Samiya’s POV

Breasts.

There were breasts everywhere I turned, and I was supposedly the slut.

It had been two years since Meidran rejected me in the largest market square in Etrana and two years since I had begun plotting my revenge.

Every year, on the third day of every first month, a contest begins where all female werewolves, or were-women as I liked to call us, would fight for the Alpha’s heart. It was a game where all women had to convince Alpha Zain himself that any of us could make the perfect Luna, but the man always found a sneaky way to wiggle out of it. At best, contestants could only make it to his collection of concubines.

But not this year.

Because this year, I was going to show all of Etrana exactly how to mate with an Alpha and use my new status to ruin Meidran.

Upon my arrival at the Alpha’s castle, I was taken to a special area of the building where there just so happened to be other women willing to compete to be the Alpha’s chosen mate. Fortunately, this year the women willing to compete were a lot less, but they also happened to be quite desperate too.

There were about seven to ten other women in the hallway who were still dressed in their formal attire, which didn’t appear to be all that formal. Most of the women around me had their breasts almost slipping out of their dresses and, if my eyes served me correctly, there was a woman who had her nipples on full display with most of her dress being see-through.

I couldn’t bash any of their tactics though. I was definitely not the most morally upright person in the land and werewolves were indeed sexual beings.

Plus, my outfit wasn’t the most modest either. My mother and I had opted for a body-hugging dress with a high slit and a deep, plunging neckline while I kept my ginger-red hair in a high sleek bun. The dress I had on was seductive enough to capture a man’s attention, but clearly more modest than anything I had seen tonight.

The sound of metal hitting glass stopped the chatter in the hall and made all eyes search for the cause.

Standing in front of all of us, holding a glass cup and a metal fork was none other than Meidran. My purse almost slipped from my hands when I caught sight of his silver blond hair, but I was quick to prevent the small accident. What I wasn’t quick to prevent, however, was the toe-curling pain that erupted in my heart.

A howl from Scarlet echoed in my head and, all of a sudden, I found myself in the same market square from two years ago.

“Get a hold of yourself! He is not our mate anymore!” I yelled at Scarlet, but she was the kind of wolf to always act like a three-year-old pup.

“But the moon goddess-”

“Fuck the moon goddess! Now, behave so that I can get us a better mate!” I cut her off, preventing her from saying anything that could make the pain I felt possibly feel even worse.

Scarlet went silent for a few moments and I began to worry that I might have been a little too harsh on her. I loved her, but sometimes tough love was the only way to work things out with Scarlet.

“I trust you, Miya. I know you’ll only do what’s best for us,” I finally heard Scarlet say with a sigh of resignation.

“Thank you,” I replied in a more cheerful tone than I had used earlier.

My focus returned to the asshole standing in front of us all with a cocky smile plastered on his face. It hurt to see him so happy after what he had done to us. A big part of me still wished to see him have some form of regret or remorse after what he had done, but I knew that that couldn’t happen so fast. Not now at least.

I had been keeping myself updated on news about him ever since the rejection and, unfortunately things had been going smoothly for him ever since then. He even received a special award from the Alpha recently. One could say that he was living the perfect life, but that was all about to change very soon.

“Good evening ladies,” the bastard started, his eyes roaming through the crowd of women. Not once did his eyes land on me. Had he and his wolf forgotten me so easily? Was it really true what my mother had said that no one would remember so easily because I had become quiet and settled with the likes of a sad old gamma over the past two years? None of the women here could even easily point me out as the wench of Etrana.

The lack of attention intrigued me.

“I know that we are all excited to start the games that will decide who the alpha’s chosen mate will be, but for now, we will all be getting some rest, and tomorrow morning, we can all gather here for instructions on what the first game will be. Our staff will be going around and handing out keys to your new rooms. Get some rest and tomorrow morning we shall all meet again,” Meidran explained before stepping down from the stage.

Like the bastard that he was, he began mingling with some of the contestants.

Hypocrite!

If he only liked modest virgins and couldn’t be seen around women like me, then what was he doing around women dressed half-naked anyway?

Before I had a chance to turn red due to the anger bubbling inside of me, a young man approached me and handed me a key. I offered him a small thank you before turning my heels. As much as I despised Meidran and wanted to trick myself into believing that he didn’t affect me in the slightest, I couldn’t bear to see him so happy any longer, and it would have been even much worse if he noticed me. I wasn’t ready to confront him. Yet.

