Chapter 1

Freya's POV

 

 

“I am not a thief! I didn't steal it!”

I said as I was crying on the floor. I was on my knees, holding an empty royal blue velvety box.

“Stop lying, Freya. You stole our family’s heirloom,” my sister, Evica, said with a cruel voice.

I was in my house, yet they called me a thief, accusing me of stealing my grandma’s ring, which she had handed to my mother before she died.

​“No, I didn’t take it. Why would I?” I shook my head, refusing to admit to a lie.

​I looked up at the couple standing over me with pure disdain. “Mom, Dad… please. Trust me. I have no idea where the ring is.”

​The words felt thin. The man and woman I called my parents weren't mine by blood. Killian Jones was my father’s stepbrother. He and his wife, Lima, had adopted me when I was ten, right after my parents died.

They had moved into our house, taken over my parents' company, and treated me like a maid in my own birthright. I’d watched them pour love into their daughter, Evica, while I was treated like an intruder.

​Yet, I had served them, hoping that one day they would love me back.

​“Check her room, Killian,” Lima said, her hand suddenly snagging my hair, making me hiss. “If she’s hiding it, she’ll pay.”

A moment later,

The maids tore my room apart. They pulled an elegant ring from my closet. It caught the light, sparkling mockingly.

My heart stopped. ​“N-No, I—”

SLAP!

My father slapped me. I held my cheek, then looked at him with teary eyes. I turned to Evica, who was grinning at me.

“Dad, it's Evica. She wanted to trick me. Ask her. She hid it in my room,” I said, pointing my finger at my sister.

My mother frowned at me. My father glared and yelled,

“Enough! You stole the heirloom. That's my mother's ring. How dare you steal it?” He growled at me in anger.

Being an omega, I flinched at his yelling. But his mother's ring? Or his stepmother's ring?

Yet I begged him. “Please don't punish me for something I never did.”

Evica spoke out, ​“Dad, can I choose her punishment?” Evica asked sweetly.

​“Yes, my dear," he replied, handing the ring to her. "After all, you’re the rightful owner now.”

​I watched the ring slide into her hand.

My eyes widened. I remembered my mother telling me, “Your grandma said it belongs to you, Freya.”

That ring was the anchor of our family lineage, a symbol of who I truly was. They could steal my home, money, and business, but they couldn't change the fact that the heirloom’s true descent stopped with me.

I was the rightful heir!

Evica smirked at me. “Come with me. I have already prepared the punishment for the crime.”

She dragged me into an empty room, and my heart froze.

The only thing inside the room was a porcelain bathtub filled with jagged blocks of ice.

Evica’s nails dug into my skin, her grip tightening as she forced me toward the frozen white tomb she had chosen for my punishment.

"Enjoy your throne, sister," Evica chuckled.

My parents watched with cold, clinical eyes. “A perfect punishment." Lima nodded.

I hissed and yanked my arm away from Evica in defiance.

“Impossible!”

Seizing the moment, Evica threw herself to the floor, a calculated sob escaping her lips as she played the victim.

At that time,

Heavy footsteps echoed outside, drawing closer to the room.

The door swung open, and my heart clenched with a painful surge of hope.

It was the man I had loved since I was eighteen.

For three long years, that love hadn't wavered for a single second.

He was fiancé Logan Hayes.

Logan was a powerful Alpha in our Crimson Hollow Pack at twenty-five, a man who could be the head Alpha if his cousin weren't in the way.

‘He is here to save me…’ I thought with a breath of relief.

However, I was shaken when he didn’t even glance at me but rushed to Evica. He helped her to stand up.

Evica got to her feet. She collapsed into his embrace, her weeping filling the silence.

“Logan,” she choked out, weaving her web of lies, “It wasn't enough that she stole my family heirloom… now she’s trying to hurt me. She pushed me!”

Seeing Logan, my parents gulped, looking at him politely.

My father stepped forward and spoke shamelessly, “Evica is right. Even if Freya is your fiancée, Logan, she’s still a thief. She needs this lesson.”

Logan looked at the tub filled with ice. I ran to him, the man who had promised to cherish me forever.

I reached for his hand, my eyes pleading for the trust they had built over the years.

But Logan pulled away, his face hardening like stone. He looked at the heirloom on Evica’s finger and then at me.

