Chapter 1

Caution: Mature and violent scenes ahead. 

Yvette’s POV…

“Ouch, it hurts.”

My skull felt like it was being hacked open with a blunt axe.

I squinted my eyes, taking in the dimly lit room… 

That was the curse of being wolfless in a house full of wolves. My senses were never strong enough, yet moments like this made everything feel overwhelming and distorted. 

"Where am I?" I mumbled, my voice dry as I tried to remember how I ended up on the hard, cold floor.

Then it hit me.

Scent.

Even with my dull senses, I recognised it immediately—my brother’s scent. Warm cedarwood, leather… safety.

My eyes widened as the grey walls of his bedroom came into focus. 

“What's that smell?”

The room reeked of iron and stale copper.

I froze when my feet brushed against something warm... something soft. Something human.

"B-brother Nathan?"

The name left my lips like a prayer, fragile and trembling, my breath catching as I turned toward the body lying only inches away from me.

His eyes were bulging unnaturally. 

"No! What happened? How…" 

I crawled forward, but the floor was slick and sticky beneath my palms.

My hand slipped and my knees nearly gave out. 

A gasp slid out when my fingers touched him. His shirt was wet. It wasn't water; it was blood.

Before me lay Nathan. My brother.

The only one in the entire Swanlake pack who never looked at me like I was broken.

The only one who never cared that I didn’t have a wolf.

There was a dagger lodged deep in his chest.

His white shirt was soaked through, drenched in crimson. 

His body lay in a pool of blood that carried the faint echo of his fading scent.

"Oh goddess… What happened? Brother, can you hear me?... Please… say something…"

But the moment I truly looked at him, my heart stopped.

He was dead… Lifeless. 

I could feel the absence of his wolf. The unnatural stillness where life once thrived.

Who did this?

His lips were pale. His skin drained of warmth, of colour… of life.

That was when I noticed it.

The dagger.

The one with the familiar design. And my heart tightened.

“No.”

It was the same silver dagger Dad had gifted me on my sixteenth birthday. The one embedded with the pink diamond, a blade meant for pack heirs.

A weapon no wolf-less girl like me should have ever owned.

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t.

The silence in the room pressed in, suffocating.

I could still hear it… the slow, steady drip of blood hitting the floor.

For a full minute, the world stopped. 

I was no longer the wolfless disgrace; I was just a girl who had just lost the person closest to her.

My hand hovered over the dagger, but before I could even touch—

The doors burst open and the silence shattered like glass as members of the Swanlake pack flooded in, their powerful auras crashing into me like a storm.

"Oh gods! Yvette, you killed Brother Nathan! Murderer!"

Vanessa’s voice rang out, sharp and accusatory, her finger pointing straight at me. 

Her aura pressed down on me, strong and dominant. It was everything I wasn’t. 

"You jinx! What have you done?"

My father’s voice…no, his growl ripped through the room.

It wasn’t gentle.

His Alpha command pressed down against me, suffocating and crushing. My body reacted instinctively, shrinking under the weight of his authority.

He approached like a predator. And then—

Smack!

The force of his slap sent my head snapping to the side, my ears ringing as the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

"No… Dad… please… I didn’t do this…"

"Guards!" he snarled, his eyes blazing with fury.

"Drag this ungrateful schemer into the torture chambers!"

My heart dropped. 

This wasn’t a father speaking. This was an Alpha passing judgement. 

The guards moved immediately, their gazes cold and auras suffocating as they grabbed me and forced me to the ground.

I struggled, but it was useless. My strength was nothing compared to theirs.

My gaze desperately searched the room and landed on Luna Swan.

The woman who had once called me daughter.

"Mom… please… don’t let them torture me… I swear, I didn’t do it… Nathan is my brother… y-you believe me… right?"

I reached for her, but she flinched, stepping back as if I were something filthy. Something inhuman.

Her eyes moved to Nathan’s body.

Then back to me.

And what I saw there was worse than hatred… It was detachment.

"Take her away."

Just three words and my fate was sealed.

The last piece of me shattered as the guards dragged me out.

~~~♧♧♧~~~

The torture chambers… 

"Aaahhhh!"

My scream tore through the chamber as another surge of electricity ripped through my body.

The silver-lined restraints burnt against my skin, suppressing even the faintest trace of life within me. 

I didn't even have a wolf to suppress. But they treated me like I did… as if I was something dangerous.

It was hours, or maybe days. Time had lost meaning.

Another fingernail was yanked off, and my body jerked violently, my throat raw from screaming.

"P-please… have mercy…" My voice was barely a whisper now, hoarse and broken.

But no one cared.

They watched.

The people I considered family and my pack all watched me with cold detachment. As if I were never one of them. 

"I swear… I woke up in the room… I didn’t kill my brother… he’s my brother… why would I kill him…" 

Dad sat there, sipping his scotch like this was entertainment.

My eyes drifted and landed on Lucas, the man I loved with all my heart, only for him to choose Vanessa.

They were standing together, like real mates. 

Lucas looked at me with pure disgust. No regret. Vanessa leaned into him and whispered something. 

And then she smiled at me, her smile victorious.

"It was Vanessa!" I screamed.

"She and Lucas framed me!"

For a split second, silence fell. Everyone turned to look at Vanessa… And then—

Crash!

Dad hurled his glass across the room.

"How dare you accuse your sister!" He thundered. "Do you think she is as scheming as you?"

Of course, why did I even hope?

He never chose me. Not once. 

I was the wolfless disgrace in a lineage of powerful Alphas.

I couldn’t shift. Couldn’t fight. Too weak to even withstand basic training.

But Vanessa was everything they ever wanted. 

She was strong and gifted. A true wolf.

And now Nathan was dead. And I was the one they blamed. 

Pain exploded across my face as he grabbed my chin, digging his fingers into my jaw and forcing me to look up at him.

"You ungrateful brat!" he roared.

"I should have cast you out of this pack the day I found out you weren’t my blood! You killed my heir!"

"Dad… please… believe me."

"Continue the torture." He cut in, voice final, before turning and walking away. Dad paused at the door, his gaze lingering on me.

Hope surged within me: wild, desperate, fragile.

Was he finally going to stop this?

Did he finally believe me?

But his next words destroyed everything. 

“I've had enough of her screams. Finish her off. No one kills my son and goes scot-free."