GENEVIEVE'S POV It’s been two weeks since they banned her from Silver Lake Pack.Two weeks since my mother was told she could never set foot near me again.Two weeks since I watched her walk away without so much as a backward glance.And somehow, I still haven’t figured out how to breathe without her shadow pressing in on my ribs.I thought I’d feel lighter. Freer. Like I’d finally crawled out from under the crushing weight of her disdain. But I don’t.I feel grief.Shameful, suffocating grief that creeps in like a slow poison and settles behind my sternum.No one would understand. No one would get why I mourn a woman who never really loved me never even tried.She wasn’t the kind of mother who tucked me into bed at night or bandaged my scraped knees with soft fingers and softer words.She didn’t hum lullabies or whisper “I love you” in the dark.She didn’t wait up to make sure I made it home safe.She didn’t protect me. She didn’t nurture me.She punished me for existing.She weapon
Author's pov Inside one of the cold, forgotten rooms of the late Alpha Kendrick’s packhouse, the past clung to the walls like mildew thick, rotting, and inescapable. The place hadn’t been used since Kendrick's fall, but tonight it buzzed with hushed fury and ruthless resolve. A round, ancient table sat at the center of the room, its scratched surface littered with torn maps, a few dusty glasses of untouched wine, and sharpened blades that served as both tools and symbols of intent.The flickering candlelight struggled against the darkness, throwing erratic shadows across the grim faces gathered there. Time had not healed Kendrick’s death it had fermented it into something dangerous. And seated at the head of the table like a dethroned queen plotting the return of her crown was Kendrick’s widowed Luna. Her presence demanded silence. Her pain screamed in the clench of her jaw, the tension in her shoulders, the glint in her coal-black eyes. Her once golden spirit had been forged into so
Camila's POV The tires hummed beneath me, a dull, relentless vibration that filled the silence like static in my ears a sound I couldn’t escape, like a heartbeat I no longer owned. The black SUV sliced down the road, and with every passing tree, with every blur of green and grey, I felt more and more like a ghost being driven out of her own life.I sat rigid in the leather seat, eyes fixed on the window but seeing nothing. Not really. The pack’s borders had long since faded behind us, swallowed by the distance, by time, by shame. All I could do was sit and feel and even that was starting to slip through my fingers.André hadn’t said a single word after his verdict. He looked really broken when he sent me way when he found out everything I had done.He didn’t shout. He didn’t even raise his voice. But it cut deeper than if he had. There was finality in his tone. Like a judge passing sentence on someone already condemned. Like he wasn’t banishing a person, but erasing a problem.And I
Genevieve’s POVThe door creaked open with a low, dragging groan that made my stomach twist and my breath catch mid-thought. That sound it was too familiar, too deliberate, like the very walls were warning me that something terrible was about to walk in. My heart thundered against my ribs as silence swelled in the room, thick and suffocating. For a single, breathless second, I was sure it would be her again Camila.That snake.Slinking back in like a ghost from a nightmare, with that sickly sweet smile that never quite reached her eyes. Cruel. Calculated. Her lies polished like glass, sharp enough to slice through truth and leave you bleeding. I could already imagine the smug tilt of her chin, the honeyed venom dripping from her lips as she twisted yet another story in her favor. My spine stiffened on instinct, shoulders locking tight. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until my lungs began to burn. My fingers curled around the bedsheets, every part of me braced for another
Andre's POV The dungeon was colder than I remembered or maybe it was just the icy grip of betrayal that settled deep inside me, squeezing my chest like a vise. The chill wasn’t from the damp stone walls or the stale air; it was something far worse, something that seeped beneath my skin and froze my blood. It was the cold truth that the person I trusted most had been stabbing me in the back all along.The stench of fear hung thick in the air, but it wasn’t the rotten smell that twisted my stomach. No, it was the sight before me that crushed something vital inside. Camila stood there, unnervingly composed, like she owned the place, like she hadn’t just shredded every piece of loyalty and trust I ever gave her. Her eyes flicked to mine, calculating, yet I caught the faintest trace of desperation beneath the calm.And then there was Genevieve’s mother, chained to the wall silent, broken, her face a mask of hopelessness. Her hollow eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, full of sorro
The dungeon stank of fear.It wasn’t just a smell—it was a living, breathing thing, soaked into the stone walls like mildew. Thick. Damp. Rotting. The kind of scent that sank beneath the skin and clung to your lungs, foul and acidic. Chains creaked somewhere in the shadows, echoing in the stale silence, and the only light came from a single flickering bulb overhead. Its sickly yellow glow cast warped shadows over the walls and across the bloodstained floor, like a dying heartbeat trying to light up a corpse. Although her skin was marked with bruises and dried blood streaked her temple, her eyes… her eyes were alive.Defiant. Still burning with something dangerous.She didn’t look like a broken woman.She looked like someone who still believed she had power. That made her the most dangerous kind of enemy.I took a breath and stepped forward, arms crossed over my chest, trying to project calm serene, composed but inside? My stomach was a mess of knots and bile. Everything had spirale