Nothing Special

"Why can't I be?" I retorted with a snort, folding my arms across my chest. "Am I supposed to parade around the house, buck ass naked, just for the sake of my own embarrassment?"

"If that is what the Alpha commands," Susie sharply retorted. "You've not been given any clothes. You shouldn't be―"

"Are these clothes by any chance yours?" I asked. "I didn't know that you've resorted to wearing bed sheets and random linen. Perhaps Fangborne isn't that great of a place to be after all."

"Fangborne is a wonderful place to be," a new voice cut in, smoothly diverting my attention away from the infuriating woman that just had to come ruffle my feathers so early. 

I looked up, observing the man that had slid in between Susie and I, effectively cutting her off from my view. He was toned, tanned, muscular― the tight t-shirt he wore clinged onto his chest and biceps as though the seams were about to rip at any second.

His white hair was shaved at the sides, caramel eyes complementing the bronze tone of his skin. When he smiled, I had a perfectly clear view of his pearly white teeth.

"The people are nice," he said. Then he glanced back at Susie, wincing. "Usually."

"Don't you have better things to do, Elijah?" Susie snapped. The Alpha and Beta are preparing for a meeting this afternoon. As the Charlie, it's your job to―"

"I don't need a whore to tell me what I need or need not do," Elijah said, cutting her off mid-sentence. He still wore that same smile on his face, bright and cheery, but his words felt like it was laced with poison. "I will spend my time however I wish and I choose to spend it with the Luna."

"The Luna?" Susie echoed. Then, she began to guffaw as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world. "The Luna? Please! Don't make me laugh. She isn't the pack's Luna and she never will be."

Anger boiled in my stomach. I hated the very thought of being mated to someone as narcissistic and cruel as Damon Valentine, but it did not erase the fact that I was, indeed, still the rightful Luna of Fangborne as his mate. We hadn't rejected one another properly and his mark was still fresh and raw on my neck.

Until the day we die, he is irreversibly tied to me.

With a wolf or not, I was still born with the blood of a werewolf. If the Moon Goddess had given me a mate — albeit a rather sadistic and dangerous one — he was still mine until I got rid of him myself.

I growled. "Were you not present at the ceremony last night?"

"I was obviously there," Susie replied, bored.

"Then you've witnessed the marking ceremony, have you not?"

"The marking ceremony isn't anything special, Little Miss Stormclaw," Susie said, grinning mockingly. 

Her hand moved to her own neck, fiddling with the dark gray collar that sat right above her collar bones. I gasped, noticing the accessory on her for the first time since we had started speaking. Other than the color — which was a shade darker than mine — the collar that Susie wore was practically identical in every other way to the one that I was wearing.

"Susie," Elijah warned, but his words were merely taken by a deaf ear. 

Susie stepped forward, completely ignoring Elijah just to get closer to me. No matter how close she got, I stood my ground. I was a little taller than her and even though she was right up my face, she still had to look up just to meet my gaze.

On the other hand, I was looking down.

"Nice collar," I commented, moving the conversation where she was clearly trying to lead it to.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" Susie asked, smirking. "The Alpha gave it to me. He put it on my neck with his own two hands. He said it was a sign that I belonged to him."

Elijah's frown deepened. "Susie, shut the fuck up and get―"

"Oh, calm down, Elijah," Susie said, waving him off. "The new pet will have to learn sooner or later."

My eyebrows furrowed. "Learn what?"

Susie raised a hand, tugging down the shirt she had on to reveal a red mark on the bend where her neck met her shoulder. Unlike mine, her mating mark was faded, an old scar that had healed over time. It wasn't raw and didn't look as agitated as mine did. 

"Good for you. You have a mate," I said with a deadpan.

"Harper, right?" Elijah asked, stepping forward. "Perhaps I could give you a tour of the packhouse―"

"Are you pretending to be dumb or do you really have no brains?" Susie said, speaking over Elijah. She trained her line of sight directly on me, not even turning around to acknowledge Elijah and his words.

"If you have a point, get to it," I snapped, my patience wearing thin.

I had an inkling on what it was that Susie wanted to say. Elijah's odd behavior nailed down my suspicions. However, I wasn't going to make blind assumptions without any confirmation. With my experience in Stormclaw, it wasn't smart to state our own guesses. It was best to hear it from someone else's mouth, just in case we got into trouble for spreading 'false rumors'.

Hearing the irritation in my tone, Susie chuckled. Light danced in her eyes, sinister and malicious, as she began to circle me like a predator would their prey.

"Oh, so you do have a brain!" she mused, correctly assuming that the reason behind my annoyance was because I must've already pieced two and two together. 

My fingers curled into clenched fists, my nails digging into the palm of my hands.

"You may be Alpha Damon's mate and you may have his mark, but have you marked him yet?" she asked.

With her words, a memory suddenly dashed through my mind.

'I am not planning to give you the chance to.'

My breath caught in my throat. Susie delighted in my stunned silence as she continued to gleefully speak.

"Alpha Damon doesn't just have one mate, Harper Gray. He has many," she revealed. "You are one, and so am I. You're not the Luna of Fangborne. You're just another whore in the Alpha's personal brothel."