Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

Maddy saw her father frown in displeasure as he said, "The little idiot was swimming down with some human equipment. He crossed the boundary, so I turned him to stone. He’s one of the monsters, I froze him in his human form."

"You shouldn’t bring things like this home and take it straight to the prison, Nalu. The kids are growing, and they’re soon going to start seeing and understanding this. You should—"

Maddy didn’t get to see the stone figure, nor finish hearing what her mother was saying, as Natasha pulled her away before they got caught.

"Hey, I just want to see it once." Maddy pursed her lips, and her twin rolled her eyes. "Mama doesn’t want us to see it, so we won’t see it."

Maddy wasn’t pleased, and her curiosity about what the people living outside the water looked like only grew, she wanted, more than anything, to see life outside the sea.

That night, as they ate and settled to sleep in their cave room, Maddy was unable to fall asleep, having caught a glimpse of the stone figure her father brought back and seen what the land dweller walked with, feet.

She looked at her twin, who was sleeping, and quietly swam away from her, out of the cave, her Tidekin following behind and asking, "Where are you going?"

"Shh, keep your voice down. I want to see the prisoner Papa brought back." She whispered.

However, Maddy never got to see or even reach the chamber before she was caught by her mother and taken back to her cave, scolded for roaming around.

Every day, the curiosity grew in her heart, all the way into her teenage years, but by then, Maddy no longer wanted to see the stone. She wanted to see the real thing.

Which was why, on the mermaids’ Sea Festival, when all the merfolk swam closer to the surface to perform the celebration and sing together, Maddy slipped away from the crowd and swam all the way up to the surface. Sunlight hit her for the first time of her life, and she was so fascinated by it that she stared up at it until dots swam before her eyes.

Staring at the sun for so long left her vision strange when she finally looked away, and she nearly missed the ship coming across the top of the water until she heard loud sounds and laughter and quickly ducked behind a large rock jutting out of the water.

The person laughing stood on the deck of the ship, talking to a woman next to him. He had black, ebony hair that ruffled in the wind, and wore a yellow shirt, unbuttoned at the front to reveal a hard chest, with matching trousers. He was tall, and... handsome, and Maddy found herself mesmerized by him.

"I thought Mama said they were hideous..."

Maddy stared at the man, unable to look away, until, as though he felt eyes on him from her direction, he stopped talking and looked toward her. Their eyes locked, and everything seemed to freeze in the curious mermaid’s world, something inside her heart shifting. She watched his eyes narrow as he ordered,

"Stop the ship, there’s a woman in the water!" He yelled out, and Maddy snapped back to her senses just as her twin surfaced and dragged her back under, right as the man jumped into the water as though to rescue her.

It was sheer luck that the man didn’t see them as they hid and watched him searching around, as if trying to find the woman he’d glimpsed, until he couldn’t hold his breath any longer and surfaced. They heard him talking to his people on the deck who had rushed at his shout,

"I saw someone, I could swear it!"

"Then where is she? You’re probably too drunk, you’re starting to hallucinate, Brother Vincent. Let’s get you out of the water, Mother is waiting at home for the grand dinner."

Maddy pulled away from her sister and surfaced just as the ship was pulling away, watching from a distance as the woman wrapped a cloth around the man, ruffling his hair.

"Vincent..." Maddy whispered, her blue eyes glimmering like stars.

"You are in so much trouble, Maddy. I am so telling Mama you broke rule number one!" Natasha had said as they swam back home.

However, Natasha never told their parents, knowing there was a punishment for breaking that rule about the surface. They kept it between themselves, and Maddy couldn’t get the man she’d seen out of her mind.

From that day on, the mermaid no longer found contentment in the sea and found herself drawn to land. More than once, she slipped away in hopes of seeing him and never did, and everytime it left a hollow feeling in her chest.

Eventually, Maddy couldn’t take it anymore. She made the decision on a whim, having grown into an adult mermaid with all her abilities surfacing, she now had the power to change shape, and so she gave herself the one thing forbidden to mermaids: legs. And she went to land after saying goodbye to her family, who were asleep.

Viola, watching all of this, saw how fate had brought their mother back to meet their father after she’d defied the sea’s rules to have feet. Forced to live on the streets, knowing nothing about land, she was so naive that she nearly got gang-raped on the streets of... Mooncreek Pack. The same pack that had been flooded...she thought privately to herself.

Viola watched with tension in her bones as her mother struggled against the men attacking her in the alley where she had been sleeping.

Then, out of nowhere, a man appeared and ordered them to back off, and when they refused, a fight broke out in the street, one that reminded Viola of her own first meeting with Sebastian, in the forest, and made her think maybe it was fate.

"Are you all right?" The man asked Maddy, who was crouched in the corner, scared and shivering, clutching the tattered cloth she’d managed to secure since arriving on land a month ago.

Maddy shook her head. "They were hurting me..."

"That’s all right, miss, I’ve got you. Come here." Said the man, holding his hand out to her. "I’ll make sure they never lay a hand on another woman again. Come on." He coaxed, and Maddy moved out of the corner, about to place her hand in his, until her eyes fell on his face and she froze.

"Vincent..." She muttered, taking the man by surprise.

"You know my name," he said, and then let out a husky laugh. "Of course you’d know my name, everyone knows the Alpha heir, don’t they?" He mused, taking her hand and helping her out of the corner, adding, "Only, not everyone says it right to my face, you’re a brave one. What’s your name— whoa!" He remarked when she suddenly threw her arms around him, crying into his chest as she hugged him tightly.

"I have looked for you all over the land. I thought you weren’t real..."

Vincent, the Alpha heir of Mooncreek, was taken aback by the woman hugging him, but being who he was, easygoing by nature, he put his arms around her and patted her back.

"Shh, you found me now. Where is your home, miss? I can walk you there."

Vincent soon realized he’d found himself a stray with no home to speak of, and not wanting to leave her alone, for reasons that twisted something in his chest, he took her back to the pack house, and soon Maddy was assigned to work among the omegas.

She stayed there for months.

"Aren’t you getting a little too attached to that girl?" His sister asked him one night, while Maddy was cleaning his shoes in his room.

"Mind your business, Clara. I just find her fascinating, that’s all." Vincent said, looking at Maddy, who raised her head to look at him before shyly glancing away, since just before his sister walked in, they’d been kissing.

"I hope you remember you’re betrothed to another. Stop leading the poor girl on."

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