2|| The Villainess’s Spawn

LEAH’S POV

I pace the length of my tiny room. Three steps forward, turn, three steps back. I stop in front of the small wall mirror, staring into dark green eyes that feel alien, before running a hand down my face and beginning to speak aloud—testing my own vocal cords, testing my own shattered mind.

"My name is Leah Bellmoore," I whisper to the silent room, my voice rasping softly against the quiet walls. "Or at least, it used to be Rosante Leah."

I turn on my heel, pacing back toward the window, watching the dust motes dance in the light of the rising sun as I force the words out one by one.

"I belong…” I shake that thought out of my head. “I belonged to the Harvest Moon pack, one of the four major werewolf packs dividing the shifter territories."

I stop at the edge of my bed, gripping the wooden bedpost as I look up at the ceiling, my voice growing surer.

"There are four packs, but only two are ruled by Lycans. The Harvest Moon and New Moon packs have no royal blood…which means we’re a weaker pack."

I let out a harsh, soundless breath, my fingers digging into the worn wood. I begin pacing again, faster now, my eyes scanning the bare walls of the room that looks like it belongs to a servant.

"Growing up, I used to believe I belonged to a respectable, loving family within this hierarchy. My father, Augustine Rosante, is a Beta, a high-ranking squad captain, and one of the pack's most celebrated warriors..."

A bitter, quiet chuckle slips past my lips before I can catch it. "It’s a shame most of his martial strength was later used for ‘disciplining’ me.”

My mother—or the woman I thought birthed me—Bea Rosante, is an omega and a gentle, highly respected pack healer.

They were childhood sweethearts, promised to one another under a full moon, fulfilling a storybook destiny that the whole pack admired. They had my older brother, Leonardo Rosante, a strong Beta who followed directly in Father's footsteps to join the warrior ranks.

I pause near my half-packed luggage, staring down at a stray bundle of dried lavender lying on top of my clothes.

"And then there was me. Leah. An omega who spent her days buried in books of traditional medicine, studying rare root remedies, drying herbs, and tending to the pack's feverish children.”

It was a modest, quiet life. A life I thought was built on the foundation of love and trust... I wanted to be a healer who healed through tribal medicine and tonics. I wanted to be an herbalist and a healer, just like my ‘mother’.

I freeze mid-stride, my eyes dimming as my chest cools.

"But every single word of that statement is a lie... because Augustine and Bea are not my parents, and Leonardo is not my brother."

I drag both hands down my face, pressing my palms against my temples as a sharp, sickening throb suddenly strikes right behind my left eye. I double over slightly, squeezing my eyes shut as I stumble backward against the edge of the desk.

The pain hits me like an iron wedge driving into my skull as I try to calculate the exact timeline. How old was Clara when she died? How long did she write in that diary before she swallowed poison?

The details warp and blur in my mind, sending another fierce migraine pulsing through my forehead. I bite my inner cheek until I taste copper, forcing my brain to back away from the gap. I don't need the exact dates. The bloody reality of it is already etched into my memory.

There’s nothing I need to remember from this time. I already know all of it intimately.

I force my eyes open, taking a deep, shuddering breath to steady my lungs before forcing myself to speak aloud again, my voice trembling slightly as I pace toward the doorway.

"Augustine was a highly coveted mate in his youth... a high-class Beta whose martial strength made him a prized catch. Even though he had pledged himself to Bea Bellmoore, half the young female omegas and betas in the pack chased him relentlessly.”

Among them was Clara Bellmoore, Bea’s own sister. Clara convinced herself she was deeply in love with Augustine, but then he married Bea.

“Bitter, isolated, and brimming with envy, Clara eventually settled down with a low-ranking gamma, mysteriously falling pregnant around the same time Bea did."

I stop near the full-length mirror, staring at my reflection with dark, hollow eyes.

Maybe she planned it, maybe she didn’t. Who knows? She went into labor an hour after Bea, rushed into the pack hospital during a frantic, chaotic rogue attack.

While the doctors were moving frantically to tend to wounded guards, Clara slipped unnoticed into the unit where the newborns were kept... and in a fit of twisted, venomous spite, she swapped the two newborn baby girls in their cribs.

I lean closer to the glass, whispering softly to my reflection.

"Or at least... that’s what was recorded in her diary. She kept the secret for eighteen long years. She lived on the edge of the pack territory, struggling with severe depression and total isolation... until she finally took her own life by drinking poison.”

But then, she just had to leave her diary behind. Why couldn't she have burned it before she died? Why couldn't she have carried that poison to her grave? Instead, the diary was found by the girl she had raised as her own.

The real Rosante child... Willow.

I turn away from the mirror, crossing my arms tightly over my chest as I pace back toward the center of the room, my tone darkening with every word.

"The moment that diary was dragged out into the light, Clara’s name became synonymous with filth in the mouth of every Harvest Moon pack member. They called her a shameless, wicked woman. A villainess without a shred of pack duty or sisterly affection.”

Like mother like daughter you might say.

“To them, she was a pathetic, scheming shadow who couldn't bear her sister's happiness. A woman who spent her youth trying to steal her sister’s husband, and when that failed, ended up stealing her sister’s newborn child instead."

I shake my head, my steps turning sharp and agitated against the floorboards.

'A monster dressed in Bellmoore skin,' they whispered at the markets, spitting on the cobblestones whenever her name slipped out.

'A treacherous snake who nursed malice in her heart for eighteen years while watching poor Bea mourn her own blood without even knowing it.' To the pack, Clara was a tale of shameless envy, a disgraced omega who couldn't accept her place.

I pause, looking down at my hands—hands that are whole, unburned, but trembling.

"And because her blood ran in my veins, every single drop of that foul reputation was poured directly onto my shoulders."

I was no longer the quiet girl who brewed chamomile for sleepless pups. Overnight, I became the villainess’s spawn.