Fated and Claimed by Four Alphas Chapter 1: The Desperate Weakling

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Chapter 1

~Spring’s POV~

"Look at her... pathetic."

"She actually thinks she belongs here?"

"She’s just a stain. On the Kaine na, on the school, on everything. Is there anything she is good for?"

The words rained down like stones as the girls circled behind the gym building—four dressed in pleated skirts, nails painted sharp enough to cut, expressions dripping with superiority.

I barely had ti to step back before the first fist landed across my cheek.

Pain flared hot on my skin, but before my body fully accepted it. Another hit ca. Then a kick to my ribs.

I tried to block the blows but was too slow and tired, and my arms moved like they were underwater.

The sting of knuckles across my cheek made my vision spot, but I didn’t flinch anymore. It wasn’t the first ti.

It wasn’t even the tenth.

I was used to it, and my body knew pain too well.

One grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, hard. I bit down on the urge to cry as my knees scraped the pavent, the bite of gravel tearing through skin already marred with older bruises.

"You just don’t learn, do you?" one of them sneered, their voice sugary sweet and venom-laced.

"You should just die already."

Their laughter swirled in my ears, like echoes in a cave I couldn’t escape. But this ti, it wasn’t just their voices I heard.

It was hers.

"Ugh, look at you again," Rose’s voice rattled in my mind. "Can’t you do anything right? Just watching you breathe is exhausting."

Even at ho, I was a punching bag. Not always with fists—worse. Words. Cold silences. A constant reminder I wasn’t one of them.

A Kaine by na only. A charity case branded as family. A fake.

Rose, the real daughter of the Kaine legacy, made sure I never forgot.

"You should thank Father," she had said just two days ago, lounging on the couch while I mopped the floor. "He could’ve tossed you out on the street. But he didn’t. Be grateful you even exist here."

I was grateful, wasn’t I?

I was grateful for cold als, locked doors, and wearing Rose’s old clothes while she wore designer labels like a crown.

So why did it still hurt?

My head cracked against the brick wall behind , snapping back to reality. The world tilted sideways. I saw my blood splatter the concrete beside .

I curled into myself, not out of fear but out of fatigue. I was tired—tired of being lesser, of being trash and waking up each day wondering if today was the day soone would finally break in half.

God, I wanted it to end already.

"She’s not even fighting back," soone scoffed.

"Because she knows she’s worthless," another answered.

"You’re garbage. You should’ve stayed in the gutter where you belong."

I didn’t argue.

Because what was the point?

They didn’t know that I had fought before. That I had scread, clawed, and begged. That I had tried, ti and ti again, to prove I belonged.

But no one listens to the fake daughter. When the light is too bright, the shadow is not seen.

My fingers twitched as I lay there. My chest heaved, and warm blood trickled from the corner of my mouth.

My vision dimd at the edges, like a curtain slowly being pulled closed.

It was quiet now, so peaceful.

I felt my heartbeat slow drastically. And my lips curved at the side on their own.

Let them laugh. Let them all have their victory.

I just hope they choke on it.

My heart shuddered once.

Twice.

Then stopped.

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"Spring?"

A strange warmth coursed through my veins, and I felt a presence not mine—but mine all the sa.

"She’s breathing, thank goodness," the voice uttered again, this ti with much enthusiasm.

Then, my eyes snapped open.

Bright light bled into my vision—white, sterile, too sharp for the eyes I’d just barely opened. The ceiling above was off-white, speckled with those tiny holes ant to absorb sound.

The air slled faintly of antiseptic and lemon.

I blinked slowly, once... twice... then flinched at the sting in my ribs. My body felt foreign, like soone had stitched into it without asking.

Where am I?

This wasn’t the last thing I rember. I rembered sitting under the moon with my fiancé when he drove his hand through my chest from behind and squashed my heart.

A shadow moved beside , and I stiffened, my instincts on high alert.

"Oh, thank goodness." A woman leaned over—mid-thirties maybe, round glasses slipping down her nose, her attire marked with a crest. "You gave us quite the scare, young girl."

Young girl? It had been about two decades since I heard that term.

Sothing wasn’t right. How am I still alive?

I shook that thought and sought for my best friend, Jade.

"Jade?"

I tried reaching inward to feel my wolf, but no matter what, all I felt was a strange void inside .

Was Jade gone?

I tried to sit up, but my limbs responded like they didn’t belong to .

"Easy now," the lady warned, gently guiding back down. "Just breathe. You’re in the nurse’s office."

My eyes darted around, taking in the cots, the pale blue privacy curtains, the tray of half-used bandages and wipes.

Then she looked at the clipboard in her hand and said it.

"Spring Kaine."

I stiffened.

The na echoed in my skull like it had been yelled through a canyon. It rang wrong. Not because it wasn’t mine—because it was. But when she said it...

Sothing inside recoiled.

My throat dried, my hands trembled, and my eyes darted down. I was in so weird outfit—well, right now, everything was weird to .

This wasn’t my body.

It felt too light and too small. My skin didn’t feel like mine.

But the ’nurse’ didn’t notice. She moved around efficiently, checking my pulse and peeking into my eyes with a small penlight.

"Your vitals are steady. A little underweight, and blood pressure is low, but nothing serious. You’ll be fine."

I stared at her, dumbfounded.

"Just rest a little more and make sure you eat. Honestly, you’re lucky one of the janitors found you when they did," she added with a tsk. "A few more minutes out there in that condition..."

Her voice faded into background noise.

I nodded slowly, like a puppet.

But one question kept bugging . "How old am I?"

I felt her freeze in her speech. I must have said that out loud as she leaned down to my eye level, pointing the penlight in my eyes.

"You may have had a concussion, young lady." I did not say anything, and she sighed. "You’ll be 18 soon. Rest and do not worry. You hit your head. I’d be glad if you didn’t have amnesia or sothing."

After so ti, she left alone with a, ’I will be back to check up on you,’ and then promised to return with a protein bar and water.

Eighteen?

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than a sharp pain shot through my skull, like lightning cracking through bone.

I groaned, clutching my head as chunks of mory burst into my brain—fists, laughter, blood.

My knees hit the pavent. The burn of sha. The echo of Rose’s voice.

Rose?

It all ca back in violent flashes, leaving gasping, my chest rising and falling with every breath I took, one that did not belong to Spring Kaine anymore but to —Princess Jade Winter.

Her soul was gone.

I blinked hard, disoriented as the clouds in my head swirled like smoke.

The coldness in my limbs faded, soon replaced by heat and awareness. My pulse returned, and my thoughts sharpened.

The mories were hazy, like trying to watch scenes through shattered glass. I knew things... but I didn’t know everything. Not yet.

My legs wobbled as I pushed myself upright, blood dried at the edge of my lip.

The body’s owner had been bullied tilll she died. Too bad the girls were long gone.

Cowards. I would have given those kids a sound beating.

My hand brushed dirt off my pleated skirt. One look at my body, and all I wanted to do was change—get out of this stained uniform.

Thankfully, from the mories, I knew the body’s owner always kept a spare.

I stumbled toward the school’s rear entrance. The buildings were tall, many stories in a block, and way different from what I had known.

I dragged my body down the hallway, lit brightly with sterile lights, heading to the lockers.

The hall was calm, with nobody in sight save for the faint noise from a distance that could be heard. And that calm didn’t last.

I turned a corner, and it erupted.

Laughter, then suddenly, soone turned and spotted .

"Ohh... she’s here. The desperate weakling is here!"