The Lycan’s Cinderella

"I am the fastest boy ever lived. You can not catch me, Lia; na na na na," Nathan sang, sticking his tongue at me as he ran further ahead.

I ran after my twelve-old brother immediately, which I almost had him until I tripped over a rock and landed on my face in mud.

"Lia, you look like a clown with all that sand on your face," Nathan replied with a chuckle.

I responded, "You sure talk so much trash, to be twelve."

"Just because you are the oldest does not mean you get to bully me."

"Let's race, the first one to make it to that tree wins" I pointed to the tree.

"Ok Lia, how about we place a bet? You get to do all my chores for a month if I win, including my homework," Nathan said.

"Ok, Nate, you're on, but if I win, you have to do anything I'll tell you to do.?

"Deal" Nathan shouted.

"Ok, let's get into the running position."

As soon as we were ready, I began to count. "Ok, on the count of Three. Two. One. Go." 

And so we ran, Nathan taking the lead, I caught up with him though. He gave me a look of shock, which I accepted, giving him a smirk running past him. I was the first to reach the tree as Nathan came from behind.

"Okay, sis,” he said while panting as he tries to get a hold of his breath. “A deal is a deal, what do I have to do?" Nathan ask.

When I was about to say something, I heard a twig snap that alerted Nathan and me. Two tall men came out from the brushes out of nowhere, and I grabbed Nathan placing him behind me.

I ask, "Who are you, and what do you want?"

One man walked forward to speak, "We are here for you, Natalia." The man said.

"How do you know my name?"

"That is not important. The important thing here is that you will be coming with us."

"I'm not going anywhere with you two."

"Nathan, I will distract these two, I want you to run and get help," I whisper.

"Ok, sis."

I turn back to the two men. Both men seemed to notice their eyes were clouded for a while as they were both dazed. Oh moon goddess, I hope Nathan runs as fast as possible before they snap out of whatever it is that’s keeping them paused. 

When the men's eyes went back to normal, they noticed that Nathan was gone.

"I advise you two to leave before my dad comes here and rip you two into pieces."

Both men smirked. "You have no idea at all, do you?" One man with the scar on his face said.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You will find out," The other man said, walking towards me. Grabbed by my arm, he lifted me by placing me over his right shoulder. I began to kick, and scream, as we were heading to my yard, hoping someone hears me. 

I kicked the man so hard in his chest, he loosened up his grip on me and I broke free, running to the front, and ran straight to my father who was sitting at the porch.

"Dad, help, some men are after me," I told him with tears coming from my eyes while embracing him. When I pulled away, I looked into his eyes, showing emptiness and disgust which confused me.

"Dad…” I looked back to see the men walking towards us slowly. “What is going on?" I ask, feeling scared.

"I have sold you, my child, to another Alpha, you are no longer a pack member of this pack." He said with no emotion.

I chuckled hard as I know my dad likes to joke around me but when I looked at his face, it bore no emotion as I was used to.

"You cannot be serious Dad. Why would you sell me off?" I ask with more tears coming out of my eyes.

"Because our pack is male dominant, and you know that it's always been a tradition that the Alpha's firstborn would rule the pack. Since you are my firstborn, I am supposed to hand the title over to you,” he looked at me with disgust. “Over my dead body. You females are weak. And I will not let you disgrace this pack.”

I pleaded, "Daddy please, if that's all you are worried about, then we can alter the truth,” I pleaded for my life. “Nathan can take over as planned because my mate will be in another pack, I won’t be in his way, so it's a win-win situation. Everyone will be happy and no one outside the pack will have to know.”

"That’s the point Natalia, I will know and the pack knows and Nathan knows. You know how stories fly, soon people outside our pack will know, and I’m not going to risk that. Take her away, boys.” The man I called father said.

Immediately the men grabbed me, and I could not break loose. I looked at my dad again and I asked, “If you care so much about your reputation then, why not give me up at birth?”

“Cause your mother wanted you, I on the other hand did not. Why do you think most of the time you were dressed like a boy? I only kept you around long enough so I could sell you, trust me you were worth every penny.” He said with a smirk. 

I took one look into my father's eyes and said. “I hate you, you selfish b*st*rd, I hope that we never cross paths in the future if we do, I will kill you.” I said, walking off. 

“Save it for your buyers,” my father laughed as he entered the place I once called home.

As we exit, I say the words I never thought I would say “I Natalia Joy Cheshire, cut all ties with The Cheshire Husk pack.”

——

I had just been dragged from my cells still within Cheshire Husk pack when the pyre began burning.

