1.

~ DAISY ~

If I could turn back time and change my life, I would do so in a heartbeat without thinking twice.

I hate hospitals more than anything and I have been here thousands of times after I was declared a wolfless omega. Right now, I am bound to this wheelchair and forced to sit here with the person I hate the most in this world.

My name is Daisy Caldwell, the crippled, denounced Alpha heiress of the Brimstone Pack. I used to have everything and I was my daddy’s precious princess, but today, I am more miserable than a homeless animal.

Worse of all, my stepsister Louise is here beside me and I want to tear her apart, but I can't because I am a cripple who can't even clean up my own mess without begging for her help which always comes with slaps and painful yanks of my hair.

However, I have endured much worse. I have survived years of her torment, so I will survive this too.

“Don't just stay here moping like a fool,” she tugs at my arm, her sharp nails digging into my skin and bruising me with deep, half-moon marks.

“What do you want?!” I snap.

“Oh my darling sister, our father doesn’t have much time, so I kindly brought you here to say your last goodbye to him.”

“I don’t believe you,” I meet her glare head-on. I have learned not to give Louise the satisfaction of seeing me break and I have to be strong.

My father, Alpha Jacob Caldwell, was the strongest Alpha of our pack. Under his great strength and leadership, our pack became the most powerful pack in the region and even the Lycan King respects my father.

So right now, I don't believe anything this bitch just said.

Ignoring my retort, she yanks the door of my dad's ward open. I swallow the lump in my throat and force myself to move the wheels of my wheelchair, one determined roll at a time.

After losing my father's protection, I was locked in the basement for too long, but the moment I was informed to see my father, I pushed myself to the limit and now, for the first time in years, I am finally allowed to see him.

I tell myself it’s because he wants to reconcile. That maybe, just maybe, he is ready to look at me not as the daughter of disappointment who failed to get her wolf, but simply as his child. I need him to love me again like he did to the little girl who used to chase after him and tickle him nonstop.

When I enter the ward, I gasp at the sight in front of me.

My dad looks nothing like the vibrant Alpha I remember. His body, once strong and full of life, is now just an empty shell. His cheeks are hollow, his skin is pale and stretched too tight over his bones, and his body is shaking with every shallow breath he struggles to take into his lungs.

Noticing my presence, his eyes weakly flutter open.

But right then, Louise steps in front of me, blocking my father's view while facing him, her mocking smirk ruining the fragile hope trying to bloom in my chest.

When I finally tilt my head to get even just a glimpse of my dad, I see his eyes softening for her in a way they have never softened for me.

Instantly, my heart sinks.

After my eighteenth birthday, my father never looked at me with eyes full of love again. Weeks later, I fell in love with Bryson. My dad was against it, but I was so in love with Bryson and it led to a very brutal argument between me and my father.

The argument was huge, but when it ended, I still agreed to marry Bryson and we secretly got married. After that, I moved into Bryson's house on the border and completely lost contact with my father for years.

I heard that after I left, my dad gave all his love to my stepsister, Louise, who suddenly had an Alpha wolf while I was wolfless. My father called her a princess and said that Louise was his daughter and that he is giving her only the best in the world.

“Papa,” she purrs, pressing her manicured hand against his frail one. “I brought Daisy. She made you seriously ill, but now I think she knows how wrong she was.”

“What did you do to him?!” I snap, my father's fragility hurting me more. I know my eighteenth birthday party is my lifelong shame, but I didn’t believe that it would break him like this.

“Dad,” I try to get his attention, but before I can reach his side, a strong arm suddenly snakes around my waist and pulls me back.

I gasp, colliding with a hard chest and twisting around to see the face of the fucker who dared—

“Bryson?” I gulp in shock.

Bryson Giles. The second son of Beta Carlos Giles, the Beta of the Moonvine Pack which is the smallest pack amongst the five packs making up the Fang Accords in the region.

Bryson is the boy I once loved so recklessly and stupidly that I would have followed him anywhere if he had dared to ask me. His scent used to calm me, and his smile used to light up every dark corner of my lonely life.

But now… now he makes me fucking sick because I know what he truly is: A viper.

A poisonous viper just like Louise.

He is also Louise’s lover and her partner in every cruel game they have ever played against me and my family.

“Get your fucking hands off me." I snarl, struggling against his grip with every ounce of strength I have left. My legs may be useless, but my spirit isn't broken.

“Easy Daisy,” he whispers in my ear while his arm tightens around my shoulders. “We don’t want you ruining the moment.”

Moment?

“It’s such a shame, isn’t it?” Louise is talking to me as she leans closer to my face. “You are here, crippled and useless. However, you are still stubborn despite your pathetic condition, and it makes me wonder what a menace you would have been if your wolf wasn't taken away from you.”

“What the hell did you just say?” I ask, trying to understand her words.

“Oh poor little Daisy,” she smirks, “Do you still remember the taste of your 18th birthday cake? I bet it was super delicious, wasn't it?”

“Stop beating around in circles.” I snap.

“Well, I think it's high time you know the truth,” she smirks even more. “On your eighteenth birthday, I claimed your Alpha wolf for myself. Tada!”

What?!

I instantly feel goosebumps everywhere on my skin. Since the day I turned eighteen and didn’t get my wolf, I often wondered why the moon goddess didn't bless me.

But now…

Now I know it wasn't the fault of the moon goddess.

It was this bitch who stole my Alpha Wolf from me!

“You snake!” I yell angrily at her. “You stole my wolf—!”

