1

Jane

“Loser!” someone shouted behind me. Not quiet. Loud. So loud that everyone could hear.

Loser. The name that had been carved into my identity since I was ten years old, etched so deep that sometimes I forgot I was ever called anything else. Sometimes I wondered if anyone remembered that I had a real name at all.

I kept walking. My hands shook as I held my old bag tightly. I pretended I didn’t hear them. I pretended it didn’t hurt. But Goddess, it always hurt. It always, always hurt.

“Hey, Big Loser,” another voice added, sugar-sweet and venomous. “All alone.”

I stopped walking. I knew I shouldn’t have. But I did.

I turned around. I already knew who it was.

Lissa. Always Lissa. Her father was a warrior. She had decided I was nothing the day we all got our wolves. Everyone got theirs. Everyone except me.

She stood with her usual shadows—Tara and Celine—the three of them as flawless and vicious as ever.

“I can’t wait,” Lissa purred, her lips curving into a mock pout that didn’t reach her ice-cold eyes. “For what’s about to become the worst moment of your pathetic little life.”

Tara gasped like she was shocked. “Oh my goddess, do you think she actually believes he’ll want her? That some poor soul will be cursed with her as a mate?”

“Please,” Celine laughed. “He probably doesn’t even know she exists. Who would notice a ghost?”

My stomach felt sick, but I didn’t show it. They believed my mate would never accept me, but they were wrong. I would make sure I proved them wrong.

I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Instead, I met Lissa’s eyes and said calmly, “You’re right.”

She looked surprised.

“I am alone,” I continued, “but at least I don’t need a pack of hyenas to feel powerful.”

Her mouth twisted into a snarl, and for a second, I thought she might actually hit me.

“Watch your mouth, mutt,” she hissed.

I gave her a small smile. “I always do, bitch.”

I started to walk away. But someone grabbed my hair hard.

“HOW DARE YOU!” Lissa’s scream was inhuman, filled with rage that her prey dared to bite back. “A pathetic loser like you thinks she’s better than me? BETTER THAN US?”

“Let me go!” I screamed as she pulled my hair. “GET OFF ME!”

“What can you possibly do about it?” Celine mocked. “Who do you think you are?”

“Let’s remind her what she really is,” Tara declared, and the anticipation in her voice made my blood run cold. “Let’s show her she’s nothing.”

Then the world became pain.

I screamed. All three of them punched me over and over. Other people watched. They laughed at me. No one helped. No one ever helped.

I tried to fight back, but I wasn’t strong enough. I had always been beaten because I had never been trained, and the rules in the pack didn’t allow private training. Even my own father wouldn’t teach me. He hated me for being a failure.

They didn’t want to kill me. They just wanted to hurt me. To remind me I was nothing. A punch to my side, and a kick to my leg.

Finally—after what felt like hours but was probably minutes—they stopped.

Lissa bent down next to me. She pushed bloody hair away from my face. “Next time you forget your place, we won’t be nice.”

They left me there. Hurt, cold, and dirty.

I stood up slowly. I picked up my bag before heading home.

“Jane, my precious girl,” my mother’s voice reached me the moment I crossed our threshold. “You’re home, thank the goddess—”

Her words died as she saw me. The color drained from her face so quickly I thought she might faint.

“Oh, baby. Oh, my sweet baby.” She was beside me in an instant, her gentle hands hovering over my injuries, afraid to cause more pain. “Who did this to you? Don’t you dare lie to me this time. Don’t you dare say you fell.”

I always lied. When I came home looking like I’d been hit by a truck, I always lied. I tripped. I fell down the stairs. I walked into a door, but she never believed me.

My mother was the only light in my darkness. In this entire pack of hundreds, she was the only one who loved me. The only one who saw something worth saving.

“I fell,” I replied. “You don’t need to worry about me, Mama.”

“I will always worry,” she said, angry. “Who hurt my daughter? How dare they touch you! You’re worth more than every single one of them combined—you’re the Beta’s daughter, for crying out loud! How dare they treat you like garbage when you belong here just as much as anyone!”

