Chapter 1: The past.

Elara

They say love conquers all.

However, love destroyed everything for me.

My name is Elara Vale, and I am a slave in my father's household– not because he was weak, but because he loved too deeply.

Would you like to know how I became a slave in the home where I once was a daughter?

It began 10 years ago.

★Ten years ago ★

My father, Vincent Vale, came back from the pack war victorious. Blooded.

Tired. Unbroken.

Whether the fight is dangerous or not, he always returns alive.

The day before, the Nightfang Pack was about to make him the Duke of Nightfang Pack—a remarkable thing, particularly considering he was a human. You might wonder why I didn’t say my pack.

That is because I no longer consider myself as one of them.

Perhaps I never actually was.

And to put the record straight, I am not a wolf. I am human—just like my father. But even among werewolves, my father was one-of-a-kind. feared and admired despite the fact that he never had a wolf.

My mother, Lydia Vale, was a werewolf. A gentle one. Too weak to shift, too kind for a cruel world.

She loved him.

“And that love. cost us everything.”

My father always says that love is stronger than blood.

That if people loved you enough, they would protect you.

He was wrong.

It was victor who came up with the idea of celebrating my father's victory.

He said it was only right that my father be honoured properly, before he receive the title of Duke officially. A family gathering, he said. A night of laughter before the weight of responsibility settled heavy.

My family member came from other territories. His wife came with grace, their daughter in tow, her eyes bright with curiosity.

“My father didn’t want the party.”

“I’d rather rest,” he told my mother quietly. “The war took more out of me than I expected.”

However Victor was adamant.

“It’s just one night,” he said warmly. “You deserve it, brother.”

My father, therefore,went.

The food was rich. The wine flowed liberally. Laughter filled the hall, and for a few short hours, things seemed. normal.

Until my father’s hand started shaking.

At first, he dismissed it. Then his face went white. His breathing shallowed, became ragged. My mother noticed all this.

“Vincent,” she called quietly, her voice trembling with panic.

“What’s wrong?”

He smiled at her weakly, apologetically. “Just tired.”

But he wasn’t.

The pain was in waves. Sharp. Burning. Silent.

By the time they got him to their room, he could hardly stand.

The healers were called.

They found nothing.

No wound. No curse.

Only the slow, relentless deteroriation in his body.

Poison.

It took my mother three days to understand that.

Three days of sitting by the man she loved as he wasted away, while the rest of the world whispered explanations.

Three days of observing the way Victor’s wife never touched the food she served.

Three days of terror.

The night that my father realized he was going to die, he asked for me.

“Elara,” he whispered, his voice little more than a breath, pressing a small wooden box into my hands. “You must keep this safe.”

I nodded, my vision clouded by tears. “What is it?”

“‘A truth,’” he whispered. “‘One that only fate can unlock.’”

He closed my fingers around it.

“Nobody opens it,” he went on, his eyes black and serious, “except your destined mate… or mates.”

My heart skipped a beat at the word.

“Promise me.”

”I promise,” I whispered.

He died before morning.

My mother screamed when she realized the truth.

She challenged Victor’s wife.

That was her second mistake.

But by dawn, she was gone—taken to the family dungeon for reasons of instability and grief.

And I learned the final truth years later.

Victor didn’t kill my father.

Time did not heal anything.

It only taught me how to survive quietly.

Ten years went by, and the Nightfang Pack moved forward as if my father had never been. His name was not spoken with honor. His triumphs had been forgotten. The title intended for him was never spoken again.

But Victor took matters into his own hands

Formally, he ruled as a Duke until a new council of Alphas could be organized. But informally, he ruled as a king.

My mother never came back out of the dungeon.But I hear her voice whenever I go to sleep, telling me to be strong.

Some nights, when the moon was full, the screams came through the stone corridors that ran below the manor, and I convinced myself that it was all just my imagination. That grief had driven me mad.

But I knew better.

I was fifteen when I ceased to be Elara.

After that, I was addressed as girl.

I scrubbed floors that had once welcomed me as family. I served food at tables where I was not allowed to sit. I bowed my head to wolves who would not look at me.

And all the while, I kept the box concealed.

I didn’t understand at first why my uncle’s eyes stayed on me for so long. Why his wife’s eyes were narrowed in calculation instead of anger. Why the guards were following me, even when I went to get water.

Until the night Victor learned the truth.

But when he found the box in my possession, when he realized what was needed to open it, he made sure that I never left his house again.

I wasn’t family.

I was leverage.