In the night sky, the pale crescent moon shone on a group, looking as if it were a wolf's silvery claw. The group had come a far way from their Imperial Crescent Moon Pack. It was led by a man, slightly rotund in size but with an aura as grand as the legendary Collox tree of their kingdom.
Clip clop. The sound of hooves fills the silence. It remained that way until a whine broke the tranquility of the moment.
"Can I have the main reason why we are doing this?" Remy whined unabashedly. "They're such a small pack, what use would they be to us? I didn't know they even existed until now! " She looked at her king and attempted to pry out an answer from him.
He looked at her. His sharp eyes and slightly graying hair gave him a dignified look. His aura commanded unwavering respect and loyalty. He gave a look towards his young omega soldier—who had been disguised as a weak omega villager before they had left the castle—then continued to look straight ahead.
"They may seem insignificant to you, but they may end up becoming the trump card in helping us defeat the impending war against the Grimes Clan." The King said seriously.
Reina suddenly piped up from behind the king.
"What? Based on our last interaction with the Grimes Clan, I thought we had left on good terms with them. Surely they wouldn't decide to break the treaty between us and risk starting a war?" Reina asked her father worriedly.
"In a perfect world, that would be the correct answer, but recently we found that the hunters had been slowly surrounding the kingdom by means of expansion. Sooner or later, they will want our land, and the only way to get it is to get rid of our pack first. " He said gravely, "Ever since the accession of the newest leader, the behavior of the clan towards us has changed significantly. After gathering as much information as we could, we found the new leader to be a well-known public figure known to have slayed over a hundred wolves. " His tone was gravelly, and his face was grim.
"If that is the case, how would the Lucian pack help us out?" An alpha soldier named Robert asked.
"They are precisely what we need in the case of a war breaking out. Firstly, they are located in an area that can only be found by using your wolf form. This is why, even after all these decades, their village is still thriving." He said before continuing. "As there is an abundance of food and water for everyone to survive on, the council and I have decided to send our wounded soldiers there in case a war does break out. I've written a letter to their chief about our situation and, out of the kindness of his heart, he's agreed to help us. We are coming here today to scout the premises under the guise that our pack's mateless members will look for mates in the village."
At that, an outcry sounded. The king raised his right hand to signal to the group to silence themselves. He stopped his horse by pulling on the reins and turned the horse around to face the fourteen teenagers in his group. Many of them had expressions of betrayal and fear. He couldn't help but begin to chuckle.
"I don't think this situation is funny at all, father," Reina said through gritted teeth. Her cheeks were splotchy red.
"Sir, if I may, Why did you choose us to go? Do you have so little faith in us that we must mate with a stranger in order for them to provide us and our kingdom with protection? " Oliver said with pain in his green eyes.
He looked at the young teen.
"Have you thought of the townspeople and their families? How would they protect themselves if we did not provide them with protection? " The king said to him, "I will do anything to protect my kingdom, even if it means sacrificing fourteen teenagers, including my own, in exchange for finding a mate in this pack." The king noticed how serious their faces had become and laughed once more. "Obviously, no one will be forced to pair with a mate. If you had been paying attention earlier, I had stated under the guise. Meaning you all will only pretend to be looking for mates." He chuckled.
Everyone sighed in relief at that. Gael gently nudged his horse to go faster until he was side-by-side with his father.
"What was the purpose of bringing so many people if your only plan was to scout the perimeters?" He said to his father. His voice was calm, but his eyes were sharp.
"Straight to the point as always." The King shook his head. "I wonder who you inherited this behavior from. As you are all between the ages of eighteen to twenty-five, my request is that you attempt to befriend many of the villagers in the Lucian Pack. The friendlier you are to them, the more willing they are to ally with us."
"You mean to say that you plan on recruiting some of the villagers? Does the Lucian Pack Chief know about this? " Alpha soldier Monty asked the king.
