Chapter 1 A life of Lies

“Run daughter, run”, mom drags me to the basement and opens a hidden door in the floor, “princess, I think they suspect who you are”, saying that she pulls off her necklace and puts it around my neck, “promise me that you will never take it off”

“Promise mommy”, I’m scared

“Daughter listen to mommy, we don’t have time, this necklace will protect you, but it will also prevent you from turning into her wolf, it will hide your scent, but as a result you won’t smell your predestined, so that’s it very important daughter, only take the necklace off when the betrothed of the moon and your protector comes for you, only take it off when you are sure you are safe and that you are protected by people who love you”, something breaks upstairs, mother hugs me , and whispers “stay here”.

Eduarda wakes up scared with sweat running all over her body and takes her hand to her mother’s locket. For the last month she has had this dream almost every day.

If she sits sore, from the beating she took the day before, she had accidentally spilled juice on her cousin’s shirt.

After her parents died, in na attack by rogue wolves, she and her brother were raised by her uncle Pedro, her father’s brother, as her mother had no family, she was alone in the world until she met her father.

Her uncle was a good man, who always treated her well, but never stayed at home, because he worked for the real ones, that’s what we called the strongest beings in our world, unlike most of us when they transformed, they didn’t assume a wolf form, they took the form of lycans, which are huge creatures, with wolf form mixed with human form, and are so powerful that one alone can wipe out na entire pack of normal wolves. They say that the most powerful of all is just a year older than me, and that he, unlike the others, can transform both into a Lycan and into a gigantic black wolf, and they also say that he is cruel, that so much power has left him half out of control and that he doesn’t give anyone a second chance, everyone knows the story of the wolf who somehow managed to pretend to be his mate, but in the act of consummating the bond, the prince’s Lycan form, destroyed her without mercy. Her uncle is part of the kingdom’s guard, and spends most of his time traveling to oversee packs around the world.

Her brother who was only a year older than her, also loved and protected her, Eduarda had been relatively happy while her brother lived with her, but the year before, he was chosen to go to the kingdom’s academy, and although he called her every weekend, Eduarda will decide to hide from her brother and uncle the hell that transformed her life, as soon as her brother left.

The real academy, is a kind of school and college, where you learn all the normal subjects, including a profession that may or may not be linked to the werewolf world, but also there you receive the cruelest of physical and mental training, young people that form there, are the most powerful, and are assigned to positions of trust in the kingdom or as Alpha and Lunas of other packs.

On the first day of every year, young people aged 13 to 18 who wanted to go to the academy put their name for the draw, every year four young people from each side were chosen.

Last year Joshua, Eduarda’s brother, was one of the chosen ones, she was terrified when she heard his brother’s name, because the academy is a kind of hunger games, and it is common for weaker wolves to die in the training process.

Although Eduarda had always known that her brother was special, after all he had alpha blood and a very rare characteristic for wolves, he turned into a huge black wolf with blue eyes, the normal thing is for them to be black or red, and had a white spot around of the right eye and its tail was all white if the eyes were already rare, having white fur even if little was extremely rare.

“Don’t be like that Dudley, I’m going to become the strongest there”, he said when he notices the fear on his sister’s face, “and one day I’ll come and pick you up to go live with me wherever I’m assigned, wait and see little sister, Daddy will be proud of me”.

But now Eduarda knew that it would be impossible for her brother to fulfill the promise, as he had suffered a soul connection with the monster prince as he was known.

To become a Beta or Gamma of na Alpha, it wasn’t just being friends as many think, they also suffer a soul connection, not as strong as that of companions, but it exists.

So her brother would become the actual Beta when the Prince took the throne.

Eduarda was happy for her brother, but she knew it was impossible for them to be together.

According to her vision, she was nothing special, she was weak like a human. She would sense her wolf’s presence once when she was eight years old, which is when the alpha-blooded of our species first shift, but she didn’t shift, just sensed that she was lying there asleep.

And that’s exactly why she became the target of mockery and cruel jokes, which got worse when her uncle married Susan, and she and her daughter Betany, a girl the same age as Eduarda, came to live with them.

Uncle thought he was doing the right thing for Eduarda, so she wouldn’t be alone, since he had lost his partner in the same attack that her parents died.

But Susan and Betany treated Eduarda very badly, said that she was horrible, that she stank, that she was weak. Then when they realized that Eduarda won’t complain to anyone, they started hitting her, and acting like a maid.

The uncle at first thought that Eduarda was sick, but now he was convinced by Susan that she was depressed because of her brother.

Eduarda now only wore baggy and ugly clothes, and sometimes she rubbed herself so hard in the bath that her skin bled, because her psychological state was so destroyed that she really believed that she stinked and was horrible.

Knock, knock, someone knocks on the door and Eduarda is terrified, because she knows that being late to make breakfast will have consequences, and since she can’t access her wolf’s powers every time they hurt her, it takes days to heal.

“I’m already up, breakfast will be ready soon”, she says and runs to get dressed.