Cerita Pendek After Death Werewolf & Novel Alpha Family Emotions

My Alpha mother had a mark burned into my heart, a Submission Mark, all to guarantee I'd claim first place at the Ascension Trials. The mark was simple in its cruelty: whenever my heartbeat dipped below the intensity of combat training, it would scorch the flesh around my heart. No drifting off. No rest. Not even an extra breath during sparring. When I passed out from exhaustion, she'd pull out an iron whip soaked in silver solution and lash it across my hands. She called it "awakening the wolf's instincts." "You're a she-wolf. If you fail, you become the lowest thing in this pack and every male wolf will have the right to walk all over you." "Every drop of blood you shed is a stepping stone to the top." "Iron doesn't become a blade without fire. I've already begged the Moon Goddess for her blessing. Why can't you just push harder?" Today was the first round of the Ascension Trials on the pack's sacred calendar. I was the first contestant to break out of the underground arena, and instantly the pack's Record Keepers swarmed around me. My mother stood just outside the arena. Flush with pride, she triggered the Submission Mark and pushed my combat reflexes to the absolute limit of my wolf form. "Look at my daughter move, like she has Moon Goddess guidance. All thanks to my one-of-a-kind Branding Enhancement technique." But Mom... two days before the Trials started... Your mark, running at full power, burned my heart to nothing and stopped it cold. What more could you possibly want?

I'm cursed with the most deadly spell of the werewolf pack—leaving me with only a month left to live. However, no one in my family knows about this. Ever since they'd adopted Natali Fisher, an orphan who greatly resembles my older sister, they've poured all their love and attention into her—and stopped caring about me. And at that very moment, I'm curled up in a corner of the woodshed, with blood steadily dripping from the corners of my lips. Dad, Mom, and my older brother, Kent Greene, probably think that I'm throwing another tantrum and am deliberately hiding from them. But that isn't the case this time. They are currently outside cooking Natali's favorite mushroom soup in the courtyard. Their happy laughter fills the air, painting the picture of a warm, loving family. Maybe I could even believe this is a happy family if I weren't about to die soon.

After Vanessa moved into the estate, Mommy stopped fighting with Daddy. Her wolf was getting weaker. I think Mommy was going to the moon. Grandma had left me that way too. Daddy saw us in the hall, his face dark. His voice came out flat. “Fiona, you don't want Serena growing up in a broken home, do you?” Mommy didn't cry and shout at him the way she used to. She just held me, her voice soft. “Wire me a hundred million and I'll stay out of your way.” Daddy froze for a second. Then he transferred the money. After that, Daddy slept in Vanessa's room most nights, and Mommy kept asking him for more. She got so thin, and she wouldn't eat. She took my hand and brought me to a dozen different offices and made me sign papers. She said she was leaving everything to me. I buried my face in her chest. “Mommy, if you're tired, go find Grandma. I'll be good.”

The night before I awaken my wolf form, my parents host an apology live stream on my behalf. They train the camera on my face and force me to confess that I tried to kill my younger sister, Daisy Clifford, in the fire seven years ago. They want me to claim that I did it by deliberately locking Daisy in her room. My father, Henry Clifford, bellows at me before the audience, "If you still refuse to apologize to Daisy, get out of this house right now!" Daisy cries so hard that she can't catch her breath. "Katherine, I just want justice…" My mother, Rose Miller, glares vehemently at me as she hugs Daisy. My eldest brother, Hans Clifford, shreds all my capes in front of all the werewolves watching the live stream. "No amount of clothing can hide such a wicked heart!" he declares. My second brother, Hayden Clifford, kicks over my plate of cookies and shouts, "Hurry up and apologize to Daisy! Are you expecting us to beg for it?" The live stream chat is filled with vicious comments telling me to die. Even a good friend I grew up with sends in a message that reads, "You disgust me. I really regret ever knowing you." I stare at the message, amused. For seven whole years, not a single person has asked me how I received the burn on my arm. I straighten and swallow back the blood that threatens to rise in my throat. I ask, "What if I was the one who saved Daisy during the fire back then?"

