1.

DAISY

I hate hospitals more than anything. I have been here thousands of times after I was marked as a wolfess omega. But 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'm worse than a homeless animal.

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

But I've endured worse. I've survived years of her torment, and I'll 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?!”

“Oh dear sister, our father doesn’t have much time, I kindly brought you here for your last goodbye.”

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

My father, Alpha Jacob Caldwell, was the strongest Alpha of our pack. Under my father's great strength and careful management, our pack became the most powerful wolf pack. Even the Lycan King respects my father.

I believe nothing in Louise’s words.

Louise yanks the door 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 thinking that I would see my father, I pushed myself to the limit.

And now, for the first time in years, I’m 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.

However, Louise’s mocking smirk ruins the fragile hope trying to bloom in my chest.

When I enter the ward, I clearly see that my daddy looks nothing like the vibrant Alpha I remember. His body, once strong and full of life and good health, is now just an empty shell. His cheeks are hollow, his skin pale and stretched too tight over his bones, and his body is shaking with every shallow breath he struggles to take.

His eyes flutter open.

But then, Louise steps in front of me, blocking his view and facing him.

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

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, and after a huge argument with my father, we secretly got married. After that, I moved into Bryson's house on the border and completely lost contact with my father.

I heard he gave all his love to my stepsister, Louise, who had an Alpha wolf. 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?!” My father's fragility pains me. My eighteenth birthday party is my lifelong shame, but I didn’t believe that it would break him.

“Dad,” I try to get his attention, but before I can reach his side, a strong arm 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?”

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.

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 sick. Because I know what he truly is.

A viper. Just like Louise. He's also Louise’s lover and her partner in every cruel game they've 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, his breath hot 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. “Your wolf is sweet and docile, but of course, if it doesn't obey my commands, I have wolfsbane to make it obey.”

I freeze and try to understand.

“Oh, poor little Daisy. Always so clueless,” she turns to me, “Was your 18th birthday cake delicious? To me, it was very delicious, full of the smell of Alpha.”

I feel the hairs on my body stand on end. From a very young age, a witch had told me I was the most perfect hybrid of wolf and witch. But at 18, the goddess didn't bless me, leaving me an Omega without a wolf. This event was a profound blow, completely destroying my life as the pack's highly anticipated heiress.

My mind instantly races through memories of the strange dreams, the inexplicable strength I sometimes felt, the way other pack members would unconsciously defer to me before remembering I was "wolfless.”

So all these years…

“You stole my wolf—”

“No!” She smiles wickedly. “I'm not a thief, you are! You stole my entire life! Everyone thinks you are better than me! Even that damn 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 fucking bitch!” 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. My hands reach for her throat, wheelchair be damned. "I should kill you!”

Just then, 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?"

She slaps me again.

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

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

“Please Dad,” Tears spill down my cheeks as I struggle and fight against Bryson’s grip. “I didn’t know. Please, don’t believe her. 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. She 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.

Daddy's legs thrash against the sheets. The machines start beeping frantically. He keeps struggling, kicking, clawing, but Louise is stronger.

Dad kicks and kicks…

And then, he doesn’t kick anymore.

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

“A happy ending for everyone,” Louise straightens, panting slightly. Her cheeks are flushed with satisfaction as she drops the pillow and fixes her hair as if she just finished a marathon race.

Bryson shoves me forward. I fall to my knees beside the bed, but I quickly catch myself with my hands.

My father’s eyes are still open. Glassy and empty. Staring at me but not seeing me.

My head spins.

She stole my wolf, killed 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. “You’re a monster.”

“No.” She shrugs. “I just do what I should do. All you assholes should pay for everything you've done in my life.”

She pulls something from her pocket. A vial filled with dark liquid.

Before I can react, she forces my mouth open and pours it down my throat before forcing my mouth shut with her hand squeezing my lips tightly. I fight with everything I have left, thrashing and clawing and refusing to go quietly, but it's useless because Bryson is now holding me down, and both of them are forcing me to swallow the burning vile liquid now scorching my throat.

Fuck.

The taste is bitter. My chest seizes, and 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.

“Wolfsbane,” Louise says casually. “It’s your turn Daisy, I had been planning to have more fun with you, but your mate, oh, he is mine now, and he seems to have known something about us. So, unfortunately, I can't let you live any longer. Only when you die will he be able to fully claim me.”

My mate?

More tears blur my vision and continue falling to my cheeks. I look up at her, and for the first time in my life, I see her clearly for all she is.

Even as I'm dying, even as my body betrays me, my mind remains sharp and I memorize their faces and their cruelty burning into my soul.

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

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

The door slams open with a force that sends a gust of wind flooding into the room.

“Louise! Stop!”

Louise stumbles a step back, her smirk faltering. For once, she looks afraid.

But I can’t hold onto that satisfaction. Not when the poison is already killing me from the inside. My breaths come in shallow gasps, and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. I'm in a hospital, but I'm dying.

Such irony.

“Daisy, stay with me,” I hear a man begging in a broken voice, his arms tightening around me. The strong vanilla scent on him envelopes me, giving me a moment of peace amidst the pain of the wolfsbane.

“I’ve been looking for you for too long,” he says in that same broken voice, “You're my mate, Daisy. You're the cure of my life.”

Oh right, my mate. He is the reason why Louise wants me to die.

Just then, I feel something soft touching my lips, and then a fishy-smelling liquid flows into my mouth. 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! Why don't you ever look at me?!” Louise screams desperately. “I'm the one who loves you the most!”

Liam? 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. "I should have protected you from all of this. Live, Daisy. Please live.”

My body jerks once and stops. My eyes close, and I feel my last breath leaving me as I fall into a dark abyss and a coldness I've never felt before in my life.

I am… dead.