1. Survive

This was fine.

This was okay.

He wasn’t even really mad today.

Nothing had forced him over the edge today.

Today wouldn’t be bad.

I could deal with this.

I closed my eyes tighter as his boot pressed into my back. He leaned over and flicked ash from his cigarette on me. Dad never smoked in the house. Hannah hated when he smoked. She refused to let him in the house if he smelled like it. So he had other ways of getting his vice.

“How did I get stuck with you? You useless wolf. I’m so glad that I had the forethought to bring Hannah into the mix.” His boot lifted off but connected with my side. “You really are the most useless thing. You were supposed to be a ‘great miracle’ that your mother begged me to take care of.”

Curling up into a ball, I reached up and held onto the only thing left of my mother’s. Her locket never left my neck. It was the one thing that survived. Outside of me. I survived. All I did was survive.

My muscles tightened as the cigarette butt burned into my skin under my shoulder blade. Was that really it? Was he done already? I didn’t dare look up or make a sound to check. It was easier this way. He’d get bored eventually.

“Rebecca will always be better than you. She will be my legacy. You are my mistake. So stop trying to outpace her. Stop trying to be better than her. Because you never will.” He snorted. “Fix yourself before you come inside.”

I continued to keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t worth making him mad if he was done. He must have heard that Rebecca failed her math test. She was teetering on not being able to graduate this year if she didn’t get her shit together. We were already almost two months into school and she was failing three of her classes.

Dad threw open the door to the shed, letting the fresh air in and I took a deep silent breath. He sprayed himself with some deodorizer and headed back towards the house. The sun was going down and the sky was colored in orange and purples. There were sporadic clouds in the sky but nothing that would indicate that a storm was coming.

Sitting up, I took a few breaths. I got off easy today. Usually, I wasn’t so lucky. He’d normally find a reason to be angry or a reason to let out everything on me. No matter if it was about his work, about Rebecca or Hannah, if I did something wrong, or something happened he didn’t like. All of it would end up being my fault.

He must have been tired today. Our Alpha, Alpha Damian Herne, was working on a couple new projects before the Yule Festival. Since Dad was his Beta, he kept Dad busier than usual over the past couple of weeks. Even his kicks didn’t hold as much power as they usually did.

Getting up, I stepped out of the shed and closed the door behind me quietly. I made sure to get off the dirt and leaves clinging to me before heading into the house. Tapping my shoes off on the side of the step, I stepped into the house and slipped my shoes off.

Our house used to be my mother’s childhood home. It was one of the largest houses in the area which is why my dad chose to stay here when he moved Hannah and Rebecca in rather than stay in the pack house where the Beta’s family should be. From the old photos, the place was completely unrecognizable now due to Hannah’s penchant for remodeling every few years.

Last year, she decided that the new kitchen colors needed to be grey and red. The backsplash was a bright cherry red shiny tile while the cabinets had been painted a matte grey. Mixed with the stainless steel appliances, white wood islands, and white marble countertops, it was the worst of the many remodels over the years.

“Winter, are you really stepping into my house smelling like that?” Hannah stormed into the kitchen, pointing a serving spoon at me. “You aren’t coming anywhere near the kitchen table smelling like an ash tray! You think just because you’re about to be eighteen that you get to be this delinquent?”

Shit. I forgot to spray myself with the deodorizer too. Really, both her mate and her daughter were the smokers in the house. With how many times that I came in smelling like cigarettes though, it didn’t really surprise me she thought I was. It also wasn’t a fight I wanted to start right now.

“I’m sorry, Hannah.”

“Leave. Now.”

I nodded and headed up the stairs, avoiding looking at the dinning table. Rebecca was scoffing, speaking to our Dad about how I was a complete degenerate with him saying nothing. They believed that. All because I wasn’t born a Beta. All because I had inherited my mother’s genes instead of my father.

Everything about me I had inherited from my mother. My strawberry blonde hair that leaned closer to strawberry than it did blonde. My height and slightly curvier build. My nose, ears, facial structure, all of it. If you took a photo of me now and put it next to my mother’s photo at eighteen, we would be twins. Something I was happy about actually.

My mother, in all the later photos of me as a baby and up until she died, was gorgeous. Stunning with a smile that lit up her face. There wasn’t a single photo where she wasn’t smiling or laughing. It was like the sun was drawn to her too, shinning down on her no matter the time or place. If that was how I was going to look in the future, I didn’t need to worry.

Though, I didn’t smile nearly as much as she did. I did my best to put on a gentle smile when I needed to but I couldn’t find myself smiling like my mother had. Not after she died. Not after everyone realized what happened. That my mother died of a broken heart.

Luna Ember was my mother’s best friend. They were thick as thieves and where I was able to see photos of my mother. There was nothing left in the house. Hannah wouldn’t allow it. She nearly burned the whole house to the ground to rebuild it. Dad managed to stop her but everything inside was burned, literally, in a bonfire out back.

As a child, I didn’t understand what was going on. I was only three at the time. When I was older, though, I realized that I had nothing. Not a single thing from my mother or even my grandmother. Hannah treated me like she wished she could have thrown me in the bonfire as well. I’d broken down and reached out to Luna Ember, craving anything from my mother or her heritage.

Luna Ember was the one who gave me my mother’s necklace. Her locket that was also in every photo of her. She said that my mother used it for protection and I wished it brought me the same protection that it brought her. Still, it was something.

My dad never recognized it and so I felt safe to have it as long as I never took it off. Rebecca, multiple times, had tried to steal it when we were younger. Now, she’d just do it out of spite if given the chance, not out of jealousy for something shiny she didn’t have.

Stepping in the shower, I hissed as the water hit the new burn on my skin. I didn’t like smelling like cigarettes as much as Hannah didn’t like it. So once I scrubbed myself clean, making sure I didn’t smell like an ash tray, I stepped out and got to work to untangle my hair. It naturally wanted to scrunch up and frizz, so I had to help it settle or I’d look like a big ball of fluff tomorrow for school. Throwing it into a bonnet after two layers of product, I slipped into my robe.

“Winter, give me your geography homework.”

I rolled my eyes as I entered by bedroom. This is why I always wore a robe out of the shower. Rebecca was sitting on my bed as she dumped out my backpack. She was looking through my folders and books, trying to find what she thought was our homework.

“I don’t have Mr. Cruz until Wednesday. I haven’t done the homework yet.”

“Bullshit. You’re a good two shoes. You would have done it over the weekend.”

To be fair, she wasn’t wrong. I did already have the geography homework already done. It was one of her failing classes and I wasn’t an idiot. If she thought I would bring that homework home with me for her to just take it, she was dumber than I thought she was.

I pulled out some of my clothes and slipped them on under my robe. “He didn’t give the assignment over the weekend. He gave it today. I need to do other homework tonight, Becca. I’m not giving you anything regardless if I had it or not.”

“Fine. You can do it for me then. Drop it off in my room before the morning.”

“No.”

She stood up and glared at me. “Did you just tell me no?”