As I headed towards the Pack house, my stomach filled with dread. I am so in for it now. I wonder what my punishment will be? No food for a week? Doing all the work for a month? I stopped at the front door and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and slowly entered to my doom.

"THERE SHE IS!!" came the shriek of the banshee herself.

I looked round the room and noticed most of the pack and right in front was Alpha Dan glaring right at me. I looked at Alpha Dan and immediately felt ashamed of myself. I looked down at the floor suddenly finding the wooden flooring interesting.

"To my office. Now." Came the formidable imposing voice of the Alpha eerily calm.

I kept my eyes down as I did the walk of shame through the pack, following Alpha Dan towards his office.

Once we reached the office, I felt like I could vomit right there and then.

"Sit." Came the voice of the Alpha, breaking me from my thoughts.

As I walked to the seat in front of Alpha Dan's desk, I could hear the door click behind me as Beta Mike entered the room.

"Explain yourself." Said Alpha Dan as he sat behind his desk.

"I came in here to begin spring cleaning and all I was doing was looking out the window...briefly (Yes I told a little white lie!) when Belinda th- Belinda stormed in here and started hurling abuse at me for no reason. I admit I did hit her but she had it coming! Then Beta comes in and breaks us up but doesn't even give me a chance to tell him what really happened! Belinda spouted out a ton of lies about me and Beta Mike just took her word for it instead of hearing me out! At that point I needed to get out of here before I lost it so I shifted to calm myself down. I'm sorry for running away Alpha but I needed to calm down before I made the situation worse than what it already was." At that point, I had got out of my seat and pointed towards Beta Mike.

At this point, Alpha Dan looked towards Beta Mike and shook his head.

"Take a seat Sophia."

At his word, I sat back down again.

"I can see why you did what you did, but you know that harming a fellow member of the pack is subject to punishment so I will think up a suitable punishment and will get back to you. As for you Beta Mike, we will have a chat now about your conduct. Sophia, please carry on with your duties."

"Yes Alpha." And with that, I left the room to carry on cleaning.

Later that day, the whole pack received a mindlink that there was to be an urgent pack meeting in the evening after dinner. The rest of the day, there was a huge buzz around the pack about this urgent meeting. There were all sorts of theories going around the pack ranging from the alliance with the neighbouring pack and even talk of my punishment which I swear I heard someone mention a public flogging??!!

I spent the rest of the day with my head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone and getting on with cleaning.

Eventually the time came for the urgent pack meeting. Everyone gathered outside where a stage was set up for the Alpha to address the whole pack. He walked through the crowd with his family in tow and climbed onto the stage. All the chatter dies down as soon as he was visible on stage. I stood right at the back where I couldn't be seen.

Alpha Dan began to speak "I have some exciting news from the King himself!"

There was more chatter all around.

"Quiet down everybody!" came the Alpha's booming voice.

Once everybody had gone quiet, Alpha Dan carried on.

"All packs including ours have been invited to a prestigious ball hosted by the King at the Palace to celebrate his birthday next weekend."

At this, everybody went wild! At this point, the Alpha dismissed everybody. As we walked towards the pack house, I looked at Hannah excited.

"Do you know what this means?! It means we may find our mates at this ball and finally get out of here and be free!" exclaimed Hannah in a hushed tone so nobody could overhear our conversation.

"You're right, but you know at these stuffy balls, everybody will be dressed to the nines!" I told Hannah. "I don't know about you but I don't have anything to wear and I can't even think about affording any of those kind of gowns."

Hannah frowned at me like I had eaten her favourite chocolate bar. All of a sudden, she had a great idea.

"How about we ask Alpha Dan to allow us to go into town and we can hit the charity shops. " she suggested.

"Good idea, we will see him tomorrow and ask." I replied.

"Sophia, come and see me in my office. We need to talk." I heard Alpha Dan mind link me.

"I have to go see Alpha Dan in his office. He wants to talk to me. Probably about my punishment." I said to Hannah.

"Would be a good time to ask him about us getting the morning off to get dresses for the ball." Hannah suggested.

"Will do. I got to go." I replied.

I headed towards the Alpha's office. Once I got there, Alpha Dan was already seated behind his desk. I knocked on the door and heard Alpha Dan tell me to come in. I opened the door and entered the office. I shut the door behind me and looked towards the Alpha.

"Take a seat Sophia." He said. I sat down on a chair in front of him.

"I have decided your punishment Sophia."

I kept my eyes on him anticipating his response.

"You will not attend the ball at the weekend." He said.