"Of course, we had agreed to take good care of those willing to fight for us and promised them a better life in our kingdom. We also promised the Chief that our pack would provide them with as many exotic foods, vegetables, and plants as possible. The items your horses are carrying are exactly that. " He pointed to the satchels on the horses, "They are specific only to our Kingdom, but after we observe the soil here, the plants may end up growing to be of much higher quality than the ones we grow back at the Kingdom."
"That's great and all, but I'm more curious about the number of omegas there are living in the Lucian Pack right now." Reina expressed her excitement at meeting potential friends.
"I don't know the specific amount, but based on the information I received from their chief, there certainly are a few omegas in the area. Most of them, however, are traditional in a sense. To add to that, I chose many of you because you are the best of the best. Both in fighting capabilities and intelligence, if anything were to happen to you, I could rest assured that you would be able to protect yourselves. Now, we'd best get moving. The night is beginning to catch up to us, and we still have a long way to go before we need to shift. "
"Shift?" Oliver asked.
"Did I forget to explain? We can only find the village by using our wolf form. They have left behind a specific scent that we will use to find the correct pathway. This is why humans haven't found the area in so long, and the rumor is that many ferocious beasts live in the woods. It's the perfect defense that would thwart a human's greed and desire to build on the area. " At that, he nudged the horse to move, leaving the rest of them to scramble behind him.
By the time they arrived, they discovered the chief had been waiting for their group in front of the entrance of their village, and they immediately shifted back and greeted the elder man.
His smile widened at the sign of respect. "Please, there's no need for such formal behavior." He looked at King Leopoldo. "It's great to finally put a face to the name I've only seen written on the letters," the Lucian chief said to the King of the Imperial Crescent Moon Pack.
He turned to face the group of teenagers and began holding his welcome speech. Behind the chief were all of the villagers from the Lucian pack. They all formally gave their greetings to the other pack, and they returned them with their own.
"We must apologize. We have two other teenagers, but it seems as though they have not arrived yet. Please excuse me while I inform Noah and Axel's parents of Noah and Axel's lack of appearance. Mason, you are in charge of explaining the directions to our guests and make sure not to leave a single detail out. " He bowed to the king before heading back into the village.
"Yes, sir." Mason replied and began to go over the locations of every area inside of the village.
During the explanation, Reina looked through the group of teens opposite them. From their greetings earlier, she was only able to discover about three omegas. 'Hmm, that's not a lot of omegas.' She looked at Rana, who was apparently the chief's omega daughter.
As she was about to attempt to talk to the group, she was appalled to find them badmouthing another person.
"Noah again? How could he miss something so important as greeting our guests? " One of the teenagers says, The atmosphere got a bit tense after hearing those words. Many of the teens in the Moon pack got visibly uncomfortable.
"I know, I always see him hanging around Rana. He's like a bee attracted to honey," This time an Omega girl speaks. Reina could vaguely remember her name being Tina.
"True. It's amazing what people do when they're desperate. Remember when his soup fell in the town square? " She couldn't keep her laughter to herself anymore. "What do you think about Noah Rana?" Samantha nudged her friend while pointing at her mouth to signify fake throwing up.
Rana flipped her hair, "He's honestly too infatuated with me. Being nice to someone once does that to a person. I had to ask Mason so many times to help me get rid of him, but Mason ended up being too kind to that creep. It's probably why I love him so much. He's so kind, even in the face of such eccentricity. Noah's beautiful, but his personality kind of ruins it for me. It's really hard to act so nice to him all the time, but at least he's more bearable than Axel. He's much creepier than Noah. "
The moon pack's impression of the Chief's daughter visibly dropped.
'Gosh… So much for making friends. I don't really want to deal with people who talk about you behind your back. Oh! I've never seen this insect before! I have to catch it and add it to my collection later. ' Reina says as she trails after it. Nobody paid attention to her sudden disappearance. As a result, it caused a huge commotion and a search around the perimeter before she was found again. Many of the Lucian group members were forced by Gael to help in the search for his sister. Once she had been found, they were later led to the house they would be using and their specific rooms.
