Page 2 of The Alpha’s Forced Omega (Alaska Alpha Wolves #1)

Using a rag to wipe my pruney fingers, wrinkled from washing the pack’s dinner cutlery, a forlorn sigh escapes my lips.

I peep through the crack of the door that separates the scullery from the dining area, counting the heads that remain there and hoping the last handful of werewolves finish with dinner so I can eat.

I have to wait for everyone else to be done so I can get the scraps. It’s always like this, since I’m just the lowly omega. I’m not the only omega in the Snehvolk Pack, but I’m the runt of the litter, the lowest of the low.

That’s why I have to wait for everyone else to finish eating before placing a single morsel between my lips. My attention is drawn to my plump belly, which belies my restriction of meals with its shape, and my lack of appetite.

It’s because I’m different that I’m the lowly omega of the pack.

My metabolism refuses to work like the others since I was delayed in receiving my wolf, and it barely works when I need it to.

I can’t shift into wolf form at will, and that’s why I’m the pack’s omega and the punching bag for the more disdainful members of the pack.

I stick to the shadows mostly, staying out of trouble as much as possible, like a wallflower without pretty petals to make up for my slow-working metabolism that hardly digests the scraps of food I’m given.

The only advantage is being able to eavesdrop on conversations that give me the upper hand and tell me who to avoid.

Like the one I can hear now, which forces me to focus my hearing on the hushed whispers behind the door that separates the scullery from the main kitchen.

Though the Moon Goddess hadn’t taken kindly to me when I was thrown into this pack at birth, there are some advantages that I still find myself being grateful for.

“Did you hear the alphas whispering at dinner?” A female voice just outside the door sounds relieved. Peering closer, I notice a redhead, realizing it’s Amanda and her friend, Candace—two omegas in the pack who are superior to me because their mates are betas.

“Yeah…the demon dog is real. And they’re gonna offer it a sacrifice,” Candace agrees.

“Thank Goddess it isn’t one of us,” Amanda sighs in relief.

Candace scoffs. “You think our mates would ever let that happen?”

Amanda chuckles. “Of course not. At least once the sacrifice is made, we can all sleep better at night. Yesterday’s announcement was frightening.”

“I wonder if they’ll call for a meeting to announce who they’ve chosen as the demon’s offering.”

Amanda scoffs this time. “I bet they won’t. After all, Aurora is the lowest omega in the pack. Sacrificing her to the demon is no big deal.”

My heart skips a beat, and my jaw drops when I hear what she says, replaying Amanda’s words in my head until the full, daunting realization hits me.

I know I’m the outcast in the pack, but I never thought that they’d want to get rid of me this way.

Sure, I’m heavier than any werewolf should be, and I’m not much help besides washing the dishes in the scullery, since no one would trust me to go anywhere near the food preparations or even serve dinner to the pack.

I didn’t really mind it. Not when it meant I could stay out of trouble.

But now they’re going to sacrifice me?

With a huge lump forming in my throat, the measly appetite I had dissipates and turns to dread, fear thumping in my eardrums as I back away from the door. Shaking my head in disbelief, I realize the extent of my being an outcast in the pack.

I’m just a disposable pack member they’re going to sacrifice to a dreadful spirit that’s been killing lone werewolves in the forest.

I must be cursed , I think as my heart begins pounding, leading me to the back door of the pack’s cafeteria, where I can sneak out without being seen. It’s not like I’ll be missed. Unless someone comes looking for me to throw me like a bone to the demon dog.

Once I’m safely behind the closed door of my isolated cabin on the outskirts of town, my heart sinks.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the alphas would pick me to be sacrificed to the demon, but the revelation is a sting to my already dwindling ego that had been hanging by a thread ever since I was old enough to understand that I was different.

Sure, I’m weaker than all the others, but surely the alphas would want to protect everyone in the pack, including me.

You’re a nobody to them, a tiny voice chides scornfully in the back of my mind, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to drown it out. But it only makes things worse when tears pool behind my eyelids.

I’m not shocked, just disappointed that the alphas would stoop so low that they’d offer up one of their own.

I was expecting better from Alpha Elias, the leader of this pack. Out of all the alphas, he was the one I thought had a heart purer than the rest.

