Chapter 2

The thunder was crashing hard, like the sky itself was splitting open. Every boom rattled me to my core, and I shook like a damn leaf. Beta Dravok the steadiest, most level-headed one of all of us sounded completely rattled as he reached me through the mind link, and that alone made my stomach drop. I kept picturing the worst.

What the hell had happened to my parents? Were they okay? Had an enemy pack hit us? Or did they need me there as the alpha’s daughter for some emergency?

My head was spinning with questions the whole fifteen-minute sprint back to the pack house. It’s this massive mansion built for the alpha’s family and the elders, with smaller houses clustered around it like a little village.

When I reached the territory fence, the whole place was crawling with deltas and warriors on high alert, but the gate itself felt eerily empty. How bad was this?

My teenage heart was hammering. I didn’t even have any siblings to lean on or share the panic with. Goddammit, why wasn’t Beta Dravok answering me back? The silence was killing me.

I bolted straight for the pack house entrance, one of my heels snapping halfway there, but I didn’t give a damn. Panting, clutching my aching chest, I skidded to a stop in front of two covered boxes waiting on the ground.

“W-what..”

“Nyra!” It was Beta Dravok.

“D-Dravok… what’s going on? What are these? I smell… blood. What the hell is happening?” My voice came out shaky. He grabbed my arms and looked me dead in the eyes.

“This isn’t how I wanted to tell you, but I’m sorry, Nyra. Your parents are gone. And I’m not letting you see their bodies they were torn apart in the worst way possible. I’m so sorry. It shouldn’t have happened tonight of all nights.”

My heart slammed into my stomach.

No.

Not today. Not ever.

My parents were dead?

But nobody else around me was breaking down the way I was. Everyone seemed busy with something else, like this was just another item on their list.

What the hell was going on?

I gasped as I felt someone behind me.

Three cars pulled up one after another, each carrying two of our pack elders the wisest wolves in the Darkforest pack, the kind of elders everyone looked up to.

I hoped they’d at least hug me or say something kind. I needed it so badly right then.

Beta Dravok shook me back to reality.

“Come to the meeting hall right now. We need to figure out who’s taking over leadership. It’s a terrible loss, Nyra, but you have to think like an alpha. Let’s go.”

He patted my shoulder and walked off with the elders. Dravok… you don’t say that to an eighteen-year-old girl who just lost her parents on her own fucking birthday.

And the elders every single one of them looked me in the eye as they passed, like I was some kind of freak. A disappointment.

“Silence!” the youngest elder barked. I jumped.

Staring at the floor, I listened as the old wolves laid out their plans for the pack.

“There’s a clear power vacuum right now. And today also happens to be someone’s eighteenth birthday… yet she still hasn’t awakened her wolf.” My eyebrows shot together.

Why was he calling me out like that? Tonight, of all nights?

My glare met his disappointed stare. Then I looked around the room and realized almost everyone was watching me the same way.

Disgust.

What the hell had changed? They used to be so kind to me before everything went to shit. What was wrong with them?

Everything around me started to blur, but the humiliation burned straight into my chest and stayed there. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t random. Someone had planned this. I could feel it in my bones.

“…We need a new leader.”

After all the talking, the last part of the elder’s words finally sank in. Before I could even raise my hand, Beta Dravok beat me to it.

“I’ll take it, Elder. I’m more experienced, more mature, and I’ve been Alpha Vaelor Virellion’s right hand for two and a half decades long before our princess was even born.” The way he said it made rage boil up inside me.

“I am the daughter of Vaelor Virellion and Elyndra Virellion,” I said, swallowing the pain. “I’m the only heir to this pack.”

“Let some fledgling brat run the pack?” the elder sneered. “You haven’t even awakened your wolf. You’re uneducated, you know nothing about battle strategy, you’re impulsive and reckless. Just look at what you’re wearing tonight!”

He pointed at my clothes and I gasped louder.

“What the hell do my clothes have to do with anything?”

“Oh, it says everything, sweetheart. It’s clear now that you were never meant to lead. You’re nothing but a spoiled brat in your own pack did you ever stop to notice?”

Things had already hit rock bottom, but this was something else. Obviously someone had been plotting to steal my birthright long before my parents died. I was just the girl who’d finally come of age.

I slammed my fists on the chair and shot to my feet.

“I’m done with this. If this is how you’re all treating me now… I’m leaving the pack.”

The third elder scoffed.

“We’d be grateful if you did, Nyra Virellion.”

Tears burned my eyes. For the last time I looked around the hall, then turned and walked out into the heavy silence.

My gaze landed on Dravok. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes. Why, Dravok? What did you do? You didn’t betray me… right? These people were cruel and greedy, and they’d finally shown their real faces.

I’d learned their game.

And I swore right then I’d come back stronger one day and take back what was mine.

For now, though, I’d lost everything.

But against the pouring rain, the ring on my left hand caught the light and sparkled.

Wait… I hadn’t lost everything. I still had Zephyros. My fiancé would stand by me I had zero doubt. He’d always been my sweet gentleman.

I pulled out my phone, smiling through the tears as I dialed the number I knew by heart. Just then a message popped up.

Raindrops blurred the screen, but I opened it anyway.

The email was titled “Zephyros’s Secret” and had a video attached.

Curiosity won. I clicked play.

“…N-No way…”

I couldn’t even speak.

In the video, Zephyros was in bed with several women, all of them pleasing him like it was some kind of show. Each one left hickeys I could never have given him. Two of them were playing with his manhood while he filmed the whole thing on a selfie stick.

Then one woman rose from between his legs, his taste still on her lips, and kissed him deep.

She turned toward the camera and that’s when my voice died completely.

It was Kaelith.

The others… as the video kept playing… were Sylphae and Olivia.

No… this couldn’t be real. My fiancé and my own friends had been sleeping together behind my back, betraying me.

Not today. Not everything on the same fucking day.

That day, the day I turned eighteen, I lost everything and gained nothing. I didn’t even have my wolf for company.

I just broke down right there in the street, sobbing like a child who’d lost her whole world, and wandered aimlessly through the rain. My feet were killing me, my dress was ripped where it had caught on a fence, my heart was shredded, and part of me just wanted it all to end.