No. 5

ANASTASIA

The sharp, blinding ache behind my eyelids was the first thing that pulled me from the dark.

I gasped, my eyes flying open, but the world was a distorted, dizzying blur of sterile white walls and harsh overhead fluorescent lights. The heavy scent of antiseptic and pack medicine burned my throat. I was in the hospital wing.

As my vision violently swayed, two figures shifted into focus beside my bed. My father and Leo.

For a split second, I was stumped by the expression on their faces. My father sat in a chair pulled close to the bed, his broad shoulders hunched, his hands clasped together like he'd been sitting there for hours. Leo stood behind him, arms crossed, jaw tight. Both of them were looking at me with expressions I barely recognized.

When was the last time they looked at me like that? I wondered. When was the last time they looked at me at all?

"Anna," Leo breathed, his voice rough as he leaned forward. "Thank God. You're awake."

Father immediately stood, his voice tense. "Get the doctor in here. Now!"

Within moments, the pack physician and nurses crowded my bed. The doctor was shining a small penlight into my eyes, sending a spike of agony straight into my skull. I winced, gripping the coarse hospital sheets.

"The impact from the falling chandelier caused trauma to the cranium, Alpha," the doctor explained, turning to my father. "The swelling is putting pressure on her optic nerves. Her vision will be occasionally blurry and unreliable for the foreseeable future. The fire also left a severe first-degree burn on her forearm, but with proper salves, it will heal into a red scar."

The moment the doctor and his team left the room, the fragile illusion of a loving family shattered. The reality of what had happened rushed back into my mind, hot and suffocating. I knew I had to tell them. They would believe me. They had to believe me. They'd seen the fire. They'd seen me trapped. Surely now, after everything, they would finally see the truth.

"It was Bella,"

The words hung in the air.

My father's expression flickered. Leo went very still.

“It was her,” I rasped, my voice cracking from the smoke damage. I looked directly at my father, my hands trembling. "She locked me in that room. She struck a match and deliberately set the place on fire. She tried to kill me."

I expected outrage. I expected my Alpha father to demand justice for his flesh and blood.

Instead, Leo just let out a heavy, weary sigh, running a hand over his face. "We know, Anna. Bella already told us."

“Y-you knew? She told you?"

"Yes." Leo nodded and turned toward the door and called out, "Bella, come in."

The door pushed open, and Bella stepped into the room. The monstrous, mocking viper from the burning parlor was gone. She was dressed in soft, oversized clothes, her head bowed, her eyes red and streaming with fresh, pathetic tears. She looked small. Fragile. Sickeningly innocent.

"Anastasia..." Father’s voice took on that placating, careful tone he always used when protecting her. "Bella was emotionally unstable yesterday. The stress of her birthday, the trauma of losing her parents... it caught up to her. She didn't know what she was doing. She came here to apologize to you."

Emotionally unstable?

"She almost killed me!" My voice rose into a broken shriek, the monitors beside my bed beeping erratically. "She laughed while the room burned! Can a pathetic apology make up for her trying to burn me alive?!"

"Anna, please," Bella sobbed, clutching her hands to her chest, trembling as she neared the bed. "I am so, so sorry. I wasn't in my right mind. Please forgive me..."

"Get away from me!" I snapped, the sheer hypocrisy choking me. "I will never forgive you. Get out!"

"Anastasia, enough!" Father’s voice suddenly dropped, heavy with that cold, absolute Alpha authority. He glared down at me, his brief moment of fatherly concern completely vanishing. "She is your sister. We are family, and we do not hold onto these small, petty matters. You will accept her apology, and we will put this behind us."

"Small matters," I whispered, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping my lips.

Attempted murder was a small matter. The scar on my arm was a small matter. My nearly being burned alive was a small matter. Because it was me. Because it happened to me, and I was the daughter who didn't matter, whose pain was always too much or not enough or something to be managed and dismissed.

"Bella’s parents sacrificed themselves to save me," my father continued, his tone brooking no argument. "She lost her wolf. She's been through more than you can imagine. Sometimes trauma comes out in ways we don't expect. She needs our compassion, not our judgment."

"If mother was here she would have forgiven her," Leo added quietly. "She always believed in second chances. So let go.”

I flinched. Bringing up our mother was a low blow, and he knew it.

I stared at them in disbelief. “Let it go? She tried to murder me, and you want me to forgive her like it was nothing?”

Leo sighed. “You’re making this bigger than it needs to be. For the pack’s sake, we need peace right now.”

I turned my face away, tears burning.

Any remaining love I had for them cracked and died in that moment.

They just never knew.

…

Two days later, the doctor repeated that my eyesight might recover eventually. I didn’t plan to wait around to find out.

My mind was clearer than it had been in years.

I couldn't stay here. Not anymore. Not after everything. The house that had once been my home was now a prison, and every face in it belonged to my jailers. My father, who valued peace over justice. My brother, who would always choose Bella.

I had to leave.

The plan came together quickly. I still had contacts from my medical research work. My mentor, Dr. Kassian, had left Red River six months ago to establish a new pharmaceutical institute at the Silver Moon pack. He'd offered me a position then, and I'd turned it down out of loyalty to my family. Loyalty. What a joke.

I sent him a message. His response came within hours: I've been hoping you'd change your mind. When can you arrive?

Before I leave, I need to get my things back.

While everyone was out for pack run, I crept up to the third floor. I slipped into Bella's unlocked room while she was downstairs, found my mother’s sapphire necklace sitting carelessly on her vanity, and took it back. I clasped it tightly around my neck, feeling the cool weight of the stones against my collarbone. It was the only piece of my past I was willing to carry into my future.