The room I was assigned to was almost the same size as the one I had back home. I had originally expected a bigger room with a few roommates, but if smaller rooms meant no roommates, then I was game. I enjoyed my privacy.

I waited for about two hours to go by before I stepped outside in one of my finest robes. If I truly wanted to win this game, then I needed to think and act fast and leaving things up to chance in the first game tomorrow simply had to be one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard.

I had barely left the sleeping area of the contestants when I heard a strangled moan. Choosing to ignore the sound, I took a few steps forward, but it was the sound of shattering glass that prevented me from moving any further.

“Please, more!” I heard the small voice moan, making me laugh.

“Couldn’t she wait,” I snickered, mindlinking Scarlet.

“Maybe it was one of those times. You know we have them too, Miya,” she countered.

I rolled my eyes. “You know we’d never try something like this in times as drastic as this. Plus, in the worst-case scenario, I’d use my hands. This woman is definitely getting hot with someone else.”

“You’re right. I was just trying to make things look better.”

“I may be a whore, but even I know there is no way to make this look good.”

While I was aware that I had a mission to set into pace, drama like this was something that I could never look over. Plus, I had a feeling that this could somehow help me win the contest in one way or another.

The moans got louder as I followed the distinct sound of the woman’s moans and, luckily for me, the sounds were coming from a room that just had the door slightly ajar. With a smile, I bent forward slightly and took a peep.

What should have filled me with instant gratification, instead filled me with instant regret.

Inside the room, pounding one of the contestants against the wall was Meidran. The alpha’s beta, Meidran Hall. The fool claimed that he had to have a virgin as his mate, but he couldn’t even bother to keep himself for his mate.

A soft whimpering from Scarlet met my ears followed by a familiar pain returning to my chest.

The pain worsened even more when I saw Meidran whispering sweet things into the woman’s ear before thrusting into her once more. A traitorous tear ran down my cheeks, and although I knew that it would be a wise decision to leave as fast as possible, I couldn’t get my feet to move.

As fate would have it, in the middle of his rendezvous, Meidran’s face turned, and his eyes and mine locked. His lips parted slowly and his eyes widened. It might have been from the pleasurable time that he was currently experiencing or from the shock of seeing me. Either way, if he didn’t know that I was a contestant before, he clearly knew now. It was only then that my brain seemed to work again, and my feet came back to life.

With as much speed as I could muster, I ran away from the door and the hallway altogether, while wiping away any signs of sadness from my face.

Somehow, I managed to get to one of the main hallways of the castle. Leaning on one of the walls, I drew in a deep breath while reminding myself of the reason I stepped out of my room in the first place.

Maybe fate was on my side after all, because the moment I turned my head to take a good look at the place I had wound up in, my eyes took notice of a man in a black tunic decorated with golden buttons with a sword strapped to his side. One of the alpha’s men.

He seemed to take good notice of me too, because his eyes widened before he quickly looked away.

Maybe he knew who I was. Maybe I wasn’t as forgotten as I initially thought I was.

Inhaling and exhaling, I mustered up all the charm I could and approached the unsuspecting man with a smile. “Good evening,” I greeted him in a low but cheery tone.

He gulped, his eyes blinking rapidly like someone had shoved something hard down his throat. “Good evening, ma’am.”

Maybe this was going to be a lot easier than I thought.

“You can look at me, you know. All I wanted was to ask for a few directions.” I waved a hand in the air, laughing. The man laughed along with me, but anyone could tell that it was clearly forced.

Slowly, the man turned to look at me and I widened my smile, hoping that somehow that would make him feel comfortable.

He swallowed.

“You are the wench of Etrana, aren’t you? I’ve heard so many good things about you. I heard that you’re able to make any man fall and looking at you now, I see why they say it’s true. Now, I know why men would willingly spend everything they have just to spend a night with you,” he rambled on, and suddenly I started to prefer seeing him quiet.

I let out another laugh and tucked a few strands of my hair behind my ear. At least none of what he heard involved details of my sad rejection.

“Thank you so much for the um… flattery. Well, what you have heard is true and the Alpha needs to see me tonight and I may have forgotten directions to his room, so I was wondering if you could show me?” I asked with a smile still plastered on my face.

