I was eight when it dawned on me that being an onyx wolf wasn't a blessing like Mum had repeatedly pounded into my head.
Seeing my Aunty, in a white cloak, kneeling before an Alpha staring down at her as she raised a white bowl to her lips told me it was a curse—a very deadly curse.
I caught the little drama as I played in a spiral near the courthouse, hoping to be the first to meet Pa when he came out. Standing before two soldier wolves, whom I bet couldn't see me—for, by God, I was a small child.
"Lar," I whispered to my best friend by circumstances as we stole bread from the kitchen later, "Ingrid is dead. An Alpha killed her."
Lar froze beside me, turning to look at my face with his mouth choked with stolen bread, blue eyes widened as he scrutinized me. Seeing that I was serious, he swallowed and rasped, "How do you know it's an Alpha? You don't know any Alphas."
"I know you," I mumbled, resuming throwing dinner bread in my bag.
But he shook his head. "This is why people think you're crazy."
Yeah, people thought that. But was I? They thought that because of my constant nightmares and hallucinations, but I knew this was real—the thud when she fell at the feet of the Alpha, the stream of blood escaping her parted lips and trailing down her cheek, her pale long hair that I always envied making even the rug jealous, and finally, those dead brown eyes holding me captive, dropping a tear.
Monsters were what I hallucinated about, not my favorite Aunty in the whole wide world dying. And what about the guards raising the alarm after they found me? Was that also a dream?
"Ma, where's Ingrid?" I asked two days later, looking up at my mother's face as she haggled the price for an ivory silk I bet would match her caramel tone astoundingly. "I went to her room and she's not there."
Ma turned to me sharply, red-rimmed eyes widened just like Lar's had, except without the red rims. Had she been crying?
But she straightened up immediately, ran her fingers along my wavy dark hair, forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and said, "I forgot to tell you, Imani, but your aunty left." She cupped both my cheeks, raising my face to hers. "Don't tell anyone, okay?"
I stayed silent, unable to pull my gaze off her terror-filled face. But her hold on me firmed as she repeated, this time more pronounced, "Alright?"
So I nodded, and like she made me promise, I never breathed a word to anyone, not even Lar, and not Father, who spent the next week throwing casual warnings about waiting for him anywhere except the courthouse.
After that day, everything changed; Firstly, it was Ma making sure my closeness with Pa was restricted, then locking me in my room whenever she was leaving for the market.
However, I wasn't one to take instructions even if it was laced with cinnamon. Eventually, I was sitting in the Arena, waiting for Pa, watching the men wield their swords and spears, catching the reflection of the sun in their sweaty glory.
Even as a gamma, whom his trainees believed had no heart, Pa had a soft spot for me, so he let me stay, even sneaking me extra lessons on archery.
But the memory of that day never left me, turning into nightmares, and as years went by, I found myself constantly gazing over the soldier's barricade around the courthouse each time I passed it.
Nightmares continued—Ingrid's lifeless eyes, the Alpha's shadow looming over her. But sometimes, it was different. Sometimes the Alpha turned to me, and I'd jolt awake, chest heaving and my gown sticking to my body.
Alphas, the word continued to slam against my skull.
I still didn't tell anyone when Mum pressed incense sticks into my palms on the day I clocked fourteen, the age everyone else got their wolves. "To hide your scent," she murmured in my dim room, the shadow clouding her so I couldn't see her face.
But—Onyx wolves didn't have scents.
"You have to put it on at least twice in two months. Promise me?" She pressed.
Promises had begun to sound like a death shields and the courthouse a place where I could go in and never come out. The Pack's treatment of me had changed and it was beginning to seem like Ma was insistent on hiding me from their gazes.
"Don't you know she's an Onyx?" I would catch snippets of their conversation as I passed them. When that happened, I looked up at Ma. There was no way she didn't hear that, but she'd squeeze my palm and continue to stare ahead.
I was an outcast to everyone, well, everyone except Lar, and that was everyone I needed. Eight years later we still snuck into kitchens to rile the cooks, but they either overlooked him and sent me a sneer or ignored both of us.
"I hate Alphas," I whispered out of the blue one afternoon, watching the future king of our Pack sprint. "I think they want me dead."
Lar stopped in his tracks, turned to me, and his exhausted sixteen-year-old face softened. He wiped his neck with his shirt and sat down beside me, knowing it would get him punished.
"I'm an Alpha," he said breathlessly as he covered my hand in his, "I promise to protect you, Imani. I'll never let anyone get to you."
Well, that didn't change my mind about Alphas, but it certainly did change the way I fixed my sentence. It was all Alphas except Lar. In my world, he was my angel—my sunshine Odin had thrown at me after noticing he had ruined my life.
But duty called, Lar answered, and up to the school of the gifted, he went, leaving me all by myself.
The day Lar left, I stood at the edge of the forest, watching him ride away with the other initiates.
He had glanced back, just once, his eyes meeting mine with a silent promise that I clung to desperately. "... I'll never let anyone get to you."