight against my ribs, praying the black dots in my vision would swallow me whole.

Kendra stepped directly over my writhing body. The potent, feral scent of her wolf masked whatever cheap perfume she wore. A cruel, deeply satisfied sneer contorted her features as she looked down at my broken form. Before I could drag myself backward to safety, she lifted her leg and brought the heavy, reinforced heel of her leather boot down. She ground it directly into my spine.

The force of the strike blasted every ounce of air from my lungs. The solid hardwood pressed unforgivingly against my chest, and my crushed wrist screamed in fresh torment as her heel twisted into the vulnerable vertebrae of my back. I gasped like a suffocating fish on dry land, my mouth opening and closing as I desperately tried to draw a single molecule of oxygen into my chest.

"Look at Messy Jessie." Kendra hissed the venomous words, making sure the dozens of pack members gathering behind her on the stairs could hear the mockery. "Always being in places she doesn't belong. I am sick of you bothering us. If you are not a wolf, you have no place in this pack. We don't want weak humans stinking up our halls. It's time for you to get lost for good, runt."

She dug her heel deeper, testing just how much pressure it would take to snap my spine in half. I scraped my human hand against the floorboards, my fingernails chipping as I tried to find leverage. The weight of a shifted werewolf was impossible for a human to beat.

"That is quite enough!"

Alpha Garrett’s thundering voice boomed across the foyer, vibrating the massive glass panes of the front windows.

The crushing weight instantly lifted from my back. Kendra backed away fast, muttering a quick, subservient apology to her Alpha. I took a deep, shuddering breath, coughing uncontrollably as cold air rushed back into my empty lungs. I did not need a wolf spirit to feel the heavy, oppressive command in Garrett’s tone. My human skin crawled with the sheer Alpha aura radiating from his massive frame.

He did not step in out of mercy. Alpha Garrett despised my human existence and made it known at every opportunity. He viewed me as nothing more than an embarrassing, pathetic distraction to his son. To him, my weakness was a dark stain on the pack's fierce reputation. He merely wanted a swift end to the disruption.

I dragged a shaking hand across my chin, wiping the fresh, sticky blood from my split lip. Clenching my teeth against the white-hot fire burning in my broken wrist, I struggled to my knees, then finally forced myself up to my trembling feet.

Alpha Garrett looked down his nose at me. His amber eyes held nothing but cold, unadulterated disgust. He dismissed me like a diseased stray dog caught stealing scraps.

"Make your way home, Jessamine. Immediately."

I kept my head bowed, avoiding his gaze, and turned toward the massive double doors of the pack house. I just wanted to escape into the dark, to hide away in the rain. But before I could clear the doorway, his next announcement struck the entire pack like a localized lightning bolt.

"For the rest of you, listen closely. Emissary travels have been updated. The Offering has been moved up to tomorrow."

A collective gasp of raw, unfiltered panic rippled through the grand foyer. The casual cruelty aimed at me vanished in a millisecond, replaced by suffocating dread. Every wolf in the room froze perfectly still.

We knew the royal emissaries were bound to arrive soon to claim unmated females for their own ranks, but no one expected such a brutal lack of warning. The Lycans were the ancient, terrifying rulers of our entire world. Wolves, Fae, witches, and humans all bowed beneath their massive, crushing thumbs. They demanded perfection, and they executed for disobedience.

I paused just outside the open doorway under the porch overhang, cradling my swollen wrist tight against my chest. My breathing came out in shallow, shaking gasps, but I stayed in place, needing to hear the rest of the Alpha's words.

Kendra leaned in close to my ear. Her hot breath fanned against the side of my neck as she whispered a parting taunt, a wicked smirk playing on her lips.

"Don't worry, runt. Those monsters are descending only for fertile she-wolves to breed. They want power and strong bloodlines. A disgusting human like you has nothing to fear. They would not waste a second glance on your fragile body."

For once in my miserable life, Kendra's cruel insults rang true. The Lycans did not claim humans for The Offering. I was useless to them.

But Alpha Garrett dropped an even more chilling revelation into the heavy, terrified silence of the room.