His eyebrows creased and he gulped once more. “I’m not sure…”

With a long sigh, I stopped him from speaking entirely. Placing my fingers on my robe, I opened the material slowly, watching his eyes follow my every movement. Reaching into my inner garment and the area just above my breasts, I took out a few hundred dollar bills. Taking the guard's hands, I placed the money in it. “And will this suffice?”

Samiya’s POV

Sometimes it felt as though everyone in the pack thought with what was in between their legs rather than the brains that they just so happened to be born with.

Although I could tell that the guard would have willingly taken a night with me rather than my money, he took the money regardless and when I told him that the alpha and I had a special ritual we did, every night we met, the fool didn’t bother to ask any questions and did exactly as I needed him to.

This plan was absolutely crazy.

Scarlet made it her sole mission to inform me of every possible event that could make this entire plan go wrong and while she made a few solid points, I was determined to get the job done. Plus, I had gotten some kind of protection just in case anything went wrong. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would just have to work.

“When did my intuition ever fail me?” I mindlinked Scarlet in a snarky tone.

“When our mate rejected us,” she snorted.

“Just shut the fuck up!”

The guard had led me to the royal kitchen and, apparently, the alpha had a special Shilajit tea that he had taken to his room every night and I of course, had to pretend that I already knew that. When the guard mentioned it, a crazy idea popped up in my head that had a few kitchen staff as well as the guard helping me, offer me a look that let me know that they were questioning my sanity.

“Alpha Zain has gotten used to all my crazy ideas and if you don’t believe me, you should trust that the Alpha himself would punish me if he sees a stranger in his room. I also promise not to mention your involvement in this with anyone,” I told the guard and the female staff, staring at me with incredulous looks.

They all gave each other looks and that was when I chipped in again before they got a chance to register how truly crazy all of this was. “And besides, if anything goes wrong who are people most likely going to believe? The wench of Etrana? Or a few loyal staff of the alpha with clean records?”

“Fine,” one of the female staff sighed.

She lifted the white cloth covering the trolley and gestured for me to go in. “If you get the Alpha angry, then it’s your funeral.”

“Thank you. I assure you that the alpha will be pleased,” I told them all with a smile before preparing to get in. However, a small but slightly deep voice stopped me.

“Promise me that we will still see each other after this?” I turned to find the guard that had led me to the kitchen looking at me with sympathetic eyes and a hopeful smile.

“Just how delusional is this man?”

“Very,” Scarlet answered in a heartbeat.

I forced a smile. “I will try to,” was the only thing I said to him before hiding myself in the trolley.

From my experience, a delightful surprise could act as a perfect form of seduction. I had spent the last two years gathering all the details I could possibly get about the alpha and one of them just happened to be that he had been a closed-off person ever since his fated mate, Esmeralda, a powerful witch, turned against him and almost destroyed our pack.

I had heard that before that, the alpha was a man who enjoyed all the joyful things that life had to offer, but he had distanced himself from all of that ever since he got his heart broken in the worst way possible and tonight, I planned to offer him a taste of what he had lost in the past.

Not long after I had hidden inside the serving trolley, it began to move and the moment it stopped, I felt my heart skip a beat.

I felt someone kick the trolley and I took in a deep breath. “We’re here. You can come out now.”

Running over the plan in my head again, I pushed the white cloth in front of me aside and stepped out of my hiding place. Finally standing again, I straightened my back and then took the time to study my new surroundings.

In one word, I could describe the alpha’s room as simply beautiful. Arched windows lined the walls, bathing the room in a soft moonlight glow accompanied by the dozens of lights from the grand chandelier above our heads. Heavy white drapes of rich fabric cascaded from the ceiling, their folds capturing the light in a way that made them glow as well.

A golden harp about my height sat in one of the corners of the room and its strings seemed to call to me, but I resisted the urge to play. In the middle of the room sat what had to be the biggest bed I had ever seen, accompanied by a headboard with delicate carvings of wild roses. It felt as though I had somehow slipped into one of the fairytales my mother would read to me when I was a pup.

“We will be leaving now. Please try not to die,” one of the female staff said, pulling me out of my trance.

I only nodded with a small smile and waved the two women goodbye.

Once the two women had left, I grabbed the small cushioned seat close to where the harp was situated and, although there was still a tempting voice that told me to at least run my hands through the strings of the instrument, I ignored the voice and focused on the task I had at hand.

