Chapter 2

Rose Murdock's POV

Raymond believed I had killed our parents. I couldn't even remember the last time he had called me 'honey.'

I tilted my head up at the unfamiliar werewolf before me and, unable to help myself, nodded.

"Alright."

I followed a werewolf whose name I didn't even know into an unfamiliar house.

The place was spotless.

My gaze swept the room and landed on the coffee table, where several small white bottles were lined up in perfect order. I recognized them instantly—enhanced sedatives. That amount could have put five werewolves to sleep forever.

Beside the bottles sat a black-and-white photograph of a man with a blank, emotionless face.

Noticing my stare, the werewolf walked over, tucked the items away in a drawer, and said softly, "This is a couch. You can sit on it. I'll make you some food."

He truly thought something was wrong with my mind, that I couldn't recognize people or even understand what ordinary things were for.

I kept staring at those bottles, a strange heaviness settling in my chest. Had he, like me, already given up on living?

He stepped into the kitchen, but no sound of cooking followed. When I finally went to check, I found him standing motionless before an empty refrigerator.

"Sorry. I'll have to go out and buy some meat."

For years, I had thought of myself as a hollow shell without a soul. Yet seeing him like that, I realized some people looked even more like the walking dead.

He had already reached the door when, against my better judgment, I called out to him.

"I like beef."

His shoulders stiffened. Winter wind rushed through the crack of the open door, whipping his cloak until it snapped like a banner.

I repeated, "Let's have beef for dinner. Is that okay?"

His fingers gave the faintest tremor before he nodded and said yes.

I watched him leave, then let my gaze drift back to the bottles. Since he had promised to be my brother, he would come back, wouldn't he?

My thoughts drifted back to two weeks earlier, to the final round of the Moon Acolyte selection.

As a 'useless' and wolf-less omega, I had no right to stand on the sacred altar. It had been my father who carved my name onto the monument before his death.

"She belongs to the Moon Goddess."

And yet, my own brother Raymond had pushed the monument down in front of every elder.

"She's just an omega without a wolf. She's unworthy."

That night, I had a bitter fight with Raymond and left the house. Not long after, the rogue attacked me.

I sank back onto the couch. The moment I closed my eyes, the nightmares returned.

My parents should have lived out their lives in peace, but were instead buried beneath collapsing rubble.

I had been dragged from the wreckage by werewolf guards and was forced to carry their stolen years forward.

In my dreams, Raymond's hateful eyes always found me.

"Mom and Dad are dead. Why are you still alive? After all these years, don't you feel guilty at all?"

Of course I did. That was why, in every dream, there was fire, blood, and my parents' faces.

I jolted awake, and almost without realizing, I slid open the drawer and slipped out the bottles like a thief.

But just then, a phone rang on the coffee table.

The sound was so sharp and sudden that I jumped, dropping the bottles to the floor. My heart pounded as I grabbed the phone, only to realize that it wasn't mine.

I pressed the button, and the call connected.

A furious male voice exploded through the line.

"Adrian Sanders! More than 700 million—if you think you're keeping every cent from me, forget it! I'm your father! Your sister died for you. She's gone now, and that's perfect! By blood, everything of hers belongs to me!

"You think you can give it away? Over my dead body!"