The Daughter They Forgot Twice

My curse did not make me invisible. It simply made people forget me the moment they looked away.

After struggling my entire life only to die alone, I no longer wanted to fight. If death came for me again, I would let it.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the pack orphanage, only weeks before the vampire attack that had killed me.

I expected to spend those weeks waiting for the same death to find me again. Instead, the Alpha and Luna of the Silver Moon Pack arrived and claimed me as the daughter they had lost seventeen years ago.

On my first day at the Silver Moon Pack’s Alpha House, my adopted sister, Brielle, caught my wrist at the top of the stone staircase and deliberately threw herself backward.

When I lost my balance, I did not scream or reach for the railing.

I simply closed my eyes.

But Brielle’s grip slipped before she could pull me down with her. She lost her footing and tumbled down the stairs alone, while I remained exactly where she had left me.

I stared at my empty hand.

I was still alive.

Her cries soon echoed from downstairs. I went looking for somewhere quiet and found a disused storage closet beneath the back staircase, tucked behind the armory.

The closet was barely wide enough for me to lie down. Broken chairs and old trunks crowded the walls, leaving a narrow gap between them.

I turned sideways and squeezed into that gap, drawing my knees to my chest. The cramped space felt strangely safe because no one would look for me there or ask me to leave. If death came again, I could wait for it in peace.

Brielle’s crying soon drew my parents and my older brother, Adrian, into the hall.

She curled against Luna Eleanor with a large scrape across her arm and tears running down her face.

“Ivy said there would be no place for me in this family now that she’s home. Then she pushed me down the stairs.”

My family immediately rushed upstairs to find me. After searching several rooms, Adrian led a group of pack warriors through the armory and finally opened the storage closet beneath the stairs.

Lantern light spilled into the cramped room and fell across me as I lay motionless between the old trunks.

The room went quiet, and everyone turned toward Brielle, who was still clinging to Luna Eleanor.

“You said Ivy pushed you,” my mother said hesitantly.

Brielle’s face turned pale. A moment later, she buried herself against my mother again.

“I might have been mistaken. After Ivy walked away, I tried to follow her because I wanted to talk. Then I heard something moving inside the storage closet. I thought an animal was trapped in there, and I lost my footing.”

She tightened her grip on my mother’s clothes as her tears fell faster.

“Ivy must hate me. She knows how easily I get frightened, so she hid in the closet to scare me. Does she want me to leave this family?”

Adrian accepted her new explanation without questioning it. He looked up at me, and the suspicion in his eyes quickly hardened into anger.

“The Alpha House has plenty of rooms, Ivy. Why did you crawl into a storage closet? Brielle fell down the stairs, and you hid in here while everyone searched for you. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

I opened my eyes and looked at them through the lantern light.

“I was trying to find somewhere I wouldn’t disturb anyone. If this room frightens her, I can find somewhere else and keep quiet.”

I shifted farther into the gap. My shoulder scraped against the wall, and one of the old trunks gave a dull knock against the stone.

My calm response exhausted the last of Alpha Marcus’s patience. He took a wooden staff from the weapons rack and struck the closet doorframe, making the crowded room tremble around me.

“Brielle has lived in this house for seventeen years without suffering an injury like this. You arrived today, and now the entire household is in chaos.”

He pointed the staff toward the opening.

“Come out. Now.”

I stayed where I was because I had no idea which room I was supposed to return to.

At my father’s command, two pack warriors reached between the trunks and dragged me out. Dust covered my hair and clothes by the time they set me down in the hall.

My mother kept one arm around Brielle and glanced at me.

“Go and clean yourself up, then choose a room. This is your home now, but you cannot hide in storage rooms and frighten Brielle again.”

To keep me from returning, Adrian ordered the staff to empty the closet and lock its door.

After changing out of my dirty clothes, I walked around the second floor. The Alpha House did have plenty of rooms, but Brielle had her own bedroom, dressing room, music room, art studio, and private training room.

There was one empty room at the far end of the corridor. Before I could enter, a member of the household staff stepped in front of the door.

“That room was recently converted into Brielle’s meditation room. She doesn’t like anyone else going inside.”

I nodded and did not ask her to find me another room.

My parents had said plenty about welcoming me home, yet no one had remembered to prepare a place for me to sleep.

Since there was no room for me in the Alpha House, I went outside to search for somewhere no one else would want.

At the back of the property, I found the glass doors leading into the moonflower conservatory. Luna Eleanor grew moonflowers and medicinal plants there, but one long planting bed in the corner was still empty.

The soil was soft and damp beneath my body. I lay down, folded my hands over my stomach, and closed my eyes, finally certain that no one would ask me to leave.