I packed a single duffel bag, slipped into my old sedan, and drove toward the pack lines.

When I reached the heavy iron gates at the pack’s border, I stopped the car. I rolled down the window, taking one final, painful look at the forest and the mountains I had called home for twenty-one years. “I am never coming back,” I promised myself.

But as I put the car in drive, two heavily armed border guards stepped into the road, their hands resting flat against the hood of my car.

"Miss Anastasia, turn off the engine," the guard barked. "You are not allowed to leave the pack territory."

Cold panic flared in my chest. "What? On whose authority? I am a free citizen!"

Before I could even open the car door to confront them, a black SUV slammed to a halt behind my car. My father stepped out, his face a thundercloud of pure rage.

"If Bella hadn't seen you packing your bags and told me, I wouldn't have known you dared to sneak away on your own like a thief in the night," Father hissed, tearing my car door open and glaring down at me.

"Let me go, Father!" I yelled, gripping the steering wheel as tears of frustration blurred my sight. "I don't want to live under Bella's shadow anymore! I am twenty-one years old. I can live on my own, build my own life!"

"You are my daughter!" Father thundered, his powerful Alpha aura flaring, making the air heavy and hard to breathe. "An Alpha's daughter packing up her things and running away like a rogue makes this entire family the laughingstock of the republic alliance! I absolutely will not allow it!"

"I don't care about your reputation!" I screamed.

He didn't even listen. Ignoring my frantic protests and scratches, Father nodded to the guards. They brutally pried my fingers from the steering wheel, dragging me kicking and screaming from the car. I was forcibly hauled back to the estate, carried down the steps, and locked inside my room like a prisoner.

Over the next two weeks, my life became a repetitive nightmare of desperation.

Over the next few days, I tried to escape three times.

The first time, I waited until the middle of the night and climbed out the window. I made it as far as the eastern garden before two guards intercepted me. They'd been watching the grounds, they said. On my father's orders.

The second time, I slipped out during a servant shift change, disguised in borrowed clothes. I almost reached the garage before Leo himself caught me. He dragged me back to my room without a word, disappointment etched into every line of his face.

The third time, I nearly made it.

I'd been patient. I'd been careful. I'd studied the guard rotations, found the gap in their coverage, mapped a route through the servants' corridors that no one watched. I made it all the way to the southern gate, the unguarded one that the kitchen staff used for deliveries.

The guards were waiting for me and with them, Bella.

Bella stood behind them, her expression one of sorrow but I caught the evilness underneath. In her hand was a small electronic device. "I was so worried about you, big sister," she said softly. "Thank the Goddess I thought to put this on the necklace. Just in case something like this happened. I was only trying to protect you."

A tracker. She had bugged my mother's necklace.

Because of my repeated escape attempts, Father officially lost his patience. They dragged me down into the cold, damp dark of the pack house basement, throwing me into a concrete cell and locking the heavy iron grate.

In a desperate, final act of defiance, I went on a hunger strike. I refused to touch the trays of food the servants slid through the slots. But my body was already broken from the fire; my injuries hadn't healed properly, and within days, the damp chill of the basement made me violently sick. A fever took hold, burning through my veins, and the pressure in my head worsened until my vision degraded into nothing more than dark, overlapping shadows and faint slivers of light.

Then, they came to see me.

The heavy door groaned open, and the flickering light of the basement revealed my father and brother. They brought blankets, fresh water, and expensive food, suddenly playing the part of a loving family again.

Father knelt beside my cot, his face softening into a terrifying imitation of a gentle patriarch. He touched my burning forehead, his voice smooth. "Look what you've done to yourself, Anastasia. I have forgiven your mistakes, my child. I am not angry anymore. I just wanted you to learn your lesson. You cannot survive out there alone."

I turned my face away from his hand, my throat too dry to speak.

"I have good news," Father continued, completely unbothered by my rejection. "I have found you a wonderful fiancé. The engagement ceremony will take place next month."

The word didn't make sense at first. It bounced around my feverish brain, refusing to land.

“You can be serious.” I muttered with disbelief.

Father patted my hand. “As the Alpha’s daughter, this is your duty. Forget that pharmaceutical institute nonsense. You will never mention it again," he warned, his voice instantly hardening into a strict command. "The most important thing for a woman is to marry and raise children. As the daughter of an Alpha, your only purpose, your only value to this pack, is to be married off for a political alliance."

A bitter, broken laugh escaped my chest, tearing at my raw throat. My alliance. My body sold to save his failing pack, while all my hard work, my research, my intellect, meant absolutely nothing to him.

Later that evening, Bella slipped down into the basement under the pretense of bringing me a cup of water. She leaned against the bars of my cell, her silhouette blocking what little light remained.

"You should be thrilled, Anna," she murmured, her voice laced with a cruel, mocking satisfaction. “I heard Father and Leo talking about your fiance." She paused, letting the anticipation build. “They said he’s… well, he has some challenges, but he’s from a strong bloodline.”

Disabled. She didn’t say it outright, but the meaning was clear.

She smiled. "I thought you should know. Since you'll be spending the rest of your life with him. Enjoy your dinner. Or don't. It makes no difference to me."

Her footsteps retreated up the stairs.

I was alone in the dark.

Marry a stranger. Give up my career. Become a nursemaid to a disabled man I'd never met, whose pack wanted an alliance, whose father would pay handsomely for an Alpha's daughter to warm his son's bed.

They're asking me to die.

And I had absolutely no intention of serving it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​