Page 1 of Unbelievable Faith
Chapter 1
Every single personin the room was staring at her. Hell, how could they not? She knew she must be a sight. The princess of the Crescent pack brought to her knees. Brought lower even, because she’d been imprisoned, tortured and now, humiliated. She could feel the eyes of the others taking in every detail from her tangled, unwashed hair to the bruises that stained her wrists where the shackles she’d worn for what felt like eternity had cut into her. She felt dirty and unclean but she refused to bow her chin or lower hergaze.
Luna DeLuca still had herpride.
He’d tried to take that from her too. He’d tried to take it first with his cruel words and then with his threats and abuse. He’d taken everything else. Her family and friends, her home, her pack, he’d taken all of it away from her. He’d stripped her of her hope of rescue and even her will to live. He’d erased every chance for a happy future from her mind. But she refused to let him take herpride.
She would not bow. She would not cower. No matter what Maddox Clary did to her, she would not give him the satisfaction of breakingher.
He thought he had. She was giving him what he wanted after all. Her. She’d agreed to mate with him, to perform the ceremony and tie herself to the crazed, sociopath that had murdered her father, run off her brother and kidnapped her sisters. This ceremony had been what he wanted from her all along, to join with her royal blood and rule the pack. He needed her to soothe the fractures he’d caused when he overthrew her family for leadership and he was getting what he wanted. He thought he’dwon.
She had held out as long as she could and she hadn’t given in easily. She’d accepted her imprisonment and put away any thoughts she may have had about escape. Binding herself to the man that had torn her family apart would ruin her, but it would keep her sisters alive and that was all that mattered. And no matter what it did to her, personally, to accept Maddox’s claim, she would deal with it with her chin high and her spinestraight.
She wasn’t broken. She wasn’t destroyed. She was simply biding hertime.
She would find a way out of this. Somehow, someway, she would find a way to avenge her parents. She would figure out how to free herself and her sisters from this awful, pitiful existence as prisoners and give them a better life, the life they deserved. Because she didn’t believe, she couldn’t believe, that this was all fate had in store forher.
She had faith that she was meant formore.
All her life, there were two things that kept her going, her family and her faith in the greater plan. Infate.
Maybe some people thought that was silly. Believing in something she couldn’t see. Believing that there was a higher power guiding her and a reason for everything that happened. Maybe for some people it was easier to think they were in control of their own life, their own choices, but as a born shifter, a werewolf, Luna had always known that shewasn’t.
Fate had a plan for her, a path she was destined to walk, and shebelieved.
Fate would provide her with a way to save her family. She was sure of it. Sometimes it just gave you the long road, or the hard road, to get there, and she knew all aboutthat.
Luna had been born of one of the most powerful Alpha lines in shifter history. Her family had ruled the Crescent pack for generations. It had been passed down through her family without a single challenge to their leadership because they were strong, fierce but fair. Her siblings had all inherited the Alpha power that came with being DeLucawolves.
But shehadn’t.
Luna had been born a Beta. A follower instead of a leader. And worse, her wolf wasn’t just weaker than her siblings, a worker instead of a fighter, her wolf was alsosubmissive.
She was an anomaly. A wolf with royal blood but no Alpha power to reign. She was a princess in name only, a DeLuca that would never rule and neverlead.
She’d come to terms with that. She’d learned to deal with the hand that fate had dealt her. So she wasn’t the strongest wolf in the pack? She compensated for it in every otherway.
She’d trained beside her twin brother, Leo, since they were kids. She worked out with the Pack Enforcers to stay strong, flexible and alert. She’d enrolled in continuing education courses after high school, taking business classes on leadership so she could advise her father and brother when the time came. She’d learned to work with what fate had given her and she’d been content, happy even, with the life she had made forherself.
Only, a few months ago, everything she thought she knew about her future hadchanged.
Her youngest sister, Nova, had announced that Lunawouldbe a leader. Not in the Crescent pack but in another. Nova was a Seer, gifted with visions of the future, and she’d predicted that Luna would cross paths with her mate soon. Not a Crescent male but an Alpha nonetheless. She’d said Luna would help him lead his own pack and that they would be happy because it was a good match fate had given them. Nova had been sure that Luna would get her happily ever after with her very own prince charming, so much so that she’d told anyone who would listen about herprediction.
Luna had laughed it off. It was an absurd daydream of a little girl that wanted the best for her big sister. That was all. Luna couldn’t be the fated mate of an Alpha. She was submissive and a Pack Alpha needed a strong female at his side to help lead. Luna hadn’t taken the vision seriously for so much as a minute before dismissing itcompletely.
But Maddoxhad.
The handsome, charming wolf that had set his sights on her and spent ages trying to woo her to his side, had lost his damn mind when he heard she was fated to another. It hadn’t mattered that they both knew she wasn’t fated to him all along. They were both of age and the bond had never flickered between them, not once. It was why she’d turned down his advances again and again. His persistence had at first been flattering, then annoying and finally, as his mask of kindness and charm had fallen away,terrifying.
Maddox wanted her and he’d made it clear he would do whatever he had to in order to keep her, willingly ornot.
It hadn’t occurred to her, at least not at first, that he was plotting more than just their mating. It should have. She wasn’t exactly a catch, royal DeLuca blood or no, being a submissive wolf. But that had never seemed to bother Maddox and it had taken her far too long to realizewhy.
He hadn’t wanted her despite her submissive wolf… he’d wanted her because ofit.
He’d thought she would be an easy target. A submissive wolf he could easily sway with his Alpha power. She was supposed to have been his way in with the DeLuca family. God only knew what he’d had planned for her and her family if she’d agreed to mate with him then but she’d spent a lot of time thinking about how sneaky and stealthily he could’ve wormed his way in and hurt her father and brother after he threw her in a basement, handcuffed her to a wall with silver and set about destroying everyone and everything sheloved.
Nova’s vision had changed everything. Maddox had known she wouldn’t agree to mate him. And he’d given up any and all plans to go about his coup under theradar.
