The Female Alpha’s Sanctuary

Chapter 120

Chapter 120 I was different. Too different. And that had been the problem. But like all things, time had come to pass and soon it became unimportant how others viewed me. All those lingering gazes and hushed whispers overshadowed and silenced in the face of becoming Alpha. I had more important things to focus on than how wolves whispered about me. So the curse went to the back of my mind like everything else the upcoming few years. It became unimportant but was always a looming shadow I refused to acknowledge. Until I found out that unlike the previous successors, my curse was different. It had been. unprecedented. That unlike them, my curse was crueler and non-physical. Whereas they lost something on their bodies, I lost something in my soul. My other-half. My mate. The mate every wolf was given out of the Moon Goddess’ good will. The other half the Moon Goddess created to fit another. “Are you nervous, son?”

I look up to my father, wildly shaking my head. But he and I knew I was bluffing. I was nervous. Petrified, even. How could I possibly not? Today was the day I found out what my curse was. The Head Witch herself was called upon to do the reading. My parents personally reached out to her with the help of Chancellor Williams. It was a surprise she even agreed. Witches and Wolves don’t necessarily have the best relationship. But according to my parents, she was a close family friend. They would’ve done the reading sooner, but they had to wait til I was of age. Or so my mother says. Something to do with my fate being too

blurry when still too young. “All will be fine, Raizel.” Father puts his hand to my shoulder, squeezing tight before looking to where my mother was coming from. Walking toward us wearing a simple sundress, her dark hair spiraled down her waist. She had a tight smile in place, casting me a forced look of reassurance before darting her grey eyes to my father. “She’s arrived.” The tone in mother’s voice was odd. Nothing like the softness I was so used to hearing. It was tinged with fear; cold with a sigh of her whisper. But father didn’t seem to find it strange. He nodded, looking down at me with masked emotions. For a split second, I saw the underlying fear in his eyes that quickly flashed over his dark pupils. The fear for his son. His fear for me. “Wait here. Your mother and I will meet with her first.” Without another word he takes my mother’s hand and leads her to the common room. I watched after their backs, listening to my fathers orders and stayed rooted in place. My gaze fell to their intertwined fingers. Then it fell to my father’s prosthetic leg. That was my father’s curse. His right leg was paralyzed. He was born with it. His father before him was blind. And his father before him was deaf. The list went on. Every generation, the Moon Goddess would take something of theirs. The gift of sight. Gift of hearing. Gift of movement. It was a repetitive notion. But never the same type twice in a row. It varied. One thing that did stay the same was that each generation would only have one child. A son. To carry on the family name…

as well as the curse. The ultimate punishment for what my ancestor did. It was placed there to hinder and make keeping the Alpha role harder. After all, having a missing body part or function would be a handicap. And without another successor, the son would have to bear excruciatingly difficult obstacles to ensure the survival of their pack. At first, my father had a hard time. When he first shifted, his paralyzed leg was a hinderance. Though he managed to shift, his leg still didn’t work. It was limp. A liability to him. He knew right then and there he needed to get rid of it. And so they amputated it when he was just sixteen. The curse was always physical. It wasn’t something you could hide or pretend wasn’t there. It had something to do with the body. Until me. I had nothing ‘taken’ from me. Nothing ‘wrong’ with me from when I was young. At first, my parents thought that just maybe the Moon Goddess forgave our bloodline. That maybe she had forgotten her anger and believed that our lineage had suffered enough to atone for my ancestor’s sin. They were wrong. Every sole successor had a mark. A mark that would appear at age ten that labeled them as cursed. My father’s was on his hip. Right above his right leg. And my grandfather’s mark was on his eyelid. The marks of a small crescent moon would appear where the ‘cursed’ body part was. A black inked marking. Mine appeared last week. Except, on a place it was never on before: My chest. Right where my heart was. “Do you think the Head Witch can make a potion for endless ice cream?” I look to the Beta’s son, Weston, and frown. He was the one person aside from my parents and higherNôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

ranks that didn’t fear me. The one person who stubbornly kept trying to befriend me. His dark hair hung over his eyes but it’s clear to anyone he’s actually thinking deeply about his question.