He gave me a look of disappointment. “I can't believe I am marrying a thief!"

“No! Trust me, Logan. I didn’t steal that ring. Please stop them. Don't let them punish me.” My voice cracked at the end.

Evica held Logan’s arm tightly, pressing her breasts against his body. It didn’t go unnoticed by me.

She was the exclusive model of our company. My colleagues in my office always gossiped that my fiancé was cheating on me with my sister. But I always neglected the rumors. I trusted Logan blindly.

My hope that Logan would save me held my heart tightly.

But it crashed the next second when Logan spoke.

“She should be punished,” Logan declared.

​I stared at him, shattered. My world went gray.

​“She hates me, Logan!” Evica wailed again. “She even threatened to complain to Aleric Vance to have me banished!”

Her words silenced the whole room. The atmosphere grew thick.

‘Aleric Vance’

The name itself was a physical weight, a throne of power.

Silence didn't just fall; it gripped the room by the throat. The mere mention of that name turned everyone frozen in place.

Alaric Vance was the soon-to-be head Alpha of our pack. He was Logan's cousin and just two years older than him.

Unlike Logan, who led the pack company— Alaric had spent years on his own company. He built it with his own hand, which could now swallow the whole pack company easily.

I was aware of the rumors. 'In the business world, he is a shark. On the grounds of war, he is a monster.'

I had never met that man. He didn't come to Logan's and my engagement party. He had been out of the pack for years for his business.

But just thinking about him, I felt a shiver run down my body.

A loud growl echoed in the room, shaking all of us.

It was Logan who growled. He was furious as he clenched his jaw and muttered,

"Did you blackmail her in the name of that vicious man?”

Logan actually hated Alaric Vance. Because of Alaric, he couldn't be the head Alpha.

I shook my head at Logan. "I never said that!”

He grabbed my arm tightly, hurting me. "You always bullied her, Freya. But like this! How can you stoop so low?"

I looked at him with teary eyes. "Logan, why do you always believe her instead of me—"

THUD!

He pushed me to the tub.

I was shocked.

The world vanished in a scream of white cold when my body fell into the tub. The ice bobbed against my skin, piercing me like a thousand tiny needles.

He didn’t listen to me. I didn't see any sympathy for me in his eyes either.

I sank down, the freezing water rising to my collarbone, my breath hitching in my throat as the temperature of my body began to lower.

​“You deserve this,” Logan said, wrapping an arm around Evica’s shoulder. He summoned his guards and ordered,

“Watch her. Make sure she doesn't escape.”

No scream came out of my mouth, only a silent breaking of my soul. Logan held Evica as if she were porcelain, leaving me behind in the rising frost. 

My parents scoffed, their eyes confirming what I already felt… I was worthless to them all.

The truth hit me harder than the cold.

I had loved a man who didn't just refuse to protect me; he was the one who left me here to freeze.

The hours crawled by.

My teeth chattered, my limbs turning numb.

But no one came to save me. Not even Logan. The love and care were never for me.

All these years, in return, he treated me like dust.

Later that night,

Evica returned to see me. She grinned, leaning over the edge of the tub.

She reached out and pushed a floating block of ice closer to my chest.

I shut my eyes, biting my bottom lip in pain.

She whispered in my ear with a chuckle, "Everyone believes me, Freya. By morning, you’ll be forgotten, just another ghost in this house."

I didn't give her the satisfaction of a scream or a reply. She left with a smirk, leaving me to the deepening silence of the night.

My limbs grew heavy as the sharp sting of ice faded into a terrifying, hollow numbness.

Looking at my engagement ring on my finger, I felt a familiar sting of humiliation.

My parents always wanted Logan to marry Evica. But he chose me over her and got engaged to me six months ago. I finally started to believe someone actually wanted me.

But I was wrong!

I realized that the ice wasn't my enemy, but it was the people who stood in the warmth and forced me to freeze.

In the silence, I vowed,

'This is the end. I will never let them hurt me again.’

-

In the morning,

I opened my eyes in the tub. The guards helped me out of the tub and took me to my bedroom.

They threw my damp body in bed and said,

“Your punishment is over.”

My lips curled into a sad smile. I could only laugh at myself. 

It was painful to move. Yet, with my shaky hands and broken heart, I reached for my phone and sent a message to the man I had loved for three years.

​"Let's break this engagement, Logan."