"King Kaelen Vander himself is personally joining the retinue. He will be walking through those gates tomorrow morning. I expect flawless behavior from every single member of this pack, or I will kill you myself before he gets the chance."

Another wave of pure shock hit the crowd. Pack members stumbled backward, whispering terrified rumors into the shadows. The Lycan King had not ventured out of his impenetrable stone fortress in decades. When The Offering happened each year, only the unmated members of his royal guard showed up. Never the King.

He was a myth of nightmares, a ruthless, blood-soaked beast who slaughtered without warning and fed on the torment of his enemies. The stories of his unmatched brutality were passed down like dark ghost stories to scare defiant pups into submission. He killed without remorse and took whatever he wanted without consequence. The King's personal presence meant something dark and bloody was brewing.

I slipped out from the porch and hurried into the night before anyone could register my presence again. The cold, biting rain immediately soaked through my clothes, chilling me to my core. I limped down the muddy, uneven path toward my house, shivering uncontrollably as the freezing rainwater mixed with the blood on my face and the hot tears streaming from my eyes.

My right wrist throbbed with a relentless, sick pulse. Every uneven step I took jarred my broken bone, sending fresh spikes of agony directly into my brain. But the physical pain paled in comparison to the gaping, bleeding void in my chest. Max had flaunted his erection for another woman right in front of my face. I had given him every part of my soul. I trusted his endless promises of safety, and he spat on me the moment a stronger, shifted mate spread her legs on my mattress.

I realized with cold, sharp clarity that no man was ever going to save me from this misery. I had begged the Moon Goddess for a strong mate to protect me. I thought becoming the Luna of this pack by his side would finally shield me from the daily beatings and the relentless torment.

I was dead wrong.

Yet, the impending arrival of the vicious Lycan King sparked a desperate, crazy idea in my mind. The whole pack was scrambling. Tomorrow, they would be utterly consumed with sheer terror and chaotic preparations. Every single guard, every warrior, and every high-ranking pack member would have their eyes glued to the incoming royal retinue, praying they would not be executed just for making eye contact with Kaelen Vander.

No one would ever notice a weak, unshifted human slipping past the southern borders.

It was a suicide mission. The wild forests beyond the territory line were treacherous, but returning to the pack house meant enduring a lifetime of watching Max and Sloane rule over me. I decided right then, standing under the pouring rain, that I would risk my life to escape into the human world. It was my only window. I did not care if the devil himself was walking through the front gates tomorrow.

I dragged my feet up the paved walkway of my parents' property. I paused directly outside the massive oak front door, trembling in the downpour. I looked up at the warm, golden light spilling from the second-floor windows. It should have been a comforting sight, a beacon of home, but it only filled my gut with cold dread.

My parents came from a proud, ancient Beta lineage. They demanded excellence. They demanded strong wolves who brought honor to the family name. My failure to shift at the age of eighteen was a humiliating, unforgivable disgrace to their established status. When I started dating the future Alpha, their deep shame was temporarily masked by the prospect of raw pack power. But now? Now the Alpha had rejected me for a true wolf, for my own sister.

There would be no mercy waiting for me inside those dry walls. They would look at my broken wrist and split lip and sigh with sheer disgust. They kept me around on the faint, pathetic hope I was a late bloomer, but dragging Max’s rejection to their doorstep would be the final straw.

I was just 'Messy Jessie'. That was what my parents called me when I was a clumsy human child, spilling food in my hair and tripping over my own feet. The pack took that innocent nickname as I got older and turned it into a jagged weapon. Sloane and Kendra loved to spit it at me in mocking tones. Messy Jessie, the foolish, pathetic girl who actually thought finding true love could protect her. I believed a man's heart could overcome a biological fated bond. I dreamed of a safe place to live and raise my own family.

The heavy rain plastered my cold hair to my skull. I stared at the brass doorknob, feeling nothing but profound emptiness.

Love was a lie. It was a sick joke played on the weak. My own sister betrayed me without a second thought, my lover discarded me for power, and my parents resented my breathing existence.

I had nothing left to lose. Tomorrow, while the Lycan King distracted them all, I would vanish from this hell forever.