The omegas and alphas were separated by rooms, and the next morning came in the form of a pillow thrown at Reina's face.
"I can't believe you..." Benjamin said. His hair flew in different directions. "We weren't able to receive the rest of the instructions!" He smoothed down his bed hair, still agitated from what happened the night before.
He glowered at her for a few seconds until she wilted, "I'm sorry Benji..." Tears filled Reina's eyes. He ignored her apology in favor of waking everyone else up, "Come on, we're filthy! Do you know how badly you all smell? We're going to go and clean ourselves up right now. We can shift into animals, but that doesn't mean that we have to live like one too. "
"That's the problem. We don't know where the showers are..." Oliver yawned out, still tired and lethargic from being woken up so early. Oliver silently grieved at the fact. Reina took this as an opportunity to go to the room next door and knock on it.
She rapped on the door over and over, trying to get the attention of one of the alphas. If the door was alive, it would be crying with grievances from the young omega's strength.
"Brother! We're going out to shower! " Reina hollered at the door when nobody answered.
The door opened a few seconds later to reveal her brother, topless. He squinted his eyes and rubbed at his cheek, staring at his little sister for a very long time in annoyance, before telling her to wait for him outside while he got ready. Reina peeked at the background and found that the other alphas were still asleep. They were used to the loudness of Princess Reina's voice.
She was suddenly dragged out of the house by Remy, who said, "Let's go, we already brought your things." She nodded and thanked them and rejoined her group of friends who were having a discussion without her.
"We could walk a little then go ask a random local who passes by," she heard Holly say.
At that, they all agreed. That seemed like the most plausible idea, and they slowly began to walk.
Suddenly, the house in front of them opened to reveal the most gorgeous looking omega they had ever seen.
Oh... They all thought simultaneously as they watched the tall, platinum-blond-haired teen exit his house. He had hazel eyes and light freckles dusting his fair skin. They watched as he headed the same direction they were going and noticed the container the other omega was holding contained soap and other bathing materials before calling out to him desperately.
They speedily walk towards him. After gaining his attention, they all looked at each other and urged each other to speak to the omega first with their eyes and eyebrows. It was a few seconds before Reina caved in and decided to speak.
"Hi there! Are you the one we didn't get to meet yesterday? We heard that an emergency happened, so you couldn't come. " I asked him.
"Yes, well, something dire had come up at the time and I couldn't really... leave." He answered vaguely.
Before introducing my friends, I express my condolences to him...
He smiled at us before telling us his name. I could hear my wolf start whining about how unfair it was that he looked so beautiful even when he was smiling. I told her to hightail it out of there because there was no room for jealousy when it came to something based on chance.
I explain our situation, which led to us bickering about whose fault it was in the first place that we were in this predicament. He looked at us with such an indifferent face that I was afraid he was going to tell us to leave him alone. Instead, he told us to follow him and he would take us there directly.
"Um, Noah! Could you please wait a bit longer? My brother is coming. " I said apologetically.
"Gael is coming? Here I thought I could finally have time to spend time with my friends..." Holly said dejectedly.
"I thought so too. This is such a disappointment. Even if your brother is hot-"I sputtered in disbelief at what I had heard,"-and good at fighting, our pack trained us so that we could do self-defense in case anything did happen." Benjamin said.
"Yeah, but my brother doesn't want to see us get hurt. He's kind like that," I said in defense of my brother. "We've all been together since childhood. You guys should know how he is by now! " I was disgruntled that no one knew how much of an amazing person my brother was.
"Kind? That guy, right? Don't make me laugh! " Dara started before I saw my brother walk up behind her and place his hand on her head, clenching it tightly. She turned around slowly in fear of seeing Gael.
"Who are you talking about?" My brother stated coldly.