When the Blackridge Pack invaded, I hid inside a closet with my daughter in my arms. The first rescue mech to break through the encircling wolves and leap into the building was piloted by my own brother, Kyle. But after opening the closet and taking one look at us, he simply turned around and headed for the room next door, where our adopted sister, Layla, was hiding. "Wren, you're the Luna. You're supposed to put the pack first. I'll take Layla out first. I'll come back for you and Mia on the second trip." We waited for an hour, and the second trip never came. I contacted my mate, Damian, and asked if he could send someone to get us out. His response was ice-cold. "Stop being so difficult, Wren. There are only so many rescue slots available. Kyle said you two were well hidden, so just hang in there a little longer. I'm the Alpha of the pack. You can't expect me to play favorites just because you're my mate." When I tried contacting him again, I discovered that Damian had already blocked our mate bond. Ten minutes later, wolf claws tore through the building's load-bearing walls. Half of the exterior wall came crashing inward, and the air quickly filled with wolfsbane. I used my own body to shield my daughter and preserve the last bit of space where she could survive, but there was nothing I could do as the wolfsbane slowly spread deeper through her body. I did not know how much time had passed before the next search-and-rescue mech finally arrived. They pulled Mia from the wreckage, barely clinging to life. But no one saw me, already buried beneath the ruins. My soul drifted above them. When I saw Mia being carried out, I thought at least my daughter had survived. Then they tossed her onto a metal cart. Her wolf soul was already being poisoned by the venom. Still, no one seemed concerned. The physician on duty had just picked up an antidote syringe when my biological mother, Elara, reached out and stopped him. "It's fine. That little bit of wolfsbane isn't enough to put Mia's life at risk. Save the Moondew for Layla first." Elara gently pressed down on the physician's wrist. "If Wren chose to run away by herself and abandon her daughter, then Mia should learn exactly what her mother's selfishness costs." As it turned out, they all thought I had abandoned my daughter and escaped on my own. None of them knew that I had already been left behind forever beneath those ruins.

My elder sister, Alice, was a white wolf. A witch had foretold that my power would devour hers, that the moment I shifted during our coming-of-age ceremony, she would die. The only way to save her was to suppress my power, let her shift first at the ceremony, and break the curse. To save her, my parents spent eighteen years breaking me. And the night before our ceremony, they followed the witch's orders and locked me in the basement with silver-banded iron chains. "Be good, Maria. The silver will only delay your shift. Just get through tomorrow, and your sister lives. Then we can all stop suffering." The chains pressed against my chest. I could barely breathe. But something was wrong. My shift was starting, early. I slammed my fists against the door. "Mom, it's starting. I'm shifting now—" "Don't lie to me." Her voice cut through, sharp and loud. "The witch said both of you shift on ceremony day. Or are you really that eager to watch your sister die?" Footsteps faded down the hall. The pain hit, searing, ripping through every bone. I curled into the corner, feeling my wolf slip away.

After my parents adopted my sister, we started drawing lots whenever we wanted the same thing. A long stick meant I won. A short one meant she did. Dad was our pack’s Alpha. Mom was its Luna. They could have given us both almost anything. I was the one who had asked them to bring Lily home. At first, she followed me everywhere, calling me her big sister. I loved the sound of it. But for the past year, I hadn’t drawn a single long stick. Even Ethan, my childhood sweetheart and the pack’s Beta, told me to stop keeping score. “She’s already lost one family,” Mom would say. “Do you really need to make her fight for this one? It isn’t her fault you’re unlucky.” So I practiced. Surely, if I kept trying, my turn would come. On my eighteenth birthday, my parents promised to spend the day with me. Then Lily decided she wanted to go to the amusement park by the coast. Mom brought out the box. I secretly joined two short sticks together. Just once, I wanted them to stay. Mom caught me. She snapped the sticks apart and sent me to my room. Then my chest tightened. My rescue inhaler didn’t help. I caught her sleeve. “Mom. I can’t breathe. Please take me to the medical center.” “You lose the draw, and suddenly you’re sick? You’re not ruining Lily’s day.” Lily called from the stairs. Mom took my phone and closed the door. “Don’t call us home with another emergency.” Their car pulled away. My inhaler slipped from my hand. I couldn’t pick it up again. I’m sorry, Mom. Next time, I’ll try harder to draw the long stick.

Because of my negligence, Leo's precious darling Sophia had choked on a mouthful of seawater. He flew into a rage and locked me in the dark water dungeon. "Catherine, whatever Sophia suffered, you'll repay double!" The instinct to survive forced me to shift into wolf form. I slammed my head against the iron cage again and again, begging for his mercy. But Leo bound my limbs with iron chains and ordered his subordinates to keep flooding the chamber. "A jealous wretch like you will only learn obedience through suffering." "Stay in there and repent for what you've done." He sealed the iron door of the water dungeon himself and forbade anyone from coming near. Over and over, I craned my neck to gulp in the thin air, howling in desperation. But the rising ice water swallowed me whole. I kept struggling until I had no strength left. A week later, in his great mercy, he decided to end my punishment. What he didn't know was that the water snakes had already gnawed my body beyond recognition.

