1

Emily

The air in the living room felt freezing cold, heavy with the weight of something terrible about to happen.

My father stood tall and distant, staring down at me as if I were a complete stranger. Beside him stood Aunty Clara—my mother’s supposed “best friend.” She wore a cruel smile that didn’t reach her eyes, looking exactly like a hunter watching an animal step into a steel trap.

“Emily,” my father said, his voice flat. “This is your new mother, Clara.”

The words didn’t make sense. I heard them, but my brain refused to process the meaning.

“My new mother?” I repeated slowly, my voice barely a whisper.

“You heard him correctly,” Aunty Clara said, her voice sharp and amused. She turned to my father, wrapping her hand possessively around his forearm. “Or is she deaf, Lucas? Did your daughter lose her hearing along with her mother?”

Dad didn’t defend me. He didn’t even flinch. He just stared at me with cold, judging eyes. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “Luna never mentioned it.”

Luna.

My mother’s name rolled off his tongue so carelessly, as if she were just a footnote in his life. Like she hadn’t been the strong, proud woman who built this entire family.

My gaze shifted slowly from my father, to Clara, and finally settled on Anna. My best friend.

She stood slightly behind her mother, arms tightly crossed, her face unreadable. I stared at her, begging with my eyes for some kind of sign—a shake of her head, a flash of apology—anything to show me she had nothing to do with this nightmare.

But there was nothing. The girl looking back at me had her mother’s cold, calculating eyes tonight.

I let out a broken, bitter laugh. Who was I fooling? Anna was Clara’s daughter before she was ever my friend. And Clara had been my mother’s best friend in life, which apparently meant she felt entitled to steal everything my mother left behind. Her home. Her husband. Her life.

“Anna…” I breathed.

“How dare you say my name with that filthy mouth!” Anna screamed. She lunged forward, her hand swinging through the air.

Slap.

My head snapped violently to the side. My cheek burned like fire, but the sudden crack in my chest hurt a thousand times worse.

“From today on,” Anna hissed, leaning so close I could smell her perfume, “I am your master. And you are—”

“You are nothing!” I roared. Before I could think, my instincts took over, and I swung back. My open hand connected with her cheek so hard that she stumbled backward into a chair. “How dare you enter my mother’s house and talk to me like that!”

Deep inside, I felt my inner wolf, Amy, stirring. I wanted to shift right there, to let my claws tear through this horrific lie. But I forced her down. They weren’t worth her fury.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dad thundered. His voice shook the walls. “How dare you lay a hand on my daughter!”

“Your daughter?” I choked out, hot tears finally stinging my eyes. “What about me? I am your blood!”

“You are no daughter of mine when you act like a wild animal,” he snapped. “Apologize to your sister. Now.”

Sister. The word tasted like poison.

“Does the Alpha know how you behave at home?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay even, though my heart was hammering against my ribs. “Because the way you carry yourself in this room does not match the proud Beta title you wear.”

I let my eyes wander around the room slowly, mocking him, before bringing them back to his angry face.

“But then again, you were never truly a Beta, were you? You were just an Omega who got lucky. My mother was the true Beta. You just walked into her bloodline and borrowed her rank.”

Everything happened in a flash after that.

Something slammed into me with terrifying force—either his physical hands or the crushing weight of his aura, I couldn’t tell. Suddenly, I was flying backward across the room. My body crashed into the far wall so hard the impact knocked every molecule of air out of my lungs.

I slid down to the floorboards. White-hot pain exploded through my ribs, my spine, and my shoulders all at once. A raw scream tore out of my throat before I could stop it.

I tried to push myself up, but my legs wouldn’t hold me. Why won’t they hold?

I had Beta blood flowing through my veins. I was supposed to be stronger than this. My father was an Omega by birth—I should have been able to stand up and face his power without flinching. So why did my arms feel like wet cloth? Why wasn’t my accelerated werewolf healing kicking in to dull the pain?

My father walked toward me, his heavy boots clicking slowly against the floor.

“Surprised?” Aunty Clara’s voice floated over his shoulder. She drifted across the room as if she already owned the place.

She rested her hand back on his arm and looked down at me with a sickening mix of pity and pleasure. “You can’t figure out why you’re so weak, can you? Why your precious ‘Beta blood’ isn’t saving you?”

