Mrs. Pitts was an elderly wolf, and also Ann's loving grandmother, living at the edge of the town, she was barely seen by anyone except for her family.

My stomach churned at the sight of the sweet pudding she had made for us tonight. Turning around the spoon in the bowl, I glared at the gooeyness slithering down.

No. This wasn't for me.

Faking a smile, I placed the pudding back on the table and then shook my head.

"Don't you like it, honey?" Mrs. Pitts asked me.

Ann jerked her head at her, her eyes begging not to break her Granny's heart.

"No, it's great!" I replied. "I'm just on a low-sugar diet so I can't have much sugar,"

"Oh, I can make something else for you then," she offered, getting up.

"No, no, no. I'm not hungry. Thank you," I ran to her side and kept her seated down. Anything else that would go in my stomach would give me an ache for the next whole week. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you something." I jumped right into the topic.

"Is it the smell of the man you have over your body or something else?" Her fierce sea-blue eyes burned right through my soul.

"Ho-how did you know?"

"I know that man very well." She said in a soft whisper, barely making it's way to my ears. "Although, you shouldn't have allowed him to claim you, Lilliana, not until you had Richard's permission."

A string of cold shiver raced down my back and I shifted over my seat. "I know. And, it was a mistake. I didn't realize until Ann told me."

"I won't tell Richard but you will need to tell him soon, before things go astray."

"I will," I nodded, promising. It couldn't be hidden for long but I just wanted to know who he was before I went to Alpha Richard and everyone else at the pack. "Who is he, Mrs. Pitts?" My face softened with eagerness.

Tension dispersed around the room. Mrs. Pitts eyes darkened as she began, "Lorenzo Boyd. He was the former Alpha of The Scarlet Pride."

The Scarlet Pride was a pack settled nearby, beyond the forest. We never heard much about them as it was enclosed but the only thing we knew that it was ruled by a female Alpha as of now.

It was destroyed on 1995, June 3rd, five years after I was born. We were taught in our history lesson that the Battle of Krath was the worst thing that happened in our werewolf world. Our pack never went into war with anyone so we were safe.

But, the beast, he was an Alpha. It came to me as a shock. At least, I knew something now.

Ann shuffled, and asked her grandmother. "But, isn't that pack ruled by a female now?"

"Yes, it's temporarily ruled by Layla Boyd, but she isn't an Alpha which is the reason why the pack doesn't participates in any events." The tension in the room eased down but I still had so many questions and so many doubts.

Why was I mated to an Alpha? Only high-ranking females were mated to Alpha's and I wasn't that. I was just warrior, a position I just took recently.

Mrs. Pitts looked at my direction with pity in her eyes. "It's not a happy story, Lilliana. Do you want to know more?"

"Yes," I mumbled.

"Lorenzo lost his father in the battle and when everything was destroyed, including his pack, he went into hiding and had been staying at the National Forest of Blackpool since then."

"Since fifteen years?" I raised a brow. That was way too long to hide.

"Yes. There are not many people who know about him. Some of us believe that Lorenzo died during the battle of Krath, along with his father but that isn't the truth." She continued.

We believed that as well. We were taught in our history lessons that the Alpha never survived the battle and he died along with so many other wolves.

"Is that why he's known as the beast?"

She cocked her head at me, releasing a little laugh out of her throat. "Oh, no, sweetheart. No one knows who lives in the forest except for a few of us. The name was given to him because he has been killing every single man and woman that steps into his territory, without any reason. Be innocent or not, Lorenzo kills anyone and then, feeds on them."

I gasped as Mrs. Pitts finished. "Feeds?" We, werewolves, never fed on anyone. That wasn't necessary.

"His beast feeds on the remains of anyone that he kills. It's an ancient practice where our fore-fathers believed that we could get stronger by feeding onto others." Mrs. Pitts gave me a grim sort of smile and it terrified me. "Of course, it isn't practiced anymore." She laughed, touching my shoulder.

My eye twitched. Was Mrs. Pitts okay? I glanced over at Ann and Cora and they had the same face as me.

"Girls. It's nothing big!"

"So, it's fine to feed on someone, granny?" Ann asked.

She gave another dark, bitter smile. "It used to be fine in my time."

God.

I felt the contents inside my stomach spinning and reaching up at my throat just as I imagined Mrs. Pitts feeding on another wolf. That was disgusting. Cannibalism at it's peak.

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll stop, just calm down. We don't practice it anymore." She said, calming us down. Just as we settled our fears down, Mrs. Pitts looked at me, "Lilliana."

"Yeah?"

"Did you tell your parents?"

"Yes, I did." It was the first thing that came into my mind when I came back here. I couldn't keep a single secret away from my parents and thankfully, they were accepting of this.

"What did they say?"

"Nothing. They were just shocked, like of all us are." I shrugged. "But, how do you know so much, Mrs. Pitts?"

"Because I was a member of the Scarlet Pride before it was destroyed, along with my children and your parents." She said, surprising all of us in the room.

No way. My parents always told me that we were all here, since the beginning. They had never mentioned the Scarlet Pride in all my life of living. I felt the ground underneath me shake with the revelation. It couldn't be a possibility.

"Mom and Dad too?" Ann asked, her voice loud as she whipped her head.

"Yes,"

"And, me? Was I born there too?" I didn't bother asking anything until Ann was done. Our parents kept a massive secret from us.

"Yes. There were a lot of us that moved from the Scarlet Pride to here as we were aware of what misery the battle was going to bring." Mrs. Pitts explained, saddened. "It was at the time of Lorenzo's ruling when the battle happened. He allowed us to leave before we died which we would have if we stayed."

It took a moment for all us to register the truth that we had never been told.

"Was I born there as well?" I asked her.

"Jessica gave birth to you there, right on the same day when Lorenzo was crowned as the Alpha, 1990 March 14."

A wave of nausea struck me and the spoon of pudding I accidentally ate was at the verge of coming out. I placed my hand over my mouth and pressed my back against the couch, taking in everything Mrs. Pitts had told me. This was a lot more than I had imagined. I expected a few details, maybe that the beast was some normal wolf and that my parents weren't under his ruling as his subjects. And, maybe that I wasn't born on the same day my mate was crowned as an Alpha.