I had just hidden the pack's old, weak, and sick in a cave when I learned that my mate, Alpha Magnus Hale, had lost the battle. In an instant, the relief of having made it out alive turned into despair. Colt Mercer, the only warrior who made it back, was soaked in blood and barely breathing. "The Alpha's been taken prisoner. Both your sons are dead. Even your grandson... there's nothing left of him." At the same moment, the werewolves hunting us picked up our trail. They were right outside the cave, jeering. "It's just a bunch of she-wolves. When they come out, they're our sex slaves!" The cheering outside was deafening. Inside, every she-wolf around me had already made up her mind to die. "Luna, we'd rather die than bow to them." "Our men already gave their lives for this pack. We'll honor them by doing the same," another said. I looked at their steady faces and made my decision. I took out the wolfsbane I always carried and gave some to each of them. I watched each of them take her last breath. Only then did I pull out the silver dagger Magnus had given me for protection and drive it into my chest. My wolf howled inside me as I collapsed. Then, all at once, everything around me became sharp and clear. "The Alpha spoils his adopted sister Susie rotten. He got every warrior in the pack to join her prank on the Luna." "What can you do? He's spoiled her since they were kids. If she wants to play a game, he'll play along," another voice answered. Outside, the wolves burst out laughing. "When the Alpha and the others show up tomorrow morning, the Luna's going to be so happy she could die!" "Yeah. It's just a little scare. What could go wrong?" someone else said. With shaking hands, I reached for the she-wolves beside me, desperate for any sign of life. But the bodies beside me kept growing colder as the last of their warmth faded. Their prank of pretending they had lost the battle could end. But the she-wolves who had already died would never wake up again.

The rogue wolf Beck had kidnapped me and stabbed me ten times with a silver dagger. Now he was forcing me to call my brother, the Alpha of Sterling Pack, and trade the entire northern border for my life. I knew Cain wouldn't care. But I dialed anyway. The line rang for a long time before he picked up. His voice came through, raw with irritation. "What stunt are you pulling now?" "Cain, help me. I've been taken—" I didn't get to finish before he cut me off, cold and clipped. "You'd really stoop to faking a kidnapping to ruin Selene's Chief Healer ceremony tonight? Iris, I swear to god, if you don't show up, you're out of this pack for good." Click. The line went dead. Beck let out a low laugh. Then he drew the silver blade across my throat. Pain swallowed everything. My heart stopped. But my soul drifted up, light as smoke, out of my body. You don't have to throw me out anymore, Cain. I'm never coming back.

My mate's adoptive sister asked me to go for a walk in the mountain forest and we encountered a sudden flash flood. My mate Nathan, the Alpha of Snow Peak pack, rushed to save us. But because we were both trapped on a breaking tree branch above the raging flood, he could only save one person at a time. To save his physically weak adoptive sister, my mate abandoned me - his Luna who was five months pregnant. I begged him desperately to save me. He watched as the flood waters dragged me under. "Sarah has always been weak since childhood. If we leave her here, she'll die." "Your wolf is strong enough to swim, but Sarah can't swim." But after my death, he went mad.

Everyone in my family is one of the strongest pureblood Alphas in the pack—except me. I’m an Omega. My brother and sister awakened their wolves at twelve. I'm fifteen, and mine still hasn't shown the slightest sign of waking. My family was convinced that the Mercer Alpha blood in me simply hadn't manifested yet—and that it was their duty to bring it out. To sharpen my senses, my brother dumped me in Nightwood Forest when I was still a child. When the tracking signal failed, he insisted that I find my own way out. I wandered for a day and a night before collapsing from dehydration. When my mother arrived, she comforted my guilt-stricken brother. “Daniel was only trying to help you,” she told me. Then she turned to him. “Just don't make it so difficult next time.” To provoke my wolf, my sister put me through nerve training using Alpha pressure. I knelt on the floor, trembling and begging her to stop as pain split my head apart. But she only stared at the line spiking across her screen and exclaimed that my Alpha blood was finally responding. My father carried me back to my room. “Vivian is only trying to help you. If your wolf awakens early too, no one will ever look down on you again.” Later, they designed an awakening experiment for me. They locked me in a room at forty-two degrees below zero, trying to recreate the extreme conditions in which my brother and sister had awakened. During the experiment, the thermal barrier failed, and every cry for help I sent through the mind-link was blocked. I watched the temperature keep falling as my eyes slowly closed. That was when I finally understood. My greatest mistake wasn't being ordinary. It was being born into an Alpha family that couldn't accept an ordinary child.

Mom was Dad's dirty little secret. Every year, he would hold her and promise, Wait for me. We'll have our mating ceremony next year. Five years passed, but he mated with another woman instead, making her his Luna. Mom grew bitter and unhinged. She even resorted to abusing me just to get Dad's attention. Go call your father! Tell him you're sick and he needs to see you! But after she pulled that trick so many times, Dad grew disgusted with me. Learning to lie like your mother already. Sickening. Later, Dad's Luna had a daughter. Rumors of their perfect, loving family spread through the pack. Mom lost her mind completely. On my seventh birthday, she fed me a micro-dose of wolfsbane and ordered me to call Dad over. I begged her to take me to the pack hospital. She snapped impatiently, It's just a little wolfsbane. Take the antidote in a minute and you'll be fine. Stop being such a baby! Dad rushed over, only to shove Mom to the floor in annoyance. If you use this little liar to trick me again, you won't get another dime from me! Screams and sobs tangled in the air. I lay on the freezing floor, slowly losing consciousness. Before I died, I thought, "Without me here, they won't have to fight anymore." But after I actually died, Mom and Dad both said they regretted it.