Chapter 9

THE SHADOWFELL PACK

Nyx's POV

The pack house never truly slept.

Even at night, it breathed—wood groaning softly, distant guards pacing the corridors, the low hum of ancient magic stitched into its walls like invisible threads. Every shadowfell wolf could feel it, that constant pulse of power thrumming beneath their feet, a reminder that this place was alive in ways mortals could never understand.

Tonight, that breathing felt shallow, uneasy. Like the house itself was holding its breath, waiting for something terrible to unfold.

I padded across the marble floor, my steps soundless out of habit. Years of navigating these halls undetected had taught me which tiles sang and which stayed silent. The cool stone kissed my bare feet, sending shivers up my calves.

After the courtroom disaster, the public humiliation still burned like acid in my throat. Father's disappointment had lingered in the air, thick and suffocating, a miasma I couldn't escape even hours later. Every glance from the pack members had felt like tiny knives cutting into my skin, peeling away the carefully constructed image of the perfect Alpha's daughter.

I needed to meet Klan. He knew too much—dangerous things, secrets that could unravel everything I'd worked for. I couldn't afford to let him spill what festered in that twisted mind of his. One word to the wrong wolf, and my entire future would crumble like ash.

I was rounding the east corridor, my mind racing through possible ways to handle Klan, when voices stopped me cold. They drifted from behind the council chamber doors—thick oak carved with ancient runes that glowed faintly in the darkness. My parents' voices, sharp and cutting despite their lowered tones.

I froze mid-step, one foot hovering above the floor.

I shouldn't listen. Klan was waiting, probably growing more dangerous with each passing minute. Who knew what he might do if I didn't show up tonight? He was unpredictable, volatile—a cornered animal with nothing left to lose.

But something in my chest tightened, an instinct sharper than fear, more insistent than reason. This house had taught me early that knowledge was dangerous, that secrets had teeth that could tear you apart. Yet those same secrets were also weapons, and I'd learned to collect them like precious stones.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin, curious, alert. *Listen*, she seemed to whisper. *Something's wrong.*

I moved closer, each step measured and deliberate. The shadows welcomed me like old friends, wrapping around my body as I pressed myself against the wall beside the door. My enhanced hearing focused, filtering out the distant sounds of the pack house until only my parents' voices remained.

"You really wanted to embarrass me, Vespera?" Father's voice hissed through the door, low and controlled, but deadly calm—the kind of calm that preceded violence. My stomach twisted. I'd heard that tone before, usually right before someone got hurt. "In front of the council? In front of the other Alphas?"

My heart began to hammer against my ribs. I pressed closer to the door, the wood cool against my cheek. Curiosity clawed at me with razor-sharp talons, demanding answers. What had happened between them? What could Mother have possibly done to provoke Father's wrath so publicly?

"You embarrassed yourself, Galen," Mother replied, her voice crystalline and cold as winter frost. There was steel beneath those words, a backbone I rarely heard her display. "I only needed to remind them who held this pack before you ever did. I won't let you drag our daughters—especially Nyx—into your ruthless pursuit of power with Hubert."

My breath caught in my throat. Me? They were arguing about me?

A pause stretched between them, heavy with unspoken threats. I could almost feel the tension seeping through the door, thick enough to choke on.

Father laughed—a short, cruel sound that made my skin crawl. It held no warmth, no humor, only contempt. "You love clinging to that fantasy, don't you?"

"It's not a fantasy," Mother said, and now her voice carried an edge I'd never heard before—something ancient and powerful, like the rumble before an earthquake. "This pack was mine. Born to me, bound to my blood. I handed it to you because I chose peace over war."

The world tilted beneath my feet.

What?

The revelation slammed into me like a physical blow. Mother had been Alpha? The Shadowfell Pack had belonged to her bloodline? My mind reeled, scrambling to reconcile this information with everything I'd been told my entire life. Father was Alpha. Father had always been Alpha. That was the natural order, the hierarchy I'd been raised to accept without question.