“I just took what is mine!” She lashes back. “I just claimed what belongs to me, that's all. Between the both of us, you are the thief, Daisy. You stole my entire life and everyone thought you were better than me! Even that your damn best friend Gigi! How dare she, a bitch, look down on the Alpha's stepdaughter?! Before she died, she kept begging me not to hurt you...”

“You killed her?!” The rage that has been boiling in my chest for years finally explodes as I yell at the top of my lungs and move to pounce on her regardless of my crippled legs.

“You fucking bitch!” My hands reach for her, wheelchair be damned. “I will kill you!”

“Enough!” She storms towards me and slaps me. Hard.

My head whips to the side as blood spurts out of my mouth, but I immediately turn back to face her, my eyes blazing red.

“Is that all you've got?” I throw back at her.

She slaps me again.

My cheek hurts badly. She may have stolen my wolf, but she didn't steal my will to fight.

“Lou… ise…” Dad suddenly wheezes in a broken faint voice, trying to raise his hand. “Stop hurting your sister.”

“Please Dad,” Tears spill down my cheeks as I struggle and fight against Bryson’s grip. “Louise is evil. I didn’t know. Please forgive me. I just want you to see me as your daughter again. Just once—”

“I am his only daughter!” Louise yells and marches back to the bed.

Reaching the bed, she roughly pulls out Daddy's pillow from under his head and in a blink of an eye, she slams the pillow over his face and presses down hard!

“No!” I cry out, but Bryson swiftly clamps his other hand over my mouth, muffling my cries. I squirm in his grip as he forces me to watch my father's frail hands clawing weakly at the pillow as he fights for his life, his legs thrashing against the sheets.

The machines start beeping frantically and he keeps struggling, kicking, clawing, but Louise is stronger.

I watch as he kicks and kicks…

Until he stops.

No.

His hands drop. His body has gone still, very still, and his chest is no longer rising or falling with shallow breaths like they did before.

“Well, this is a happy ending for everyone,” Louise smiles and straightens her body, panting heavily. Her cheeks are flushed with joy as she drops the pillow to the ground and fixes her hair as if she just finished a marathon race.

She… she killed our father.

No.

She killed MY father.

Bryson shoves me forward from the wheelchair and I fall to my knees beside the bed.

However, I quickly catch myself with my hands.

My father’s eyes are still open, but they are glassy and empty. So empty that they are staring at me but not seeing me.

Louise.

She stole my wolf, killed my best friend Gigi.

And now, she murdered my last family in the world. In front of me.

I clutch the bedsheet to keep myself from falling into the darkness now threatening to swallow me whole. “Louise, you’re a monster.”

“Well,” she shrugs. “I just did what I should have done a long time ago. All you assholes should pay for everything you have taken in my life.”

Done speaking, she pulls something from her pocket. A vial filled with dark liquid.

Before I can react, Bryson grabs my arms and Louise forces my mouth open, her hand pouring the dark liquid into my throat before forcing my mouth shut by squeezing my lips tightly. I fight with everything I have left, thrashing and clawing to escape, but all my efforts are useless because Bryson is holding me down and both of them are forcing me to swallow the burning vile liquid that's now scorching my throat.

Fuck.

The taste is bitter. My chest seizes and a sharp pain shoots through every vein in my body so deep that I collapse on the floor, jerking like a dying fish and clawing at my throat as if I can rip the poison out.

“That’s wolfsbane my darling stepsister,” Louise says casually. “I had been planning to have more fun with you before you die, but I can't wait any longer, so die quickly and rot in hell!”

More tears blur my vision and continue streaming down my cheeks. I look up at her.

And for the first time in my life, I see her clearly for who she truly is.

A heartless beast.

Even as I am dying, even as my body keeps getting weaker, my mind is still sharp and I am memorizing her face and Bryson's face. The two faces of my killers.

If there is any justice in this world, if there is any second chance to come back from this, I will make them suffer.

Right now, I can't feel my upper body muscles anymore and I can’t breathe—

“Louise stop!” A male voice thunders angrily just the same time the door of the ward suddenly slams open with a force that sends a gust of wind flooding into the room.

Louise stumbles back, her smirk faltering and for once, she looks afraid.

The sight amuses me, but I can’t hold onto that satisfaction. Not when this poison is already killing me from the inside.

My breaths are coming out in shallow gasps and I am struggling to keep my eyes open. I am in a hospital, but I am dying.

What an irony.

“Daisy, stay with me,” I hear the same male voice begging in a broken tone, followed by strong arms lifting me from the ground and wrapping around me. A strong vanilla scent envelopes my senses, giving me a moment of peace amidst the pain of the wolfsbane.

“I have been searching for you for too long,” the male voice says in that same broken tone, “You are my mate, Daisy. You are the cure of my life.”

What? His mate?

Just then, I feel something soft touching my lips, a warm liquid flowing into my mouth and instantly, I recognize the coppery taste.

Blood.

This male is giving me his blood!

I don't know why, but I don't have the strength to do anything but let the blood flow into my mouth.

“Liam Kingston, I did all this for you!” Louise screams desperately. Why can't you love me?! Why can't you see I am the one who loves you the most?!”

Liam Kingston?

That’s the name of the Lycan Prince!

“I should have found you sooner,” he whispers to me, his voice growing weaker as more of his blood flows into me. “I should have protected you from all of this, but I am here now. Please, live Daisy. Please live.”

I want to say something to him, anything at all, but my throat feels bloated and swollen. I try to open my eyes, but right then, my body jerks once and stops. My heart ceases, and I feel my last breath leaving me as I fall into a darkness and a coldness I have never felt before in my entire life.

I am… dead.