I shouldn’t be surprised at that, either. He’s proven me wrong before. Maybe it’s just my personal feelings getting in the way again, like they did years ago…

Opening my eyes, my fists curl at my sides with a sense of determination stronger than any flicker of hope I might have had that I’d ever be safe in a pack where I have nothing to offer.

My only hope of survival is running away. Besides, I have nothing keeping me bound to the pack. I’m the last member of the Sinclair family. Not even loyalty should keep me here.

The pack is undeserving of such loyalty when I’ve been treated like scum. Because of my size and my weaker wolf, I am nothing to them.

There’s no point in hanging on to a pack that dismissed me all my life. There’s no point in hanging on to the hope that my other skills are valuable enough to perpetuate my worth in the pack.

It’s not like any of them care that I’m only a werewolf because of my father’s bloodline. My mother was—

“Aurora,” comes a familiar voice from behind the front door, jolting me from my wallowing thoughts in which I was debating whether I should stay or leave without anyone knowing.

That voice startles me, because I haven’t heard him call my name in half a decade. Like a deer caught in the headlights of my almost-escape, my eyes widen when a firm fist bangs on the door.

I must have missed the first time he knocked, because this one sounds urgent, and I wonder if he has an army of Snehvolk wolves behind him, here to drag me into the forest toward my demise as the sacrifice for the demon.

Gulping hard, I turn around slowly, hoping that I can be careful enough not to alert the alpha that I’m inside. But when the floorboards creak under my weighted movement, I wince just as he calls my name a second time.

My bottom lip trembles with the fear coursing through my veins, my arm leaden as I reach for the door. The missing handle means my fingertips are the first thing he sees when I tentatively pull on the edge of the cracking wood. There’s no way I can hide now.

My breath hitches in my throat when I look up to find the Alpha of Snehvolk standing on the porch.

The tresses of his platinum blonde hair catch the rays of silvery moonlight shining behind him, and his usually light hazel eyes appear darker when I meet them.

My heart skips a beat when I’m ensnared by those hypnotic eyes, and for a moment, I’m whirled into a memory that I’d buried long ago.

It feels like it was only just yesterday when I was a teen on the brink of receiving my wolf—at least, that’s what I thought when I turned eighteen, and just like everyone in the pack, I expected my wolf to come on my birthday.

When it didn’t appear, and I found myself on the edge of mountains, having wandered there through heartbreak, it was Alpha Elias McGruff who’d come looking for me to take me back to Girdwood.

That was when a childhood crush turned to the deepest love I’d ever felt; I thought he actually cared about me.

I ended up spewing the declaration on the spot, and he turned around and looked at me as if I were the most ridiculous, hideous creature on Earth.

“ You love me?” he’d scoffed back then, his eyes full of wild disbelief.

“ Y-yes,” I’d murmured, my breath catching when Elias took a step forward and stared deeply into my eyes.

The only frightening part was how dark his eyes had become, staring into my soul with an empty expression.

“ I could never love you, Aurora Sinclair. I reject your love, and I reject you as my mate. I never want to hear you breathe a word of this.”

His brutal rejection back then left a gaping hole in my heart, and for the past five years, I’ve barely set foot in front of him. His rejection was too heartbreaking, and apart from burying my feelings for the alpha I thought was kind and honorable, I’d seen him for what he truly is.

Cold and heartless, just like everyone else in this pack.

I’d been foolish to think that the alpha could ever consider my love.

I was only a teenager back then, while he’d been a mature thirty-year-old who couldn’t accept the love of a naive child.

I might be older now, but he has twelve years on me, and there’s no way we could ever see eye to eye.

Now that he’s in front of me again, after spending the last five years keeping as far away from him as possible, I realize there must have been a small ounce of hope that made me believe he might have a semblance of goodness in him. Maybe I hadn’t buried it all away, but I should have.

Elias strokes the stubble on his chin as if he’s hesitant, giving me a moment to gather my composure with a deep breath. The reminder of the pain he’d caused me also serves as a reminder that I’ve done well at keeping my distance all this time, showing him that I didn’t care about his rejection.

I’m not about to give my feelings away now. As far as Elias McGruff is concerned, I felt nothing when he rejected me.