Untying my robe so that it flowed freely by my sides and showed the black lingerie I wore inside, I took out the flute and blindfold I hid inside of it.

“It’s now or never,” I told Scarlet.

“I trust you, but please don’t get us killed,” she replied softly.

“Not encouraging, Scarlet, but believe me, I won’t.”

Sitting on the cushioned chair, I put on the blindfold and began to wait for my queue. Using Scarlet’s super senses, I listened closely for any sign of movement, and it was only when I heard faint footsteps at the beginning of the hallways that I began to play the flute.

Notes from Lakme’s The Flower Duet escaped my lips and ran through the hollow wood that was my flute. If everything worked right this night, then it could only mean that my intuition was right, and I had chosen the perfect piece to play.

There wasn’t a moment where I stopped playing my flute. I played the instrument until the moment the footsteps got so loud to the point where I could feel them and I heard the bedroom doors open and close.

It was him. It was Alpha Zain Shuzen. The one Alpha in all of Etrana’s history to ever fall for a witch and choose to isolate himself from members of his pack right after. I could feel his powerful aura. I could feel his presence enter and take up all the space in the room to the point where it almost choked me, but what I couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t stopped me or said anything.

His footsteps grew even closer until he was right in front of me and, although I was blindfolded, I knew that he was staring. I felt his eyes all over me. It was hard to ignore, but still, I kept playing. That was until I heard his voice.

“Who are you?”

It was a simple question and his tone was soft, yet the force in his voice made me stop in an instant.

Zain’s POV

I made a mental note in my head to thank whoever made me make the wise decision of taking concubines in the first place.

Today, like most others, felt haunting, mundane, and maddening. Ever since I had made the stupid decision of leaving my fate up to the moon goddess and trusting my emotions, my life had begun to go downhill and now, I had to spend every waking day to stop it from plunging into total darkness.

Drowning my sorrows with alcohol had seemed like a good idea at first, but it failed to fully numb and quiet down the demons in my head. What I needed was my Shilajit tea.

From the middle of the hallway that led to my room, I could already hear the haunting tune. If the alcohol I had taken hadn’t completely messed up my senses, the tune coming from my room was Lakme’s The Flower Duet. It was the same classical piece that my mother would play in the palace garden when she was still alive.

Whoever played that tune was either ready to die by my hand or suffer dire consequences for taking me back to the past.

A sense of nostalgia wafted through my senses, increasing my urge to get to my Shilajit tea even faster so that I could end the day already.

Opening the door to my bedroom, what I least expected was to find a blindfolded, half-naked woman with a wooden flute glued to her mouth. All my thoughts went dull for a few moments until I could feel my wolf stirring in me.

A subtle wave of jasmine and vanilla curled up in the air and attacked my olfactory system, making both Ralph and I almost fall off the thin line known as self-control.

Ever since our fated mate betrayed us in the gruesome way she did, my wolf, Ralph, had gone silent on me. He only ever awoke when it was time for battle and bloodshed, yet in the midst of a strange woman who had resurfaced such a repressed figment of our past, he chose to finally resurface.

The redhead never stopped playing her flute even when I shut my doors and stood in front of her.

Her confidence intrigued me.

None of my concubines in the past had ever been this bold. Not even my beta was this bold to approach me like this.

She had to be new.

I made a mental note to thank Meidran for his selection later.

Her ginger red hair flowed down to her back and, oddly enough, I had a strange urge to run my hand through it and maybe even sniff it. Not only had the woman decided that playing the flute in my room blindfolded was the best idea, but she had also decided to tempt my ears as well. The woman wore a long black robe which remained open in the front, revealing to me a lacy black lingerie that helped in pushing out her breasts forward.

The curiosity I felt earlier still remained present, only that some of that energy had morphed into something stronger that traveled head-first to my groin.

After taking my time to study this woman, I finally asked, “Who are you?”

Perhaps my voice had broken her out of a trance because, in an instant, she stopped playing that haunting tune and dropped the wooden flute on the floor right by her side, right before standing up.

She dipped in a low curtsy. “Good evening, Alpha.” Her voice was soft, yet it had a bit of edge, as though my presence hardly did a thing to her.

Who exactly was this woman?

“I asked for your identity and not your greeting,” I snorted.

