Chapter 1: Another Empty Birthday

####Sincerely

The first thing I smelled every morning wasn’t hope.

It was bacon.

Fresh bread.

Roasted meat and eggs sizzling in butter.

Everything I wasn’t allowed to touch.

I lay on the thin mattress in the storage closet I called a bedroom, staring at the cracked ceiling as my stomach twisted with familiar pain. Today I turned twenty-one. I whispered the number like a prayer I was almost too afraid to finish.

Maybe this year.

Maybe today.

Maybe the Moon Goddess had only been waiting for the right time.

The hope was foolish. I knew that. I had clung to the same desperate dream on my eighteenth birthday, then my nineteenth, then my twentieth. Each year ended the same: no wolf, no mate, and one more reason for the pack to whisper that I was cursed.

Still… hope was the only thing they hadn’t managed to beat out of me.

A loud bang rattled the thin door.

“Are you dead in there?” my stepmother, Miranda shouted. “Get up, you useless pig! Breakfast won’t serve itself.”

I pushed myself off the mattress, ignoring the stiffness in my back and the deep ache in my knees. I caught my reflection in the cracked mirror by the door—round face, messy brown curls, too-wide hips, and a soft stomach that no amount of starvation seemed to shrink. The body everyone hated. The body I had spent years trying to disappear.

I tied my faded apron around my waist and slipped into the kitchen.

The dining table groaned under platters of food meant for three people. Father sat at the head, reading his morning paper without looking up. Across from him, my stepsister Bianca hummed happily, her glossy blonde hair falling perfectly over one shoulder as she scrolled through her phone. Her silk robe probably cost more than everything I owned.

She was everything I wasn’t—tiny waist, bright blue eyes, the kind of beauty wolves wrote songs about.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Bianca chirped, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

He smiled, the warm, genuine smile I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. “Morning, sweetheart.”

“There she is,” my stepmother, Miranda, sneered from the stove. “Our little pig finally woke up.”

Neither Father nor Bianca corrected her. I wasn’t surprised anymore.

“Serve breakfast,” Miranda ordered.

I carried plate after plate to the table, my arms trembling under the weight. The smells made my mouth water so badly it hurt. By the time they started eating, my stomach growled loud enough for the whole room to hear.

“Disgusting,” Miranda muttered. “Always thinking about food.”

“I wasn’t—” I started.

“You didn’t have to say it. Your stomach did.”

Bianca giggled behind her hand.

I swallowed hard and gathered my courage. “Um… May I ask for something?”

Miranda looked up slowly, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“It’s… my birthday today. I was wondering if I could have a few hours off.”

Silence fell over the table.

Then Bianca burst out laughing.“Oh Goddess! Are you for real?”

Miranda folded her arms. “You really have no shame, Sincerely. Tell me, what exactly are we celebrating? The fact that you're twice my size or that you have no wolf and no mate at 21?”

The words landed like stones against my chest. I stared at the floor, cheeks burning.

“I just thought—”

“That we’d bake you a cake?” Miranda interrupted with a cruel smile. “Throw a party? Invite the entire pack to celebrate the daughter who’s become our greatest embarrassment?”

“I only wanted a few hours,” I whispered.

“Oh shut up!” Miranda shunned.

Father finally spoke, his voice tired and cold. “Birthdays are for children who give their parents something to be proud of. You stopped doing that a long time ago.”

I slowly turned away before they could see the tears stinging my eyes.

The rest of the morning blurred into endless chores. I scrubbed plates until my hands were raw, washed Bianca’s laundry, swept floors, dusted, watered the garden, and polished silver until the sun sat high in the sky. My stomach cramped violently the entire time.

When I returned to the dining room later, leftovers still covered the table—pancakes, bacon, half a loaf of fresh bread. My hand shook as I reached for a single slice of toast.

A slipper cracked across the back of my hand. The bread fell to the floor.

“Thief,” Miranda hissed. “You eat enough as it is.”

“I only wanted—”

“I know exactly what you wanted.” She picked up the toast and tossed it into the trash, then scraped the remaining food into the sink. Pancakes. Eggs. Bacon. All of it gone.

My heart cracked with every scrape of the spatula.

“If you were actually hungry,” she said coldly, “you wouldn’t look like that.”

She tossed a hard crust of yesterday’s bread at my feet. “That’s more than enough for someone your size.”

I waited until her bedroom door slammed before picking it up. The bread was stale and dry, nearly impossible to chew, but hunger didn’t care about pride. I forced it down anyway.

When the last crumb was gone, I closed my eyes and pressed a trembling hand over my heart.

“Please,” I whispered to the Moon Goddess. “I don’t need a perfect mate. I just need a way out of this prison I call home.”