"I shouldn't be here."

I whispered the words under my breath as I stepped through the doors of the Night Howl pack house. The familiar scent of wood and wolf hit me like a wall, stirring memories I had spent months trying to bury.

This place had never been my home.

Not really.

Even when I had lived here, I had always been a ghost — invisible to everyone who mattered, including my own family.

My name is Ava Cole. Twenty years old. Black hair, hazel eyes, and a smile I had learned to fake so well that even I sometimes forgot it wasn't real.

I was the beta's daughter.

You would think that meant something.

It didn't. Not for me.

My father, Beta Cole, was one of the most powerful men in our pack. My brother Oliver had followed in his footsteps, taking over the beta position the day he shifted on his eighteenth birthday. My sister Elsie was tall, strong, and beautiful — everything a werewolf woman should be.

And then there was me.

The failure.

The disgrace.

My eighteenth birthday had come and gone like any other day. No shift. No wolf. Nothing but silence where my wolf was supposed to be. My family had waited. One year passed and still nothing happened.

That was when they decided they were done with me.

My parents didn't disown me quietly. They made sure I understood exactly what I was — a stain on the Cole name. A wolfless girl with no future, no purpose, and no place in a pack built on strength.

They moved me out of the pack house and into a small apartment far enough away that I wouldn't embarrass them.

That was two years ago.

I had only come back today because of him.

Alpha Jackson.

He had been away for four years, handling business that kept him from fully assuming his position. His father had held the pack together in the meantime, but today, the true Alpha was finally coming home.

Everyone in the pack was buzzing with excitement.

Even me — the girl who had no business being here.

I pulled my cap low over my face as I slipped through the entrance. The halls were already filling with pack members dressed in their finest, laughing and talking in that easy way people do when they belong somewhere.

I didn't belong here anymore.

But I wanted — just once — to see him.

I had heard so much about Alpha Jackson. Power. Authority. The kind of presence that made the air feel heavier when he walked into a room. My brother served him as beta. My sister had spent years angling to be his Luna.

I just wanted to see him with my own eyes.

"Ava?"

My feet stopped moving.

My stomach dropped.

I knew that voice.

I turned slowly, already knowing what I was going to find.

Elsie stood in the middle of the hallway, arms crossed, her perfectly shaped brow arched into a sharp curve. She was stunning as always — tall, wolf-strong, dressed like she had already claimed her future title.

Her eyes were cold.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, her voice low but sharp enough to cut.

"I just wanted to see the new Alpha," I said quietly. "The announcement said everyone was welcome."

Elsie stared at me for a moment.

Then she laughed.

It wasn't a kind sound.

"Everyone?" she repeated. "The notice said every werewolf was invited, Ava." She tilted her head, and the pity in her eyes was somehow worse than the cruelty. "You're not a werewolf. So tell me — how exactly does that include you?"

"I am a werewolf," I said, hating how small my voice sounded even to my own ears.

"Then where's your wolf?"

Silence.

She let it sit there between us, heavy and suffocating, until I had no choice but to drop my gaze.

"Leave," Elsie said, her tone final. "And don't come back. I don't want my future mate irritated by your presence on the most important day of his life."

She walked away without another word, heels clicking against the polished floor.

Around me, pack members were staring. Some with curiosity. Most with contempt. A few whispered to each other behind raised hands, and I didn't need to hear the words to know what they were saying.

Beta's wolfless daughter.

Pathetic.

She has no place here.

A part of me wanted to stay. To stand my ground and prove that I wasn't afraid.

But Elsie had let me go without calling Oliver, and that was more mercy than I was used to receiving from my family. If my brother found me here, it would be worse.

I turned and walked out.

Then I ran.

My apartment was a twenty-minute run from the pack house — farther than any family member of a pack official should have to live. But that had been the point. My father had wanted distance. He had wanted to forget I existed.

Some days, I let myself forget too.

I burst through my front door, chest heaving, eyes burning. The tears I had been holding back in the hallway finally spilled over the moment I was alone.

I sank onto the edge of my bed and pressed my hands to my face.

This was my life.

Working double shifts at the café down the street just to feed myself. Sleeping in a one-room apartment that smelled like damp walls and old wood. Watching the world move forward while I stayed frozen in place — still the girl who had failed her coming-of-age ceremony, still the girl no one wanted.

I had thought about leaving more times than I could count.

But where would I go?

My father was beta. His name — my name — was known across every neighbouring pack. If I crossed into another territory without permission, I would be treated as a rogue. Caught, punished, or worse.

I was trapped.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and lay back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling.

I had almost closed my eyes when my phone buzzed.

A message from Gianna — the only friend I had left in this pack. She was an omega, which in Night Howl was just another word for servant. We had found each other at the bottom, and somehow that had been enough to build something real.

I opened the message.

Gianna: You need to get back here right now, Ava. The Alpha is asking for you.

I sat up slowly, reading the words again.

Then again.

My heart rate spiked.

The Alpha is asking for you.

That had to be a mistake.

Alpha Jackson didn't know I existed. No one important did.

But Gianna didn't joke about things like this.

I stared at the screen, pulse hammering in my ears, and for the first time in a long time — I felt something other than numb.

I felt something like fear.