Chapter 6

The polished stone floor of the Greyer Pack palace echoed with the sharp, angry clicks of Daisy's heels, resonating deeply beneath her feet tonight. She stalked down the corridor with a gait of restless beast, her fury a palpable presence that hung oppressively around her.

Each step reverberated as a meticulously planned gesture of recalcitrance and a mute vociferation against injustice thrust viciously upon her.

Daisy had spent years painstakingly weaving her existence around an unwavering conviction about her prospects of becoming the Luna of the Pack.

She was stunningly beautiful with long black straight hair, brown eyes, and a slim curvy shape. In her own twisted mind, she was supremely cunning and destined to reign supreme over others.

For years, Daisy had meticulously crafted her life, her dreams, around the certainty of her future. She was beautiful, she was cunning, and she was, in her own mind, destined to rule.

To be the Luna of the Greyer Pack, to stand at Mark's side, radiating power and influence – that was the tapestry she had woven for herself.

She had envisioned a life of privilege within the palace walls, a life where her every whim was catered to, where she held court, dispensing favors and wielding authority. She imagined the admiring glances, the envious whispers, the sheer, intoxicating power of being the Luna to one of the Alpha twins.

But now, that vision lay shattered, trampled under the muddy boots of fate. A foreign wolf, a rejected orphan with no name and no standing, had usurped her birthright. Cassie!

The name tasted like ash in Daisy's mouth.

“How dare she? How dare this...this nobody waltz into their lives and claim what was rightfully hers? Daisy yelled, stomping her heels on the obsidian floor.

The Alphas' rejection of her, their blatant dismissal of her years of loyalty and unspoken devotion, stung more than she cared to admit. It was a slap in the face, a brutal awakening to the cold, hard reality that she was not as indispensable as she had believed.

Mark, the twin she had always favored, the one she had thought she understood, had looked right through her, his eyes filled only with possessive fire for the newcomer.

Lark possessed brooding intensity and enigmatic silences which had always made him somewhat of an intriguing challenge. He displayed fierce protectiveness towards Cassie with a ferocity Daisy had never seen directed at anyone else before now. Swallowing that pill was bitter indeed.

Her reflection mocked her in a gilded mirror as she turned around a corner quite sharply. Her ordinarily impeccable visage was besmirched by a profound scowl and her meticulously coiffed raven tresses were faintly tousled.

She looked like a petulant child and this realization hit her with a jolt of utter self-disgust suddenly.

"Well, well, well," a voice drawled from the doorway, breaking through her spiraling thoughts. "If it isn't the jilted princess."

Daisy whirled around, her hand instinctively reaching for the small, silver dagger she kept concealed in her sleeve. A voice drawled slowly from the doorway breaking through her thoughts swirling wildly.

"Leave me alone, Mia," Daisy snapped, her voice rough with suppressed fury.

She relaxed slightly upon recognizing Mia, a fellow pack member and her confidante.

Mia stood at Luna’s announcement.

Daisy had foretold her that it would be her, the Luna of the Greyer Pack.

“What happened, why was it some new wolf instead of the great Daisy," Mia mocked, her face a contrived mask of polite interest but Daisy knew her well enough to spot malicious amusement lurking in her eyes.

Daisy snapped at Mia, her voice roughened by suppressed fury “watch your mouth,"

Mia sauntered into a dimly lit corridor with her elegant gown swaying languidly beside each languorous step she took slowly. She possessed a feline elegance quite naturally and Daisy found it grating now after once admiring that sly predatory air.

“Are you really going to savage me verbally that badly?"

"You're not exactly Luna just yet aren't you?” Mia asked, feigning ignorance like she wasn't present during the announcement. Daisy's jaw clenched tightly as nails dug deeply into her palms.

She yearned to violently strike Mia and wipe that smug smirk off her face but knew it'd be a huge terrible mistake. She required cohorts rather than foes even if they were exceedingly duplicitous and ruthlessly self-serving like Mia. Merely beginning with that solitary utterance.

"Wait, hold on, is she the twins' Luna? The pretty wolf I saw just now?" Mia asked, opening her mouth in a theatrical display of awe and fake astonishment.

"Imagine that! Daisy ground out a terse command to speak one's mind, already forcing herself to remain supremely calm amidst rising indignation.

Mia's smile widened revealing a flash of razor-sharp teeth beneath her lips somehow. I merely sought knowledge anyway somehow. That wolf from foreign lands."Shut up!"

She fell silent finally but her eyes danced with cruel amusement very slowly around the room. The only sound heard was of rustling bushes.

“So what's the plan now?" Mia asked. She knew her mischievous friend was always up to something.

Daisy paused for a while before opening up.

"The closest way to kill a person," she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr, "is to be closer to the person."

Mia's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing her face. "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice laced with suspicion.

Heavy silence fell between them broken only by distant howls of pack members revealing wildly in the background under the starry night sky. Irony hung heavily in the air with an almost unbearable weight settling slowly over everything.

Greyer Pack revelled raucously over arrival of new Luna whilst Daisy stewed quietly in bitter resentment festering deep inside her own soul.

"I mean," Daisy said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "that if you want to destroy someone, you need to get close enough to see their weaknesses, to learn their secrets, to find the chink in their armor.

“Don't tell me you're planning to become friends with Luna?" Mia questioned.

“She's not Luna yet, only mates," Daisy yelled frustrated.

"Cassie would soon be out of the picture.”