But if Mother had given him the pack...

My wolf whined softly in the back of my mind, confused and agitated. Pack bonds were sacred, Alpha succession even more so. You didn't just "hand over" a pack. It was earned through strength, through blood, through the acknowledgment of every wolf under your rule.

Unless Mother had been strong enough that no one had dared challenge her decision.

Father's voice dropped, dangerous and soft—the verbal equivalent of a blade sliding from its sheath. "You handed it to me because you were afraid. You know you were too weak to rule the Shadowfell Pack, Vespera."

"I was pregnant, Galen." Mother's words cracked like a whip. "And I needed to protect Nyx. That's why I agreed to it. To protect our daughters."

My chest constricted. She'd given up everything for me? The weight of that sacrifice pressed down on my shoulders, heavy and suffocating. All this time, I'd thought Father's authority was absolute, natural, unquestionable. But he'd been given the pack. Given it by my mother, who'd traded her birthright for my safety.

A chair scraped harshly against the stone floor, the sound grating against my sensitive ears.

"Our daughters?" Father sneered, and ice flooded my veins. "You still pretend Hazel belongs in that sentence?"

Everything inside me went still. Deadly still. Even my wolf fell silent, sensing that we stood on the precipice of something that couldn't be undone.

I leaned forward, pressing my ear directly against the door, my entire body straining to catch every word. My pulse roared in my ears, but I forced myself to breathe slowly, quietly. Whatever came next would change everything—I could feel it in my bones, taste it in the air like the metallic tang before a storm.

"What are you saying?" Mother demanded, but there was something brittle beneath her voice now, like glass about to shatter.

Father didn't hesitate. His words fell like executioner's axes, precise and merciless.

"You know exactly what I'm saying. Hazel was never yours. Never mine. She was a stray pup we dragged in from the woods and dressed up as family."

The world stopped.

Time crystallized around me, each second stretching into eternity. The words echoed in my mind, bouncing around my skull like shrapnel, tearing through every memory I had of my sister—no, not my sister. Never my sister.

*Stray pup. Dragged in from the woods. Dressed up as family.*

The floor seemed to fall away beneath my feet. My fingers dug into the wall, nails scraping against stone as I fought to stay upright. Every interaction with Hazel replayed in my mind with brutal clarity, each moment now tainted with this new, terrible truth.

She wasn't my sister. She was nothing. Nobody. A charity case we'd taken in and elevated far beyond her station.

And she'd taken everything from me.

Mother's affection. The pack's sympathy. Even Bradley's attention, though he was rightfully mine by blood and breeding. This wolfless imposter had wormed her way into the center of our family, parasitic and greedy, feeding off what should have belonged to me alone.

"Stray pup?" Mother whispered, but there was something in her voice—not quite surprise. Not quite denial. More like... confirmation of something she'd always suspected but never wanted to voice. "Mind you, you brought her to me. And we adopted her."

Adopted. Not born. Not blood.

The distinction crashed through me like thunder, reshaping everything I thought I knew about my family, about the pack hierarchy, about who deserved to stand where in the Shadowfell bloodline.

"Then I won't father a wolfless she-wolf anymore, Vespera," Father said, his voice rising with each word, carrying the full weight of his contempt. "Nyx is my only daughter. So yes, I have every right to drag Nyx into whatever affairs I have with the pack. I'll do what's necessary."

Pride surged through me, hot and fierce, momentarily drowning out the shock. *His only daughter.* Finally. Finally, he was seeing clearly, acknowledging the truth that should have been obvious all along. I was the heir, the true Shadowfell, the one worthy of carrying this pack into the future.

Not some abandoned pup who couldn't even shift.

"Then I'll do what's necessary too, Galen." Mother's voice cut through the door like a blade, each word sharp as broken glass, ringing with an authority I'd never heard her wield before. "I'll take back what was rightfully mine."

The declaration hung in the air, heavy with promise and threat. I could feel the power in those words, the ancient claim being staked. Mother wasn't just threatening—she was promising a war. A challenge to Father's authority that could tear the entire pack apart.

