First Blood

By Zelda Knight

A secret baby.

A rejected mate.

The Beastman who claims her.

Stay away from Naomi Green. That’s all I’ve heard since I was a child. That I was a cursed, unwanted thing destined to be sacrificed to a vicious god. So it came as no surprise when my witch of a mother dumped me in the Silver Forest to be claimed when I turned eighteen.

Tucked away in Luna Cove for my entire life, where shifters roam and slayers hunt, I’m used to encountering the paranormal. But nothing prepares me for meeting the Beastman, a god among the immortal. He towers over me, covered in glossy black fur with wickedly sharp claws and eyes the color of blood.

His instincts demand an omega like me submit. But little does he know I’m carrying a secret from the first time we met. Rejected, I’ve plotted his downfall ever since. Now, under the blood moon, it’s time for my revenge.

First Blood (Beastmen of Luna Cove, Book One) is a dark curvy girl omegaverse monster romance set in the Atherverse Universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AURELIA LEO
• Release date: Jun 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781954541245

Zelda Knight

Zelda Knight is a USA Today bestselling author of steamy romance, a British Fantasy Award-winning, and NAACP Image Award-nominated editor, as well as a diverse bookseller. She’s also the publisher and editor-in-chief of Aurelia Leo, an independent Nebula Award-nominated press. Zelda co-edited Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (Aurelia Leo, 2020), which has received critical acclaim, and Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction (Tordotcom, 2022). Keep in touch on social media @AuthorZKnight. Or, visit her website authorzknight.com. You can also email [e-mail].

Book preview

Chapter 1

Naomi

Stay away from Naomi Green. That’s all I’ve heard since I was a child. That I was a cursed, unwanted thing that was destined to be sacrificed to a vicious god. So it came as no surprise when my witch of a mother dumped me in the Silver Forest to be claimed when I turned eighteen.

Get out, she spat as we stopped on a desolate road far away from the only home I had ever known.

She got out, and I stayed inside our beatdown truck, eyes lingering on the sky. The night was quiet and still, the sky moonless without a trace of starlight. Pitch black like my heart.

It was a night like death—the best time to be reborn. And reborn I would be, come hell or high water. I was tired of being that wicked witch’s punching bag.

The same wicked witch I’d hated for eighteen long years, masquerading as a mother. She stood before me in a skimpy white club outfit with high-heeled black boots. Mother poured my virgin blood on a black slab of stone in the middle of a summoning circle that glowed crimson red.

She’d gotten back from a night out earlier that evening, high and drunk out of her mind. But for once, she was happy to see me instead of ready to take out all her anger on me, her haggard face transforming into a bright smile when she arrived at our cabin in Half-Moon Woods.

It scared me so much that I nearly bolted from our rundown house, seeing her smiling because of me rather than at the aftermath of whatever her twisted mind conjured up to do to me. But it soon clicked in my mind as to why. After all, she’d kept me around all this time, hoping to win the lottery.

And finally, she had hit the jackpot—the confirmation that I wasn’t an ordinary shifter.

Soon, the snow-white trees before her began to sway and part, opening a secret passageway to our destination. Where exactly, I only partially knew. I didn’t know what to expect on the other side, either. But I knew the general area very well. All Kin shifters did.

Yurel, surrounding Luna Cove—the Forest of the Beastkin, of the Beastmen, of the gods.

Most shifters never made it over the border between worlds. I would be one of the lucky few to cross over into Atheria, a world similar to ours, infused with magic beyond mortal comprehension.

As an omega, at that. Only the rich and powerful in my caste ever stood a chance of crossing over.

And it was all made possible because of that tainted blood my mother finished pouring over the black stone, tossing the heart-shaped vial it was in, to the ground, once it was empty.

It was disgusting when I really thought about it for too long, how my period was my key to this magical world and the upper echelons of Kin society. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. 

My first blood spelled the end of my disastrous childhood. Good riddance. I’d waited too many years to become a woman. To unlock my inner she-wolf and escape from my mother’s clutches.

Now today is that day.

I stepped outside the truck, knowing my time was up under her iron fist. It was time to step into a brave new world. And to be claimed by my so-called fated mate. However, I’d face that hurdle once it came. For now, I focused on the Blood Moon Ceremony ahead.

Mother turned around, glaring at me as she stormed over.

Come on. Let’s get on with it, she gritted out, slurring, her vice-like grip tight against the fat of my upper arm as she dragged me down the winding, ghastly road toward the portal.

But before we could get too far, I pulled away, scooped up the empty bottle, and marched ahead. For once, mother didn’t go into full-blown theatrics about me being overdramatic and ungrateful, an insolent little bitch, and all her other favorite accusations. Probably because she was just as happy as me to be free of each other. Soon, anyway, our mutual torment would be over.

Tucked away in Luna Cove for my entire life, where shifters roam and slayers hunt, I was used to encountering the paranormal. But even I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when we finally crossed the border into Yurel proper, the domain of the first Kin shifters.

As we emerged, I sucked in a sharp breath, the passageway behind us sealing shut with overgrown tree branches and vines. A much larger summoning circle was at the bottom of a snowy hill. In the center were two masked figures cloaked in black. On one half of the ring, alphas stood shoulder to shoulder. There had to be at least fifty of them in total. And mirroring them were the omegas, no more than twenty-or-so strong.

The imbalance between alphas and omegas never seemed so apparent to me until I witnessed it with my own eyes. And alphas and omegas were still vastly outnumbered by betas barred from entering this deep into the woods.

Move it! my mother sneered, thrusting me forward with a harsh shoulder bump.