I wasn’t supposed to see it. I assumed my ex Father had ordered the guards to keep me blindfolded and gagged until the boats left the river dock. But one of them—young, nervous, barely eighteen—fumbled the knot. The cloth slipped just enough for me to catch the orange glow through the trees, and that was all it took. One glimpse. Enough to brand itself behind my eyes forever.

They’d built the pyre at the edge of the ceremonial clearing—the same place where pups shifted for the first time, where mates were marked under the full moon, where the pack gathered to celebrate life. Tonight it held a mannequin dressed in my favorite blue cloak. The one Mother had sewn for me when I was younger, her hands careful with every stitch, humming a song I could no longer remember the words to. Flames licked up the fabric, turning silk to ash. The entire Moon Whisper pack stood in a half-circle, heads bowed, murmuring prayers to the Moon Goddess for the soul of Natalia Cheshire—firstborn daughter of Alpha Richard, taken too soon in a tragic fall from the northern cliffs.

Sixteen years old. Dead.

I watched from the shadows, wrists bound with silver-laced rope that burned my skin, mouth stuffed with a rag that tasted of old blood. Father stood at the front, shoulders squared, voice steady as he spoke the eulogy.

“She was brave,” he said, loud enough for the wind to carry. “Fierce in spirit, loyal to her pack. But the Goddess called her home early. We honor her memory by protecting what remains—our future. Nathan, my son, will carry our bloodline forward as the sole heir.”

Nathan stood beside him, fourteen and already taller than most warriors, eyes glassy. He didn’t look toward the trees where I was hidden. Maybe he couldn’t see me. Maybe he didn’t want to.

A low whine built in my chest—not mine. Something deeper, older. It clawed up my throat and pressed against my skull like claws on bone.

“Easy, child.” The voice was calm and warm, like sunlight on fur. “Breathe. I’m here.”

I had never heard her before. Not clearly. Whispers sometimes, flickers of instinct when Father’s temper turned my way, but never words. Never this.

“Who…?”

But no one answered. My knees buckled. The guard caught me before I hit the ground, hissing against my ear, “Quiet, girl. You’re supposed to be dead already.”

Father raised a torch and touched it to the kindling at the base of my effigy. Flames roared higher. Someone—probably one of the elder females or my mother—began the mourning howl. The pack joined, a wave of grief that rolled over me like cold water.

They mourned a lie.

And I was still breathing.

Father turned then, eyes scanning the treeline. For one terrible second, our gazes locked across the dark. No remorse. No flicker of doubt. Just cold calculation—the same look he gave his beta before a trade. He’d planned this. The accident story. The pyre. Selling me to the Black Thorn pack across the river before dawn. Erasing the firstborn daughter so no one could ever challenge Nathan’s claim. Women didn’t inherit in Moon Whisper. Not while he ruled.

The guard yanked me back into the dark. “Move.”

We reached the dock in silence. A flat-bottomed boat waited, two men in Black Thorn colors standing at the oars. One tossed a heavy sack of coin to Father’s beta without looking at me. The other grabbed my arm and hauled me aboard like cargo—because that’s what I was now. Cargo. A transaction.

As the boat pushed off, the howls faded behind us. Moonlight shattered on the water. I stared at the receding shore until it blurred.

They think I’m dead, I thought.

The silver rope bit deeper. My vision swam.

It hurts. But I guess pain means I am still here.

I closed my eyes as the current carried us away. By morning I would belong to strangers. By nightfall, I would learn what it meant to be nothing at all.

But I wasn’t nothing.

Not anymore.

And somewhere deep inside, something sealed shut—not a wound, but a door. Power flickered behind it, faint and waiting.

I felt it. Even though my father had abandoned me, I know the Moon Goddess had not.

She’d just hidden me in plain sight.

In the skin of a ghost.

Waking up from the dream I just had for the second time this week, you would think it was not real and it was just your imagination playing with you. I hate to disappoint you, it was real and yes it all happened like that from the beginning to the end. 

This is my nightmare that I have every single night since that day, waking up to my reality hoping I was somewhere else. I get upset each day because my wish never comes true, tired of feeling sorry for myself. 

I get on up and get ready for the day. Right now, I’m laying on a twin-size dirty mattress in the dungeon complimentary from the attention seeker Luna. Luna Tracy cannot stand my sight because her mate Alpha Dillon has a sort of obsession with me.

I am not kidding. It is like whenever we are in the same room, no matter the length of the room or the distance between us, the Alpha finds a war to look at me seductively, like he wants to rip my clothes off, and f*ck me on the table. On the o