EMERY
I opened my eyes, and for a moment, I couldn't see as bright light hit my eyes, so blinding that I had to squeeze the shut again. It felt like someone had shined a flashlight straight into my face.
My body felt stiff, my throat dry, and my head throbbed like I had been hit by something heavy. I could barely think straight.
What the hell happened?
Slowly, I blinked. My vision was hazy at first, white and blurry, but after a few seconds, the light softened, and shapes started to form. I blinked again as my eyes finally adjusted to my surroundings.
I had expected to see my ceiling, my messy room, and maybe even the book I had just finished still lying beside me on the bed, but when my sight finally adjusted, I realised I wasn't home, I wasn't in my room at all and definitely not in my apartment.
I was in some kind of old stone room… heck no… a courtroom, but not modern. It looked ancient. Big stone pillars, old cemented floors, and everything about it screamed a medieval building that had been built a long time.
I frowned, totally confused, and trying to focus. I must have been dreaming. That had to be it, maybe I passed out after reading too long and now I was stuck in some kind of vivid dream.
"Okay, Emery," I whispered to myself, "wake up now."
I reached to rub my eyes or maybe shake myself awake, but then I realised something strange. I couldn't move my arms, and thats when I noticed that I was kneeling, my knees were on a cold cemented floor, and my arms were tied behind my back.
Thick ropes cut through my skin, and my heart began pounding really fast.
What the hell?
I looked down at myself and I noticed my clothes were different too. There was no hoodie and no jeans, but instead, I was wearing a dark grey uniform that was tight and unfamiliar, and immediately, I felt numb with horror.
"No, no, no, this must be a dream," I mumbled.
I tried to move again, to force myself awake, but the excruciating pain in my wrists was too real, and the cold stone floor beneath my knees felt fast too solid, and then I heard it.
Whispers and low murmurs. People were talking around me, and it was about me.
I had not noticed the crowd until now, but the moment I did, the panic grew. I could feel dozens of eyes staring at me.
They were judging me and hating me. I turned my head slightly, trying to see past my shoulder, and realized I was surrounded by people, not just ordinary people but angry people.
"What the hell is this?" I whispered, "this must be a dream. This must be a damn fucking dream that looks so real. Just a dream, Emery. So wale the fuck up!" I hissed, trying to shake the fog out of my head.
But nothing changed, instead, the murmur behind me grew louder, and then someone spoke up, loud, firm, and filled with hatred,
"Elias Brooks should be flogged with a silver whip and then killed for stealing the ring of Alpha Griffin Lancaster. We all know it's a symbol of his reign, and if caught in the hands of a lowly, worthless being like him, death is what awaits him."
The crowd roared in agreement. Some cheered, shouted and laughed. They were all excited.
My heart stopped.
Death? Stole? The ring? Symbol of reign? What the actual fuck was going on?
And before I could process what the other man had said fully, it hit me hard and strong. The name Alpha Griffin Lancaster.
That name… I knew the name. It was a name I loathed.
"No bloody way," I whispered.
Elias Brooks.
My head snapped up… that name too.
I knew those names. They weren't random. They were the main characters in The Fate of the Omega, the very book I had just finished. The same book that had pulled me in so deeply I couldn't let it go. The book that had meant a lot to me.
"This must be a fucking joke," I said aloud, not caring what the crowd would say as I stared at them again. My chest tightened, and then something even worse clicked in my head.
Elias Brooks wasn't just a character in the story.
He was the omega.
The curse omega who everyone hated and treated like trash. The worthless one in the pack.
The one accused of stealing a royal ring and sentenced to suffer, and now, I wasn't reading him. I was him.
I had somehow landed in Elias Brooks' body, right before his punishment.
I bit my lower lip hard, so hard I felt the skin split, and blood filled my mouth but instead of waking up from this damn dream, I felt excruciating sharp pain.
The pain was damn real, too real for it to be a dream. This wasn't a dream.
I was inside the book, inside the damn story, and not just as any character, as the one with the most tragic fate, the one who was hated, beaten, tortured, and broken by the powerful alpha ruler… the bastard Griffin Lancaster, and right now, I was about to be sentenced. To be bond to him forever as his slave.
My heart beat wildly as the realization stuck in. This was not happening to me, this was just a damn nightmare that I will soon wake up from.
I squeezed my eyes shut, praying it would all go away, but when I opened them again, I was still here, still kneeling, still bound and I was still surrounded.
The voices picked up again, snapping me out of my thoughts and drawing me back to the moment.
Someone stepped forward, I looked up and saw an older man with sharp features, grey beard, and a face twisted with disgust. His voice thundered through the hall.
"That cursed child should never have been born. Elias is the reason my wife is dead, he is the reason this pack suffers. There is nothing good about him except trouble, bad luck and failure. Just take a look at him! Weak and dirty. He is no son of mine."
I swallowed hard as his words pierced deep into my soul.
That had to be Elias's father. In the book, the man hated Elias with a passion. He blamed him for his wife's death during childbirth and since then he had made his life miserable ever since. Now, here he was, screaming those same words in front of everyone, and also calling for my death.
I shouldn't be broken by his words, I shouldn't have felt hurt but it because this wasn't real but instead it was and his words broke me, breaking my heart to pieces.
I wanted to scream back, to tell him to shut the fuck up, but I couldn't. My throat was too dry, my body too stiff, and my mind too numb from the shock.
Suddenly. I felt something.
A cold shift, and the room which was noisy a moment ago, went completely still.
Cold air brushed the back of my neck, and my breath in my throat. Something or rather someone was behind me.
I didn't need to look to know that an aura had filled the room. A dark, powerful presence that made my skin crawl and my body trembled.
The crowd fell silent, and even the council members stepped back.
I heard boots on the cemented floor. Slow, steady footsteps, and then a deep husky voice echoed through the hall, smooth and dangerous.
"Enough!!"
I gasped and I could feel my heart skipped a beat or rather stopped. His aura and his voice carried command, and I didn't need anyone to tell me who he was because I had read enough of the book to recognize the voice, the power and the fear it brought.
It was him.
Griffin Lancaster.
The Alpha KIng. the most powerful, and ruthless werewolf in the land. The one who had made Elias's life hell.
He stepped into my view and my eyes widened in shock.
He had massive, broad shoulders, ripped muscles under the black shirt. His skin was tanned, his face carved like a stone, his sharp jaw, dark brows and eyes like shadows.
He looked like a god and a monster all at one. His black hair was slicked back, and when his eyes met mine, I froze.
Those damn eyes…. Cold, angry, and unreadable. The same eyes described in the book over and over again. The same eyes Elias feared.
"Bring him to me," Griffin said, his voice calm but deadly.
Immediately two guards grabbed me from behind and dragged me up. My knees wobbled, and my body felt heavy, like I had been hit by a truck.
I stood in front of Griffin, my head barely reaching his chest, he looked down at me like I was dirt beneath his boots.
"You dared steal from me?" he asked, his voice low but filled with venom.
I couldn't speak, nor could I think. My mind kept screaming that this is a book, and that it isn't real but it was.
I could feel the heat of his breath, the tight grip of the ropes, and the pain in my lip where I had bitten myself,
This was real, I was in the book, I was Elias Brooks, and I had just been dragged into the worst part of his story.