“Can we talk?” he asks as he rubs a flattened palm on his nape, staring at me through the layers of blonde hair that brush his lashes.

His soft demeanor feels like a ruse, and my eyes flit over his shoulder to make sure he’s alone. If this isn’t an ambush to force me into the woods, then the alpha is here to talk me into willingly sacrificing myself.

Not happening!

Why would anyone in the pack willingly sacrifice themselves? Even if I’m the outcast and treated like scum by almost everyone I’m forced to encounter, my life is still valuable to me.

Does he think he can sweet-talk me into sacrificing myself? Charm his way into laying my head on the chopping block to spare the lives of the Snehvolk werewolves who couldn’t care less about me?

I stifle the urge to scoff, acting aloof as I fold my arms and lift my chin. He probably doesn’t know that the word got out I’m the pack’s chosen sacrifice for the demon, so I pretend to be unaware.

“What do you wanna talk about, Alpha Elias?” I ask flatly, to which he glances over his shoulder.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak inside. This is a private matter, and I think you should be sitting down for this one.”

Frowning at his soft, consoling tone, a stark contrast to the cruel tone he’d used to reject me five years ago, I school my expression to maintain the ruse that I have no idea what he’s getting at.

He is the alpha and leader of the pack, after all. I can’t defy him, so with a terse nod, I step aside and allow him to come into the cabin.

His broad form fills the doorway to the brim, his towering height obvious as he steps over the threshold. Mentally noting that it’s the alpha’s first time in my isolated cabin far away from the rest of the pack members, I try not to dwell on that fact too much.

It’s not like it makes any difference since he’s here to give me the type of news that requires me to be seated.

He has no idea that I already know what the pack is planning, and for a split second, even I forget when my airways are arrested by the most heady, masculine scent I thought I’d forgotten.

How could I possibly forget the crisp scent of lemons mixed with the sweetness of vanilla against the backdrop of domineering earthy notes? When he passes me on his way inside, a gentle wisp of air blows by, prompting me to close my eyes and relish in the scent that is so distinctly Elias.

I open my eyes again to witness him walking in, appearing too large for my cottage with his broad shoulders and bulging arms, where the muscles flex and protrude when he lifts a hand and runs his fingers through the sweep of platinum blonde hair that brushes his collar.

Momentarily dazed, hypnotized by the scent occupying the expanse of the cabin, I wonder what it would feel like to run my fingers through…

No!

I chastise myself mentally, catching my thoughts before I can make a complete fool of myself the way I did five years ago. I’m not the same she-wolf I was back then, even if I’m still the Snehvolk Pack’s worthless, lowly omega.

As I take a deep breath and push aside the feelings I buried years ago, Elias turns around and stares at me thoughtfully, reminding me that he’s only here to charm me into being the pack’s sacrifice.

I know that’s not the purpose of my life, and even if I’ve been treated as an outcast within the pack, it’s no reason for me to willingly forsake my life to protect them.

It’s not like they’d listen to me, anyway.

My grandmother tried, but they thought she was crazy when she prophesied the emergence of the demon dog and told stories about the heritage of our pack’s bloodline with strong magical powers.

I had to keep the secret that I’m a witch from the pack, who might have cast us out if they knew.

“Aurora, you—”

The pang of dread that grips my chest is what prompts me to interrupt him.

“Excuse me, Alpha Elias,” I murmur. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Alpha Elias accepts the lie with a terse nod, and I scurry off to the dim passage, where I quickly slip into my bedroom. My nerves are on fire as I grab a bag and shove a few personal items inside.

It’s all I need to make my escape. I’ll have to rely on my instincts and the powers of my witch heritage to get me out of Girdwood, even if I haven’t been able to develop my skills.

Grandmother’s last words to me before she died were to keep my witch powers hidden and stay in the Snehvolk Pack without causing chaos.

No one ever believed her and thought her claims were despicable.

Now that the prophesied demon is here, they want to sacrifice me?

I won’t let that happen. With one final glance at my bedroom, I slip the straps of the bag over my shoulder and strengthen my resolve with a deep breath before escaping through the window.

The ominous forest might be frightening, but it’s not as scary as sacrificing my life for the greater good of the Snehvolk Pack.

Even if I loved Elias McGruff once, I despise him now. Perhaps even more than I did before.