CHAPTER TWO

AISHA

The cold mud caked under my fingernails didn’t matter anymore. The rain pouring down on my shivering shoulders didn't matter either. Nothing mattered.

Just an hour ago, I had crossed the pack border, thinking of nothing but survival. But then, reality crashed into me like a physical blow. Leo. Toby. My sweet, innocent little brothers. What was the point of running to save my own skin if I left them behind to face Mabel’s wrath? Mabel was a monster, and she knew they were my weakness.

Panic had gripped my chest, forcing me to turn right back around. I sneaked through the shadows of the Blue Wing territory, avoiding the search patrols, and sprinted all the way to our small, run-down cabin at the edge of the village.

"Leo! Toby!" I had whispered frantically, pushing the front door open.

The copper smell of blood hit me first. It was thick, heavy, and suffocating.

My knees buckled. There, on the cold wooden floor, lay my two younger brothers. Toby, who was only ten, was completely still, his eyes wide and lifeless, staring at the ceiling. A deep, horrific gash marred his tiny throat.

"No, no, no... please, God, no!" I screamed silently, throwing myself onto the floor.

Next to him, twelve-year-old Leo gasped, a wet, choking sound coming from his chest. He was lying in a massive, growing pool of his own blood, his hands feebly clutching his neck.

"Leo! Oh my God, Leo, stay with me!" I sobbed, lifting his fragile upper body into my lap. I pressed my hands against the wound on his throat, trying desperately to hold the blood inside, but it kept oozing through my fingers, warm and terrifying. "I'm here. Aisha is here. I’m so sorry, Leo. I'm so sorry."

Leo’s eyes flickered, focusing on my face with agonizing effort. He swallowed hard, his voice nothing more than a wet whisper. "A-Aisha..."

"Don't speak, baby, don't speak. I'm going to get you help," I lied, my tears blinding me as they fell onto his pale cheek.

He weakly shook his head, gripping my sleeve with a surprising, desperate strength. "No time... Aisha, listen to me. It... it was her."

"The guards?" I choked out.

"No," Leo gasped, coughing up blood. "Luna... Mabel. She came here herself. The guards tried to stop her, said they were just kids... but she wouldn't listen. She laughed. She took the knife... and slit our throats. She said... she said she wanted to destroy everything you loved."

A cold, deadly numbness began to spread through my veins. Mabel did this. Not a nameless guard following orders. The Luna herself had slaughtered my babies just to hurt me.

"Aisha..." Leo’s grip on my sleeve tightened one last time. "You have to run. Please... they are coming back. If you stay... they will kill you too."

"Let them kill me!" I wailed, pressing my forehead against his wet shoulder. My heart was completely shattered. "What am I living for, Leo? Mama is gone. Papa is gone. And now you and Toby... I have nothing left! Let them take me!"

"No!" Leo suddenly found a burst of strength, his eyes wide and fierce, reflecting the last embers of his young life. "Don't say that! Aisha... go. Go so you can... avenge this evil. Promise me. Make her pay."

His hand slipped from my arm. The light in his eyes snapped out, and his body went completely limp in my arms.

"Leo? Leo!" I shrieked, rocking his body back and forth. But there was no answer. The cabin was dead silent.

I sat there in the dark for what felt like hours, holding my dead brothers, covered in their blood. My mind went blank, the overwhelming grief slowly hardening into something else. Something dark. Something terrifying.

Leo was right. What was I living for? I was living for revenge.

I waited until midnight, when the pack village was completely asleep and the patrols were focused on the outer borders. I couldn't leave my brothers here like this. I carried them, one by one, into the deep woods behind our cabin, near the hidden clearing where our parents were buried.

I didn't have a shovel. I didn't have any tools. But I didn't need them. As the last surviving White Wolf, a royal lineage of pure power, there was a hidden, monstrous strength buried deep inside me. I fell to my knees in front of my parents' old, overgrown graves and began to dig into the earth with my bare hands.

The dirt tore at my skin, but I didn't feel the pain. My fingernails cracked and bled, mixing my own blood with the mud, but I kept digging. I dug with a feral, tireless speed, fueled by pure, unadulterated rage. With every handful of dirt I threw over my shoulder, I envisioned Mabel’s face. I envisioned snapping her neck.

By the time the twin graves were deep enough, my hands were raw and caked in filth. Gently, reverently, I placed Toby and Leo side by side into the earth. I smoothed down their hair and kissed their cold foreheads.

"I promise you," I whispered into the dark night, my voice sounding completely detached, like it belonged to a stranger. "She will bleed for this. Every single person who stood by and let this happen will pay. Sleep now, my babies."

I covered them with the earth, packing the mud down tight until the graves were seamless against the forest floor. I stood up, wiping my bloody, muddy hands on my ruined, dirty clothes. I looked like a monster, a ghost rising from the grave.

My inner wolf didn't whine or cry for our lost family. She paced in the shadows of my mind, baring her fangs, her fur glowing white with a dangerous, lethal aura. The weak, submissive Omega named Aisha died tonight in this dirt.

Turning my back on the graves, I walked away from the Blue Wing pack house and slipped into the shadows of the unknown world.

I was leaving now. But I would return. And when I did, I wouldn't be hiding my white fur anymore. I would be their worst nightmare.