“What… what did you do?” I gasped, coughing up a splash of dark blood onto the floor.

“Wolfsbane,” she said, giving me a bright, sunny smile. “In your food. It was remarkably easy, really.”

Wolfsbane.

“How—” My voice cracked, raw and broken. “How long?”

“Long enough,” Anna chimed in, stepping forward to stand proudly beside her mother. “Long enough that your pathetic wolf can barely breathe.”

A wave of intense nausea hit me. Every meal. Every drink. Every sweet smile across the dinner table for the past few weeks. All of it had been calculated. All of it was poison.

“I hate you!” I screamed, the agonizing pressure in my shattered ribs making it hard to draw breath.

Father’s hand shot out, grabbing the collar of my shirt.

“Every time I look at you, I see her,” he snarled. “Even dead, she still stands between me and the life I wanted.”

He hoisted me half off the ground and struck me across the face. The pain was beyond anything I can describe. Without my wolf to protect me, I felt every ounce of the brutal force.

I heard myself scream—a desperate, pitiful sound that echoed off the walls of the home I had grown up in.

“Stop,” I gasped, the copper taste of blood filling my mouth. “Please… stop.”

I had never begged for anything in my entire life. But as I felt my body literally failing, I knew that if he hit me again, I wouldn’t survive the night. My wolf couldn’t protect me, and I couldn’t protect myself. So, I swallowed every ounce of pride I had left, and I begged.

“Don’t listen to her,” Anna’s voice rang out, cold and merciless. “Don’t stop, Father.”

He flung me away like a piece of garbage.

The wall met my body a second time. I collapsed into a heap and lay perfectly still, breathing in short, agonizing hitches, my face pressed against the cold floorboards.

Anna stepped over to me. Slowly, deliberately, she ground the heel of her shoe directly into my knuckles, watching my face to catch my reaction.

Another scream ripped from my throat.

“You are a slave now. My slave. Say it,” she demanded.

I clamped my jaw shut, refusing to speak, which only made her press down harder until I felt the bones in my hand creak.

“Say it!”

“I’m… I’m your slave now,” I choked out.

She let out a loud, mocking laugh before finally lifting her heel from my bleeding fingers.

“Stand up,” Aunty Clara said from across the room, her voice dripping with boredom. “Go to the kitchen and cook. If the food isn’t ready soon…” She let the threat hang heavily in the air before adding, “You’ll find out what real pain feels like.”

They walked out together, the sound of their easy laughter trailing behind them as they disappeared down the hallway.

And then, total silence.

I don’t know how long I lay there on the floor. The silence stretched on for hours—long enough for the sound of their footsteps to fade completely, and long enough for the hot tears on my face to dry into stiff paths on my skin.

Slowly, I tried to move one hand. Then the other. I dragged myself sideways until my bruised back found the support of the wall. I sat up against it, drawing my knees to my chest, breathing in tiny, shallow gasps so my broken ribs wouldn’t scream at me.

My right hand was shaking so violently I could barely look at it. I grabbed my wrist with my left hand, squeezing tight to hold it steady.

Amy.

I reached deep inside myself, searching through the dark corners of my mind for my wolf.

Amy, please, are you there?

A long beat of silence. Then, faint and agonizingly far away, like a voice crying out from deep underwater, she answered.

Emily… Her voice was a tiny, pained whimper in the back of my head. I’m here… but I’m so tired. The poison is too strong. I can’t fix this yet.

It’s okay, I whispered back to her, wrapping my mental arms around her fading spirit. Just rest. Save your strength. I’ll survive this.

I closed the mental link gently. I would survive.

“Slave!” Clara’s voice suddenly shrieked from the dining room, shattering the quiet. “Where is our dinner?”

I tried to stand, but my legs completely gave out beneath me. My body just couldn’t hold my weight.

So, I reached out with my trembling, bloody hands and gripped the edges of the floorboards. I dragged my broken body forward toward the kitchen, inch by agonizing inch, crawling through the dust of the home that used to belong to my mother.

I would serve them for now. I would play their game and wear the title of a slave. But I would not break. As long as there was breath in my lungs, I would wait for the day the wolfsbane finally wore off.

And when it did… they would pay for every single drop of blood I left on this floor.