My breath came faster now, shallow and quick. This was bigger than Hazel, bigger than me. This was about the very foundation of the Shadowfell Pack, about bloodlines and power and who had the right to rule.

"You'll do no such thing." Father's roar shook the door, and I flinched despite myself. His Alpha command rolled through the wood, so powerful it made my wolf want to submit, to bare her throat and whimper. "I am the Alpha and you will obey me."

But Mother didn't back down. I could hear it in the silence that followed—her refusal, her defiance, standing like a bulwark against his rage.

"I've always obeyed you, Galen," she said softly, but there was iron beneath the silk. "But not in this. Not anymore."

Footsteps approached the door with sudden violence. My heart leaped into my throat, and I stumbled backward, my carefully maintained silence shattered by panic. I retreated into the shadows just as the chamber doors flew open with enough force to crack against the walls.

Mother swept out first, her face a mask of cold fury, power radiating from her in waves that made the air shimmer. She moved like a queen—no, like an Alpha who'd never truly relinquished her throne, only lent it out temporarily.

Father emerged seconds later, moving in the opposite direction, his shoulders rigid with barely contained rage. Neither noticed the daughter who pressed herself into the alcove, hidden by shadows and sheer desperate will.

I slipped away down the corridor, my pulse roaring in my ears, each heartbeat so loud I was certain the entire pack house could hear it. My legs felt weak, trembling beneath me, but I forced them to keep moving, to carry me away from that door and the revelations that had just shattered my world.

Hazel was never a Shadowfell. She was never my sister. And nobody knew except my parents—and now me.

The truth settled into my bones like poison, bitter and burning. All these years, I'd resented her out of jealousy, out of competition for the same scraps of affection and approval. But it had been so much worse than that. She'd been living a lie, wearing my family name like a costume she had no right to claim.

She wasn't part of this family. Yet she'd brought us nothing but trouble, nothing but chaos and shame. Mother loved her—loved a worthless stray more than she sometimes seemed to love me, her actual daughter, her true blood.

The injustice of it clawed at my insides, feeding the dark thing that lived in my chest, the part of me that Father had cultivated with his lessons about power and dominance.

And this pack—this family—was nothing but a beautifully gilded cage built on lies and false bonds.

But I could see clearly now. If blood didn't protect you, power would. That was the only truth that mattered in this world of deception and political maneuvering.

I needed to mate with Bradley, and soon. Before anyone else could stake a claim. Before Hazel's pathetic attempts to win him over gained any traction. Bradley represented power, alliance, a future where I wouldn't be at the mercy of my parents' secret wars.

With Bradley as my mate, I'd have Father's approval, his trust, his willingness to share the true power of the Shadowfell Pack. I'd become untouchable.

But first, I had obstacles to remove. Thorns that needed to be plucked before they could draw more blood.

Klan and Jacinta.

Klan knew too much about my methods, my secrets, the darker corners I'd explored to get what I wanted. And Jacinta—Bradley's current distraction—was in my way, a speedbump on the road to everything I deserved.

I pulled on my cloak with shaking hands, the heavy fabric settling around my shoulders like armor. The servant's passage beckoned from behind a tapestry, that hidden network of corridors I'd mapped out years ago specifically for nights like this.

I slipped through the opening and vanished into the darkness beyond, leaving the pack house and its lies behind.

Klan would be waiting in the woods, probably growing more agitated with each passing minute. This time, I wouldn't beg. I wouldn't plead or negotiate or show any weakness.

This time, I'd make sure he understood exactly what happened to wolves who threatened Nyx Shadowfell.

The night air hit my face as I emerged from the hidden exit, cold and sharp, carrying the scent of pine and earth and something else—something metallic and promising, like blood about to be spilled.

My wolf stirred, eager now, ready for the hunt.

Because that's what this was, really. Not a meeting. Not a negotiation.

A hunt.

And Klan had just become prey.