I watched as Dara began to sweat heavily, saying nothing.
I noticed as my big brother stared at the lovely omega in front of us. 'Yes, brother, we too feel blessed to receive his presence.' Thankfully, I said in my head.
"I was told to come here by our mother and father. I could care less about what the rest of you think. ' That's what he said, but Reina secretly knew it meant he cared about them.
"Ok, then please follow me." With all of that out of the way, we watched as Noah began heading towards the direction of the river. Soon we went through a forest clearing. Confused, I looked around and saw no buildings anywhere near the area we were in. 'Strange. Were there no showers nearby? '
I noticed my friends looking around in confusion as well, but before we could ask Noah where we were, we spotted a gigantic river right in front of us.
'Don't tell me? Public bathing?!' Our minds exploded from the huge difference in our lifestyle compared to this village's, but that didn't stop us from stripping down to our n*ked and running into the surprisingly warm river.
'Amazing.' I smiled as I thought.
"Oh, thank the stars above! We can actually bathe now...I can't believe we went two days without bathing. I've never felt so filthy! " Benjamin shouted out his woes.
We noticed that Noah hadn't joined us yet, so we began to yell for him to come in. We looked at Gael and suddenly remembered how other omegas may not be as comfortable undressing in front of alphas, especially one who was a stranger only to notice him leave the area.
'Was this a dream?' We gasped in shock. "Brother is actually caring about someone else's feelings?" I said in shock. The others nodded in agreement.
But Noah refused. We took it upon ourselves to invite him in on our own, "Sorry Noah. You weren't coming in, so we had to drag you in ourselves. " I heard Benji say. Unfortunately, we didn't take into account how light the other omega was. Immediately, we wondered if he had gotten hurt. Holly managed to convey everyone's worries in a single question. He also ended up losing his bathing materials to the river tides, and that increased our guilt. We wouldn't mind sharing ours if he decided to ask for it. After a bit, we decided not to force each other to do anything outrageous for us since we were originally there to bathe and not play around.
We noticed as Noah began to take off his clothes. Wow. That's all we could think about.
We admired his body and watched Noah sit down and begin to wash his body. It was relaxing just sitting in the water and letting the tides rush through my hair. That was until a citrusy scent began to permeate through the area. I couldn't help but want to get up and ask Noah if we could help him out.
I couldn't control my thoughts and actions. It was as if someone else was controlling me, "I noticed how you didn't have any soap. Since it was mainly our fault that you had lost your belongings, you wouldn't mind if we helped you out? " I could hear myself say. 'No! That's not what I want to do." It felt as though I was fighting through a fog, nothing was making sense. Through the haze, I could see everyone else pull out their soap and attempt to wash the body in front of us.
He quickly stood up and grabbed our hands one by one to stop us from coming closer, "It's fine. I can handle it on my own. "
He immediately began to rub his body with soap, causing the citrusy scent to lessen. I could feel my mind becoming less fogged up, and I could regain motion in my body once more. It seems that the strong smelling soap covered up the citrusy smell Noah was emitting.
We looked at each other, stunned by our actions, before turning to face Noah.
"What... what just happened?" Dara shouted in shock.
"I don't know what it was, but all I remember was the wonderful smell of citrus," Holly replied hazily.
"Oh my goodness... Noah, we are so sorry." Oliver said, upset. "Come on, guys, help me get his clothes."
I called out to Gael, wondering where he was and where he could have gone.
"Gael! Brother!" I cried out. My heart was beating quickly, and the immense guilt caused tears to start streaming down my face, "Where are you?"
Noah quickly washed off the lather on his body and looked at the crying omega, "It's no big deal, Reina. You didn't do anything to me."
She turned to him, "Even if we didn't do anything, that didn't make it any more wrong!"
Benjamin, who had remained quiet the entire time, suddenly said, "Noah, you're in heat."
