Odette's eyes widened. Her already pale face turned even paler under the dim light as she couldn't believe what she just heard.
Her body froze instantly. She could do nothing but stare at him with a mixture of fear and disbelief, simply because she thought it wasn't possible.
This man… surely wouldn't want her to 'mate' with him, right?
The Masked Alpha waited for a while before repeating, "Do you not hear me? I said, take your dress off."
"Y-Your Majesty, in any werewolf culture, mating is a very sacred thing. We can only mate with our fated one, because once we get marked, then we will be exclusive," Odette explained. She wasn't sure if the Masked Alpha had forgotten about this ancient rule. After all, he was also a werewolf, surely he knew this, right?
"You don't need to be fated to mate," the Masked Alpha said coldly. "I can mark you, and you will be exclusive to me, but not the other way around."
"B-but…"
The light in Odette's eyes dimmed as she realized the kind of familiar situation she was in.
Iron, her adopted brother and the new Alpha of her pack, also wanted to do the same thing. He wanted to mark her and turn her into a mere sex slave while he was ruling because he hadn't found his fated mate yet.
But by doing so, Odette's ties with her fated mate would be severed, and she would stay as a sex slave, or at best, a concubine, for the rest of her life.
There were a few cases like this in her pack, and since she had no wolf, she was deemed a burden. Even if someone raped and marked her, nobody would bat an eye.
"Your Majesty, I… I still want to find my fated mate…" Odette begged weakly. "I may be wolfless, but I still want to have a proper family with my fated one, and have offspring with him. If you mark me, even if you and I aren't fated, then I will never be able to have a cub…"
…
There was no answer from the Masked Alpha. He continued to look down at her with his red eyes and repeated, "Take off your dress. It is an order."
…
Odette's heart sank to the bottom as she realized there was no escaping her terrible fate. She thought that she had a second chance in life once she was saved by this man.
She might never have glory in her life, but if she could find her fated one and start a family somewhere, even if they were living in a small den, it wouldn't matter. As long as she could have a family.
'But you are the same,' Odette thought while staring at those red eyes. 'In the end, I cannot escape my terrible fate. I am doomed to be a concubine, a sex slave that will be tossed once you've found your fated one…'
It took a while for Odette to suppress the grief in her heart. She wanted to run away and leave this kingdom right now. But knowing this Masked Alpha's omnipotent power, her fate had been sealed the moment he found her in the forest.
Odette took a deep breath to numb her heart, and slowly took off the dress from the top, exposing her breasts in front of this cruel and perverted Masked Alpha.
It was humiliating, and she wanted to cry when those red eyes looked down at her like she was just an item to be appraised.
She wanted to get over this immediately. However, just as she wanted to pull her dress further down, the Masked Alpha suddenly said, "Turn around. I want to see your back."
Odette nodded weakly. As she had resigned to her fate, she turned around, thinking that he wanted to bite her nape and mark her, sealing her fate as nothing but a sex slave.
"Don't look back before I say so," he ordered before taking off his skull mask.
Odette didn't dare to look back. Besides, why would she want that, knowing that she would gaze into the eyes of the man who would ruin her life forever?
Her body trembled when she felt his hot breath gently brushing her nape and shoulder. She was scared, so scared that she started sobbing.
But the man behind her wasn't moved at all by her tears. He kept sniffing the scent coming from her nape. His gaze traveled down her back. A frown appeared on his face as he asked, "Do you have any birthmark on your back?"
Odette's body stiffened.
She paused for a few seconds and replied, "No, Your Majesty."
If she was honest, then she would say yes. She was actually born with a crescent shaped birthmark on her back, right under her nape.
But in her culture, it was considered a sign of bad luck, or at least that was what the elders said. They even said that she should've been killed as a cub for bearing that mark.
Thus, out of her adopted parents' kindness, she underwent a ritual when she was seven. The skin around the birthmark was burned until the mark disappeared. A mysterious leaf that worsened the pain was placed on top of the scar for a few days until the skin was fully recovered.
As she grew older, the burn scar gradually faded to the point that it looked like the birthmark was never there in the first place.
She had never set foot outside of her pack's territory, and truly believed the elders' words. So she lied to the Masked Alpha, fearing that he would've killed her if he found out, or worse, tortured her.
The face of the man behind Odette twisted, and he snapped instantly as he took a step back from her, "TRASH!"
Odette jolted. She couldn't help but look over her shoulder to see the man behind her and saw him already putting the wolf skull mask back on.
He already took a step back from her, and looked at her with a condescending gaze, as if he was looking at nothing but an insect.
"You are not her," he stated coldly.