The Beta’s daughter. I wanted to laugh, but I’d forgotten how. The title meant nothing when your own father looked at you like you were a stain on his reputation.

Even the Omegas—the lowest-ranked wolves in our hierarchy—looked down on me like I was something they scraped off their shoes.

“Mother,” I tried to keep my voice gentle, but exhaustion made it crack. “You keep forgetting—I didn’t belong here. The Alpha made that crystal clear. I was the only one without a wolf. Maybe I deserved everything that happened to me.”

“My precious baby.” She pulled me into her arms, and for a moment, I was five years old again, safe and loved and whole. “You didn’t deserve any of this. I loved you more than my own life. And someday—someday soon—your mate would love you even more than I did.”

“Did you really believe that, Mama?”

My mother had always filled my head with stories about mates—how they were destined by the Moon Goddess, how the bond transcended everything, how love conquered all.

She told me I’d feel the connection even without my wolf manifesting, that my mate would see past this broken shell to the person I really was inside.

“Yes, my darling girl. You’re not wolfless—you’re just waiting for the right moment to shine,” she whispered against my hair. “He will accept you. He will mark you. And he will help your wolf finally emerge.”

Tears I’d been holding back all day finally spilled over. I wanted that day to come so badly. I wanted to meet my mate, to feel that legendary connection, to finally—finally—have someone choose me.

“What the hell is this pathetic display?”

My entire body turned to ice. That voice—cold, disgusted, and utterly devoid of any paternal warmth—belonged to the man who had contributed half my DNA but had spent every day since regretting it.

My father. The Beta. The man who hated me more than anyone else in this world.

“You’re home,” my mother said, smiling. She loved my father so much. I knew he loved her too. That made it hurt worse. “Our daughter was...”

“Mother,” I quickly cut her off.

“Beaten to a pulp again,” he finished. His cold gray eyes met mine, and I felt myself shrinking under their contempt. “What exactly did you expect from trash like her?”

I couldn’t breathe right. I looked down at the ground. I couldn’t stand the hate I saw in his eyes.

“She is worthless. Useless. A complete waste of space,” he added. “And to think that I—that my seed created this... this thing...” He paused, and I could feel his gaze burning into me like acid. “Sometimes I wondered if I should have drowned myself the day she was born.”

“HOW DARE YOU!” My mother’s voice exploded with protective fury. “She is your DAUGHTER!”

“Your daughter,” he corrected coldly. “Not mine. I disowned her long ago. I could only pray to the Moon Goddess that she found a mate desperate enough to take damaged goods off my hands. Though what self-respecting wolf would want her was beyond me.”

My heart broke into pieces.

“Maybe I could sell her to rogues,” he continued conversationally, like he was discussing the weather. “Though even they had standards.”

“Father,” I whispered.

He snarled—actually snarled—at me, his claws extending. “Don’t you EVER call me that again. I am Beta to you. That’s all I’ll ever be.”

Before my parents could start another war over my worthless existence, I grabbed my mother’s hand.

“I’m okay, Mama,” I lied, forcing my lips into something resembling a smile. “You don’t need to fight with your mate because of me. I’m not worth it.”

“You are worth EVERYTHING!” she cried, but I was already backing away.

“I’ll deal with you later,” my father promised, his voice following me as I fled.

“Jane!” my mother called after me, but I was already running.

I knew I wasn’t loved by my people. But I knew I was stronger than they thought.

All I wanted was my mate. Someone who would love me not despite my flaws, but because he saw past them to who I really was.

Someone who would hold me when the world became too much to bear. Someone who would look at me and smile—really smile—and make me remember what happiness felt like.

Someone who would finally make me feel like I was worth something.

Please, Moon Goddess, I prayed as I curled up alone in my room, let him find me soon. Let him be kind. Let him be mine.

Before this world destroyed what was left of me completely.