Once again, the woman went silent, and I began to reconsider if my presence truly didn’t affect her or if she was using a tactic on me. Still slightly puzzled by the woman, I walked around her, studying each part of her body to the best of my ability and as I did so, I felt the presence of my wolf increase even more.

There definitely had to be something special about this woman.

I was done with waiting or guessing, so I made a move I felt would calm both me and my wolf. Letting my hand roam, I reached up to the skin right next to her collar bone and almost immediately the sound of her hitched breathing met my ears. It only propelled me even more. I let my hand move to the edge of her robe and took it off, leaving her exposed in only her lingerie.

An ache began to blossom in my lower body, letting me know that I would need more than just Shilajit tea tonight.

“Take off your blindfold,” I ordered, and she complied almost immediately.

If I thought that the woman was tempting before, then words could not describe when her defiant emerald green eyes met my blue eyes. There had only been a few people to stare at me so openly before and a concubine was most definitely not one of them.

“Does the Alpha enjoy what he sees?” she cooed, making my lips draw into a smirk.

Taking a step forward, I caressed her cheek, and the strange woman before me melted into my touch. Her sweet scent invaded my senses, but this time it wasn’t just a blend of jasmine and vanilla that I could smell. There was also the tempting scent of her arousal.

Had she been waiting for me all this while?

To answer her question, I placed my hands on her waist, pushing her close to me and I heard a soft gasp escape her lips. I could tell that she could feel my erection. “Does that answer your question?”

“Perfectly,” her soft voice answered back.

I wanted to take this slowly. I wanted to know who this strange woman was who entered my room and decided to haunt me with a wooden flute and her intoxicating scent, but my wolf wouldn’t let me. My heartbeats thundered in my chest and I could feel my wolf threatening to come out at any moment if I didn’t take this woman right now.

On instinct, I buried my head in her neck and inhaled more of her scent. I didn’t feel like I could ever get enough of it. I didn’t feel like Ralph would even let me.

Peppering hot kisses on my redhead’s neck, I nibbled on her neck softly until I was sure that it would leave a mark. Tilting her head slightly, the strange woman allowed me to perfectly continue my assault until my mission was completed.

I wanted to tease her even more. Maybe even get to study her body entirely. Each curve, edge, perfection, and imperfection until my wolf and I got tired of her, but Ralph was persistent and the last thing I wanted to happen was to completely surrender all control to Ralph and have him take this redhead himself.

Lifting my redhead up so that her legs were wrapped around my waist, I carried her to my bed and placed her on it gently.

“I’m going to be rough and fast, but I promise that next time I’ll be gentler,” I told her, lying on top of her while one of my hands fisted the sheets beside us.

She nodded. “I can take it rough and fast.”

I never explained myself to any of my concubines, yet I found myself explaining things to her. Although I didn’t know what pushed me to do it, I was grateful for it because her response, if anything, made more blood rush to my eagerly growing member.

With one swift motion, I ripped the lacy black lingerie she had on, leaving her body fully exposed to me.

Taking a few seconds to fully register the image of her nude in my head, I let my hands roam around her soft and tender flesh.

It was only when my hands found the two bountiful mounds of flesh that she began to arch her back slightly. Unable to control myself, I wrapped my fingers around a nipple, gently squeezing and tugging on it.

I did the same to the other nipple before taking her breasts in my mouth and letting my tongue trace, lick and caress every single corner of it.

Her soft moans met her ears and I wished that I could take the rest of my time studying the rest of her body the way I was now, but control was a battle that I had unknowingly gotten into with my wolf, and I was losing terribly.

Reluctantly, I got up and got rid of my clothes. I could feel her eyes on me as I took each clothing off, but there was somewhere that her eyes seemed to linger on the most.

Noticing her intrigue, I looked up. “Don’t tell me that you’re thinking of chickening out now, are you?”

I could hear her heartbeat quicken as she swallowed and shook her head no. “I was only wondering how long I would wait before you fucked me already.”

Once again, I was happy that I bothered talking to her again, because her responses always found a way to send a new wave of erotic energy straight to my cock.

Settling above her again, I parted her legs and ran a finger across her wet folds. “You weren’t lying when you said you were waiting, alright,” I panted.

A small moan escaped her lips, and it sounded almost as melodic as the piece she had been playing earlier.

Before she could offer me any responses, I entered her in one sharp thrust, hoping that I would be getting more visits from my mysterious redhead.