I
Chapter One
We were bred to be vicious; born from the highest caliber and raised to be merciless killers by a tyrant with one foot in the grave. Each of us has a shared duty to succeed our father and rescue our pack from extinction. How else are we supposed to justify knowing we'd have to slaughter each other for the Alpha title?
We're siblings; however, our philosophy is clear. Kill or be killed and you aren't exempt just because you share blood.
Years ago, our father was deified as the Great Alpha. He received blessings from the moon goddess for his heroics, and his strength and combat ability were unmatched even amongst Alphas of other packs. However, all of that changed when his goddess-given mate, too weak to survive childbirth, died, taking our father's first heir with her to the grave.
Father's wolf slipped into a depression and his power waned, and his pack, Onyxcrest, grew weak alongside their mourning Alpha. Our father was never the same after his mate died; he became cruel. He had many enemies who leaped at the opportunity to strike him at his most vulnerable. He did the best he could to fend them off, but he knew he wouldn't last much longer.
Onyxcrest thinned.
Even though Father's life force slowly faded, he persevered on the strength of his willpower, the powers gifted to him, and his plan to restrengthen his pack and die in peace. He spent the next six years searching for suitable, unmated, omega wolves to impregnate and siphon a new heir. In six years of searching all over the world, he only managed to find seven omegas he found suitable to impregnate.
His plan was simple, yet wicked: produce heirs, train them to be murderers, numerable times more powerful than the average Alpha, force them to duel to the death to determine the most righteous successor, have the winner kill him and assume the title of Great Alpha, and lastly watch over his monstrous creation from beyond the grave.
Now, steps one and two are complete and step three is underway. There are seven of us who've lived together, trained together, and killed together. From eldest to youngest: Caenen, Cheshire, Alexé, Xavier, Carrera, Vincent, and then me, Priore.
On our eighteenth birthday, we were made to slaughter an entire pack singlehandedly as a rite of passage into adulthood. That's how serious our father was, and still is, about the restoration of the glory of Onyxcrest and the continuation of its legacy.
Today, Father and us seven reside at Vetixi req hernia dama; wolven language for "home of the first wolf". Here, we hold a festival where the wolves from our pack and smaller, neighboring packs pledge allegiance in exchange for protection, once one of us succeeds Father.
They dance and drink and shower us with gifts thanking us for sacrificing our lives as if this is our choice.
The difference between this festival from the previous one is that it's the last one before the fiyti « feast » where six of us will die slaughtered at the hands of each other. This realization puts us on edge more than usual.
There's a pit in my stomach as I sit and try to slow my heart rate in front of one of the vanities in the dressing room. Looking into the mirror, I pray to the moon goddess my sisters can't see my anxiety beginning to pool behind my eyes.
We're supposed to dress up and sit on stage from eldest to youngest while we thank weaker wolves for paying their respects and watch them dance around us burden-free. Before, I could keep my mask up and hide my emotions, but tonight, everything seems too real.
"Careful, sister." Cheshire is the first to say anything while the three of us have been cramped in a dressing room designed to house over a dozen. She rises from her seat and stalks over until she's standing behind me and places unwelcomed palms onto my shoulders. "I smell fear on you."
She slides her palms upwards until her hands have gently clasped around my neck. She isn't hurting me, but I can sense the unyieldingness in her grip. My mask goes up, or at least tries.
"Yia si'ito aniwa hablenid English hini, exrot." « You aren't allowed to speak English here, sister. » I respond, refusing to acknowledge my uncertainty that she won't drag her stiletto, razor-cut nails across my trachea and kill me on the spot.
"It's only the three of us. How's anyone going to find out?" She can't hide the devilish smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. Cheshire always took pride in perfection and unrelentingly weaponized her brilliance and charm.
She was undoubtedly the most strategic amongst the seven. She has a one-to-one sparring record with Caenen, our eldest brother, thought of as the strongest, simply because she can outsmart him in battle.
She's the second eldest and holds a deep hatred for the five of us younger than her. It's because Father felt the hardest for her mother after the loss of his mate, yet he wouldn't allow himself to love her completely and continued his search for suitable omegas. You can see the hellfire she stokes in her heart constantly burning in her eyes. That's our explanation for why she's the only one of us whose eyes hold a golden-hazel tint to them.
She's challenging me.
Our eyes glow a deep amber red; the color signifying a wolf possesses the Alpha gene. However, before things can escalate further, Carrera intervenes, "Enough." She grips Cheshire's wrist.
"Save it for the fiyti." « feast »
A solid minute passes and none of us breathe.
"My apologies, sister." Cheshire releases her hold on my neck and places a gentle kiss on the crown of my head. She looks back over to Carrera and then intensely eyes the hand on her wrist. Carrera takes the hint and releases.
Cheshire grins. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it's genuine, but I can see in her eyes, that she's cursing us, and counting down the days until she's free to claw out our insides. She then goes back to her mirror, finishes the last few touches of her makeup, and saunters out of the dressing room without saying another word.
The tension she leaves behind is palpable. Carrera is staring at me condescendingly through my mirror and when I can't ignore her anymore, I speak up, "What?"
"She's right." Carrera takes the empty seat next to me and looks me in the eyes. When we were younger, Carrera would join our older siblings in teasing and taunting me. I'm not the weakest, but I am the youngest, so I suppose they saw that as an opportunity to bully me. However, right now, this is the most genuine I've ever seen Carrera.
"You're afraid."
"I'm-" I start, forgetting all about the no English rule, but Carrera interrupts me.
"Don't speak. Hear me out, okay?" Her eyes aren't glowing, but they're glossed over with an emotion I've never seen on her before... panic. "It's okay, I'm scared too. You know as well as I do that Cheshire and Caenen are much too powerful for their own good. Not to mention Alexé and Xavier. I know we've never been close, but I want to make up for that now before it's too late. I don't want us to die hating each other."
A tear slipped its way down her cheek causing it to streak her makeup. My eyes are wide as saucers.
I'd never seen one of my siblings cry before. We're taught not to let our emotions overwhelm us; never show any signs of vulnerability. I slipped up, just for a moment, and Cheshire was all over me. She knows the rules of the game. Hell, she's the star player.
Carrera is strong. She may not have won against Cheshire or Caenen but she could at least hold her own against Alexé and Xavier and she would maul Vincent; we all would, but to see her like this, afraid, it's foreign to me.
I took Carrera's face in my hands and allowed my eyes to glow fiercely red, "You're weak."
I toss her aside and she lands on her ass crashing into a chair on her way down. Without sparing her another glance, I get up and leave the room, mask up, and ready to face the chaos that typically comes with being a member of this goddess-forsaken family.
