Chapter 2

Audrey

Everyone expected to see me plotting with the Dark Moon Pack, or butchering my own kind in cold blood.

Neither appeared.

What appeared in the vision was a warm, cozy little room.

Eugene's fingers trembled. It was the home we had once shared.

A beautiful young woman with a tender expression was humming a lullaby to the child in the cradle.

The woman was me. The child was Hermia.

The crowd fell silent.

No one could reconcile the gentle, graceful mother in the vision with the demon they believed had later killed without mercy.

The same question rose in every mind at once: why would a scene like this be the most important memory of a heartless monster?

No one answered them. The memory played on.

Before I could get Hermia to sleep, someone pushed the door open.

Eugene came over, wrapped his arms around me, kissed my forehead, and then kissed me on the lips.

I looped my arms around his neck and was about to deepen the kiss when a teasing voice broke in. "I'm still standing right here, you two. Behave yourselves."

I shoved Eugene away at once and looked, embarrassed and a little annoyed, at the man leaning against the doorframe. My brother, Klein.

"Klein, what are you doing here?"

Klein shrugged. "Can't I come see my niece?"

He walked over to the cradle, reached down, and gently pinched Hermia's cheek, sounding out each syllable. "Hermia, say Uncle. Un-cle."

Eugene watched helplessly and reminded him, "She can't even say Mommy yet..."

Before he finished, Hermia suddenly spoke, out of nowhere. "M-Mommy... Mommy."

I froze, then burst into happy tears and scooped her up into my arms.

"I'm here, baby. Mommy's right here."

That was the first time I ever heard Hermia call me Mommy.

It was also the last.

Back then, the Blue Ghost had already whipped up a storm across the Flame Pack. Every single day, another family was destroyed by it.

Eugene and Klein searched everywhere for the source of the blue powder and found nothing. Packet after packet seemed to haunt the Flame Pack like a ghost, impossible to trace and leaving endless ruin in its wake.

The entire Flame Pack sank into turmoil.

That night, my brother made an excuse to send Eugene away and called me out to the terrace. All the ease of that afternoon had vanished from his face.

"Audrey, I need you to carry out a mission."

I was still floating on the joy of Hermia saying Mommy, but I caught the gravity in his voice.

I straightened. "What mission?"

"I've found preliminary evidence linking the Blue Ghost to the Dark Moon Pack, but I still don't know exactly how they're connected."

His voice turned to ice. "And I've discovered there's a traitor inside the Flame Pack, working with them from within. That's how the Blue Ghost has been slipping into our territory without a trace. I just don't know yet who the traitor is."

No wonder Eugene and my brother had searched so long and found nothing. The Flame Pack had a traitor!

But why had he sent Eugene away before telling me this?

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Did he suspect Eugene?

Klein saw what I was thinking and sighed. "This isn't about Eugene. Right now, you're the only person I can trust."

"Audrey, I need you to assume a false identity and infiltrate the Dark Moon Pack. Find out exactly what they have to do with the Blue Ghost, and find the mole inside our pack."

The Flame Pack's very survival was at stake. I was the Alpha's sister, the Beta's mate, and a member of this pack. Protecting it was my duty, no questions asked. I nodded without a moment's hesitation.

Back then, we both thought it would be a short mission. Six months at most to dig up the truth, and then I would come home to the Flame Pack.

We never imagined that everything that followed would spiral beyond our control.

The first memory ended there, and the crowd fell deathly silent.