Chapter 2

Delusion

The cold wind blew my hair as I sat on the balcony, strands sticking to my teary face. Jaxon and Risa's giggles kept replaying in my head. Her smirk mocked my vulnerability. My heart burned.

For all the years Jaxon and I had been together, he had never been that passionate with me, but here he was, lost in Risa.

"How could he do this to me?" I sobbed.

I squeezed myself into a ball, my chin pressed against my knees so hard my jaw ached.

The wind wasn't just cold, it tore through my silk dress like it wanted to rip it off my skin. The trees swayed loudly, their whispers sounding like mocking laughter. Every bit of cold that seeped into my body felt like a reminder that I had a mate who was supposed to hold me in a moment like this, yet he was inside keeping another woman warm.

Ember was raging inside me. "In our nest! In our roses! Tear her away from him! Rip her throat! She is our blood and she dares!" she howled. Her claws scratched at my chest, begging to shift, to fight. But my body wouldn't move.

How did it come to this?

My mind flashed back to where it all started. I was eighteen, like every other teenage girl who admired the future Alpha of Obsidian Moon Pack. But for me, it started even earlier.

His tall physique, broad shoulders built from hunting and fighting. His short black hair always messy like he ran his hand through it every second, and those cold, stormy grey eyes that made girls squeal whenever he came to the training ground. Jaxon Bloodworth.

I had a crush on Jaxon since I was thirteen. I saw him at the training ground every weekend. He was the best among his peers, he never lost a fight.

I was a reserved person. I hated crowds. I only came when the females were training until I started hearing how handsome and dangerous the young Alpha was. My friends dragged me. Eventually, I started coming to 'fetch water' with the other females, just to see him.

On many occasions I tripped and shattered my pail, too lost watching him to watch my feet. Water everywhere, my dress wet, everyone laughing. My feelings betrayed me and the other girls noticed. They started teasing me and that only made it worse.

They nicknamed me 'Delusional Luna'. And I found out later, Risa was the one who started that name. My own cousin.

I was living happily in my delusion until that unfortunate day, a day I will never forget. We came to train as usual, and I was matched with an Omega. A task any Beta would call simple.

The Alpha in charge blew the whistle. I stepped into the ring and the fight began. The poor Omega couldn't keep up with my speed. My punches and kicks came fast, but I held back. My soft heart wouldn't let me hurt her too much. She was smaller, thinner. I could see her hands shaking.

I was winning. In less than a minute, I cornered her. The crowd was cheering my name for once. I raised my fist for the final blow, but then I saw it — her eyes. She was trembling. She was genuinely terrified of me, of my punches, of the way I moved.

In that second, I paused. My fist was in the air. I couldn't bring myself to hit a girl who was already scared.

That kindness cost me everything. My foot slipped on the wet edge of the ring where someone had spilled water earlier. I fell. Hard. My back hit the ground and all the air left my lungs.

The Omega just stood above me, fear still flashing in her eyes. She didn't even throw a punch. I had defeated myself.

It was then I learned — in this pack, kindness is seen as weakness.

"Guess who got defeated by an Omega."

 "Could never be me," another girl laughed.

Without looking at anybody — not even at Jaxon, who was standing by the fence watching — I ran out of the ring.

For two weeks I didn't go out. I locked myself in my room. I stopped going to the training ground. No one came to check on me. My mother didn't even look at me. Why would she? Ever since my little brother fell into the river that rainy season, she believed I pushed him. No matter how much I said it was an accident, that he slipped while I tried to hold him, she never believed me. To her, I was already a monster. A sister who would hurt her own blood.

So when I lost to an Omega, she just clicked her tongue and said, "You embarrass me.”

I missed seeing Jaxon's face, but I couldn't face the crowd's cruel sneers. It was Old Mara, our neighbor, who finally knocked and begged me to eat something. She was the only one who brought me food.

If I had known, I wouldn't have listened to her and gone back. The girls kept whispering and chuckling every time I passed.

The jeers turned into bullying. They called me names whenever I fetched water, pulled my hair, and sometimes broke my pail on purpose. All orchestrated by Risa and her minions.

It went on until one fateful day at the stream. One of her minions kicked my pail. It shattered. Watching my favorite blue pail, the one my father had carved for me before he died, roll down the stream broke my heart. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Are you sick?" I snapped.

"Yeah... I'm not delusional," she sneered.

I moved closer. "Repeat what you just said."

"I said I'm not delu—" I landed a slap on her face before she could finish.

A fight broke out. The crowd expected I'd get beaten, but the reverse was the case. All the anger of weeks, of years, of my mother hating me, exploded. I had the upper hand.

Seeing that, Risa and her minions jumped in — four against one. Our coach intervened.

"What's wrong with all of you? How can you gang up on one person?" he shouted.

"We didn't gang up on her. She started it," Risa defended, her eyes already filled with fake tears.

I walked out on them, picked up my broken pail, and went home. I thought that was the most embarrassing day of my life.

I was wrong.

The most embarrassing day was today.

The wind pulled me back. The cold balcony. The roses inside. The giggles that had finally stopped.

I wiped my tears and stood up. My silk dress clung to my cold skin.