I nearly tumbled down the hillside, my ratty sneakers digging into the frozen ground to stop myself from falling. Finally, I regained my composure long enough to shoot that bitch a venomous glare. She often acted like a vindictive and petty older sister rather than the she-wolf who birthed me.

Under normal circumstances, she would’ve slapped the shit out of me for glaring at her. But today, I was special, precious, and to be protected…

For now, anyway. Until my alpha claimed me, and I traded my cruel mistress for a bastard of a master.

Mother sniffled, biting back her rage as she slowly morphed into a large, gray she-wolf.

Unlike me, she used to be an alpha. But she had no place in the Kin Nation anymore. She wouldn’t be allowed further while other alpha and omega parents stood proudly just outside the inner circle. But, of course, she wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place, having been cast out of the Solar Lycan Clan almost two decades ago.

Not like I cared. I broke ties with my old life and stepped into my destiny without looking back. Meandering down the hill and to the left, I assumed my place beside a tall she-wolf as the alpha in charge walked to the center of the summoning circle.

By his looks, he had to be a pureblood, jet-black and massive, from mother’s former clan, like two or three alpha wolves put together. Flanking him were two masked figures, one of the Firewolves and the other of the Lunar Lycan Clan, or Frostwolves for short.

Honestly, we Kin needed to get over all the symbolic, ceremonial titles we had for each other. The number of names we used for the same wolfpacks was bordering on ridiculous already. And that didn’t include all the other shifters that made up the nation.

The cloaked male was an alpha by the smell of his pheromones; he wore a black bear mask. Beside him was who I assumed was his omega mate, and she wore a white wolf mask.

My stomach flipped once I put two and two together and realized what we were about to witness. I’d read the story many times. Most Kin children did when they were young. But with age, I found it disturbing rather than a dream I wished to achieve.

The still-transformed older alpha spoke, red eyes gleaming with delight, Greetings! On this most precious night, under the full Blood Moon, we honor the first She-Wolf, Ostana, and her mate, Oberon, the first He-Bear. Today, we bear witness to her greatness and the miracle that beget Qamar, the first He-Wolf, and Kazamara, the first She-Bear.

His voice was like gravel to my ears, rough and deep, mysterious and dangerous all at once. Not unlike my alpha, the one who snatched my virginity away and fled into the night. The same piece of shit I was so desperate to see in the crowd.

But I couldn’t look for long as a Luna came waltzing by, taking my attention away from the scenes unfolding around me.

I’d never seen a real alpha she-wolf up close. Well, I guess it would’ve been more accurate to say I’d never seen a Luna not stripped of her rank and power like my mother before. Either way, the smell was distinct. There was no mistaking it.

The Luna was unmasked and much older than I expected. She was even older than the alpha wolf at the center of the ring, with streaks of steel gray in her otherwise snow-white, butt-length hair. The elder she-wolf wore a silver necklace in the shape of the moon kissing the sun.

She waltzed in front of us omegas and forced our eyes to the ground with a pointed look. Until she passed me, stopping in her tracks and lifting my gaze to hers with the force of her charisma.

The nameless Luna’s eyes were the most lovely shade of purple I’d ever seen, slightly unfocused due to her albinism, obviously of the Frostwolf clan. Of course, not all of them had albinism in their human shape, but all lycan albinos belonged to their lineage.

She bore her fangs, leaning in to whisper into my ear, "Filthy wolfless witch. Be grateful the goddess showed you favor and made something like you an omega."

The Luna put extra emphasis on witch and thing. I bit my tongue—hard and cast my eyes to the ground as the female alpha moved away too fast for me to respond. All I could do was tighten my hands into fists, long nails digging into my skin.

What favor have I ever been shown?

Of all the damn combinations to be, I just had to be born of a warlock with a lousy command of magic, and an alpha bitch, coming of age as an omega without the ability to shift.

Yet.

I hoped, anyway. One part of me was hated by our kind, Kin shifters, for being evil. And the other was at the bottom of the food chain in Kin society, subject to alphas’ and sometimes even betas’ flimsy whims.

What great blessing is that? I wondered silently, forcing myself not to say it out loud.

However, her cruel words lit a tiny spark of rebellion in my stomach that ignited a wildfire burning up my soul.

Despite everything in me telling me not to, I peeked upward while all the other omegas’ heads remained bowed, eyes pointed at the muddy snow on the ground. I meant to catch the Luna’s gaze and maybe even challenge her like a fool for humiliating me. But instead, I saw something I would soon regret.

The younger alphas watched as the masked fake he-bear at the center kicked the she-wolf’s legs from underneath her. He forced her to the ground as she pretended—goddess above, I hope she pretended—to fight back.

Tugging on the loose strap holding up his trousers, he unceremoniously pulled out his pale, flaccid dick and pumped it into an erection. Then, he forced it inside of her, the she-wolf naked underneath her cloak once he pulled it up and gripped her tanned ass.

His bear mask was knocked crooked from the force of his rutting, revealing a gross grin. His eyes were probably just as disgusting, finding pleasure in debasing her, his omega. The alphas watching were proud of the show he was putting on to please their vicious god. A sort of fucked up sex-ed for all of us supposed virgins when everyone knew alphas took their fill at a young age, and only the wealthiest omegas were locked away long enough to preserve theirs.

That made-up thing was part of our value—that invisible thing taken from me right before I was rejected and forced to hide my secret.

I nipped at my bottom lip, squeezing my thighs, as my nature betrayed me. We all could feel it in the air and smell it, too, the raw musk of the omega’s heat and her alpha’s rut as they pumped out pheromones while reenacting the Claiming of Ostana, the first lycan.

Some said her mate, Oberon, remained feral and transferred his power through the claiming bite after being cursed by a