Noah looked at Benjamin before turning down the notion. He decided to just tell them the truth instead of a heat wouldn't it make sense if he had experienced a rut? "That couldn't be possible. I've never experienced heat before."
We all looked at him in shock. "So, you just presented? We're omegas. Why did we get affected by his heat? " I asked them.
"I've read about this before!" Holly said. "There are two types of events which usually trigger a strong heat cycle in omegas. It can affect alphas, betas, and even omegas. The first one could be if the omega had never had a heat cycle at the normal age of thirteen. In other words, they would have to be a late-bloomer, and that is usually caused by their body's constitution. Usually, in a case this rare, the omega would have to be within close proximity to their true mate."
"What's the other?" I ask.
"The other is if the omega had been sick their entire life and had finally gotten strong enough to present as an omega. Usually, their bodies release a lot of pheromones during heat to make up for the time that has been lost. These pheromones are also strong enough to affect alphas, betas, as well as omegas. However, Noah didn't display the symptoms of an omega who had been sick their entire life. They are usually taken care of at home by their parents or by professional healers," Holly said in confusion.
Noah listened to the others talk. He had somehow been confused by the others as an omega who had just presented. If he spoke now, he could probably say something wrong. In his mind, they were all wrong, and he had just presented himself as an alpha.
"What if they presented themselves as an omega just as their true mate was nearby?" He heard Reina ask. 'It was reasonable to think that maybe his mate's appearance triggered something in his body, but that wouldn't make sense. The only alpha that had been near Noah had been her brother... Her eyes widened in realization, and judging by everyone else's reaction, it seemed that they had also come to the same conclusion.
Noah's mate was Gael. I looked up and saw my brother in the distance, trying to hold himself back from shifting. We looked at each other, not knowing how to deal with the situation. Before Gael could fully shift, we pulled Noah out of the water with us and attempted to protect him from my brother. We tugged on our clothes hastily and attempted to run with Noah back to the house. Since his clothes were still wet, we had wrapped him thoroughly in our towels. While we were doing this, my brother suddenly appeared ten steps away from us. He growled at us and I could feel goosebumps form on my skin from the threat. It was the scariest we've ever seen him be.
"Leave." He used his alpha voice on us. At his command, we were forced to leave immediately. Even though we were stronger than the average omega, my brother had been trained by our father on how to strengthen the voice in case of situations where he was no longer able to protect himself physically. The sound had also affected Noah, but Gael had held him back from leaving the area. Unfortunately, we ended up abandoning the other omega.
'Brother! Noah! ' I shouted in my mind, but it was no use as I could stop my body from moving and I couldn't open my mouth to speak.
When the effects of the alpha voice finish, we end up running to the house where we first saw Noah exiting this morning and bang on the door.
A big burly man opened it and we began crying and shouting for him to help us stop my brother. We knew that, despite the fact that they were true-mates, no one would want to mate against their will. The incident would become a stain on their lives. They didn't want this event to cause a strain to form between the two of them.
At that, the burly man released calming pheromones before carefully leading us into the house. He told his worried wife to stay at home and watch over us, saying that he would be back in no time.
Before he left, I made sure to tell him something: "Please don't kill my brother! My brother is a trained knight. Father made sure that he was strictly trained to fight or endure any temptation against any omega in heat, even against someone like his mate. I know my brother's personality, and he is not a r*pist. I know he will not do anything to Noah, but please be careful. He is also really strong in his wolf form. I don't want you to get hurt." I said my hands were shaking from the adrenaline.
The man gave a slight smile at me before shifting and dashing in the direction we came from.
"Don't worry..." a beautiful woman, who we found out to be Noah's mother, said. "The three of them will come back alive." She smiled before handing us all the tea she got from the kitchen. Despite her brave front, we knew that she was worried as well.
We nodded in understanding and waited patiently for the ending we hoped we would receive.
'Please be safe,' I thought as I clenched my tea cup tightly.