Chapter 4

The week that followed was the happiest of my life.

My mother would cook breakfast for me herself.

My father would teach me about pack management in his study.

Even Grace became more "considerate," occasionally bringing me snacks she'd made.

I thought we had truly become a family.

Until that afternoon.

My father stormed into my room, his face dark with fury, the pressure of his Alpha aura nearly tearing the roof off.

"Amelia!"

I jumped up from my desk. "Dad, what's wrong?"

"You tell me!"

He slammed a photograph onto my desk.

In the photo, a figure in a dark cloak stood under the moonlight, talking to a man in a silver wolf mask.

The silver wolf mask. The symbol of the River Pack, our sworn enemies.

And the cloaked figure… it looked a little like me.

"That's not me!" I said immediately.

"Then why did Grace see you with her own eyes?!"

My mother walked in, her face pale, her eyes filled with disappointment.

Grace followed them, her head down, sobbing quietly. "I didn't want to believe it was sister... but I really saw her... The night the files went missing, I saw sister coming out of the study..."

"What files?" My mind went blank.

"The defense deployment maps for the northern territory," my father's voice was ice. "The most classified document in the entire Silver Moon Pack. It vanished after you were in the study!"

"Dad, it wasn't me!" I explained frantically. "I didn't even leave my room last night..."

"The manor staff saw you!" my father cut me off. "They said you've been sneaking out in the middle of the night for weeks!"

I was stunned.

I knew I hadn't.

But no one believed me.

"Mom, Dad," an idea struck me, and I pulled out my acceptance letter. "I've been accepted into the Elite Academy. I would never destroy my own future by betraying the pack! Please, believe me!"

My parents stared at the letter, hesitating for a second.

But in the next moment, my father ripped the paper to shreds and ground the pieces under his heel.

"The Silver Moon Pack can have a weak heir, but it will never have a traitor!"

"No!"

I stared at the shredded paper on the floor, tears streaming down my face.

I had earned that with countless nights of hard work, and now, it was all gone.

Behind my parents, Grace quietly looked up.

She looked at me, a faint, triumphant smile on her lips.

In that instant, I understood.

From the very beginning, she never intended for us to coexist. She had been plotting to drive me out all along.

At my father's insistence, I was sent before the werewolf tribunal. With Grace's "eyewitness testimony," the blurry photo, and the staff's claims of me "sneaking out," the evidence was "overwhelming."

I was sentenced to two years in prison.

I knelt on the tribunal platform, screaming until my voice was raw. "I didn't do it! Why won't you believe me?!"

My father sat in the Alpha's seat, looking down on me with nothing but disappointment.

"You're still lying, even now."

"Amelia, you must learn your lesson."

Soon after, the Elite Academy revoked my admission.

The Silver Moon Pack's reputation soared because of the Alpha's "righteous" act of disowning his own daughter. The pack's businesses thrived. Their stock tripled.

And I was loaded onto a transport, headed for the werewolf prison.

"Alpha?"

Chloe's voice pulled me back to the gala hall.

I turned my head, my eyes cold as ice.

"What little the Silver Moon Pack has left wouldn't even qualify them to be a feeder pack to Crimson Fang."