Maiikling Kwento tungkol sa Plot Twists at Werewolf, at mga Nobela ng Independence na may Family Emotions

Dad and my brother, Jonah Atwood, have always favored my sister, Lisa Atwood, while resenting me. At my coming-of-age ceremony, when several werewolves in the Blackwolf pack corners and harasses me, it's Rex Vaughn, the Alpha's heir, who steps in to protect me. He throws the most extravagant mate-bonding ceremony for me, right before the Moon Goddess. Overnight, I become someone every other female wolf wishes they could be! I'm seven months pregnant when I show up at Lisa's birthday party. Somehow, we're ambushed by dark magic. As always, Dad and Jonah put Lisa first. They throw everything they have into shielding and dragging her out of the enemies' barrier, leaving me trapped in the center of the spell circle, nearly consumed. In the end, it's Rex who pulls me out. Later, I wake up in Stone Cabin, only to walk right into a scene that makes my blood run cold. "You paid off an old witch from the Darkmoon pack to set up that spell circle?" Rex's eyes blaze red with fury. "She's only seven months along, and you were already trying to rip the pup out of her? "What? Were you hoping Lily and her pup would blow up and die together?" Jonah and Dad shrink back, trying to explain themselves. "Lisa's wolf is fading fast. The old witch said the only way to save her and her wolf is to sacrifice someone with the same blood immediately…" Rex snaps, "I care about Lisa more than either of you do! Why else do you think I claimed Lily as my mate? Sure, I want to save Lisa, but not by sacrificing Lily and her pup!" That is how I learn the truth. Rex didn't bond with me because he cared. He did it to save Lisa. As it turns out, he's no different from Dad and Jonah. All they ever see is Lisa, the weak-born wolf. I was never part of the picture to begin with. Since no one's ever truly cared about me, I'll walk away with my pup.

Around the seventh month of my pregnancy, I overheard a conversation between my mate, Zane Andrews, and Ciara Phillips, the she-wolf I had taken in out of compassion after her family was brutally slaughtered by rogues. In a sultry, flirtatious tone, Ciara purred, “Zane, my love, if your wife discovers that the fertilized egg I planted in her womb isn’t truly hers by blood, she’ll be devastated—perhaps to the point of despairing suicide, don’t you think?” Zane snorted, his voice dripping with disdain at the mention of me. “It’ll work for us if she simply dies from heartbreak. Damn it. I can’t shake the worry that she might sever our bond and leave me with nothing. Let’s keep this under wraps until our child inherits all her assets. Only then will we reveal the bombshell, plunging her into darkness.” Ciara giggled, praising Zane for his cunning. My claws itched to lash out, but I held back, knowing the time for confrontation wasn’t yet. My heart sank as their betrayal cut deep. Years ago, I had defied my pack elders’ warnings about Ciara being a potential threat, taking her in and grooming her into our pack's doctor, funding her education out of sheer empathy. Now, I regretted every moment of my kindness. To think that my mate, who had once begged for my protection for his fragile pack, had the audacity to betray me. If not for my support, his pathetic pack would have crumbled long ago, leaving him nursing his wounds in a dark corner, fretting over survival. After a long moment of contemplation, I made my decision. I would feign ignorance to their schemes and play along by giving birth to Ciara’s baby. Two decades passed. Ciara’s child grew up, bearing the name Simon Andrews. Aware of their treachery, I still transferred all my assets to him. Once the paperwork was completed, Ciara boldly approached me in front of the entire pack, a maternity DNA test in hand. With a smug smile, she declared, “Leia Holland, look at this! I am Simon’s biological mother. Leave h

The day my college acceptance letter arrived, I found a post on Mom's phone asking strangers for advice. [I promised my older daughter I'd pay for her college, but now my younger daughter wants to apply too. How can I give the tuition I saved for my older daughter to my younger one without the older one holding it against me?] Every reply said the same thing. [You already promised your older daughter. Why would you betray her? Can't you find some other way?] Dazed, I accidentally hit refresh, and a familiar profile picture popped up. It belonged to my brother. [That's not really betrayal. It's your money, and you can spend it on whoever you want!] [I'm family, so I'll be honest. The older daughter is an Omega, the lowest rank there is. She's been slow since she was little, her grades are average at best, and whatever school she gets into is bound to be terrible.] [But the younger daughter is different. She's a noble Beta, just like the rest of us, and she's always had excellent grades. Plenty of colleges will want her, and our whole family is happy to spend the money on her.] My mate chimed in under my brother's comment. [He's right. Once the younger one gets in, we can all go stay with her and take care of her so she can focus on her studies.] I gripped my phone, my heart aching. My family and my future mate had always favored my Beta sister. They bought my sister expensive makeup and told me I was plain, not a tenth as pretty as her, so makeup would be wasted on me. They took my sister to all kinds of parties and told me I was too awkward, not bubbly and outgoing like her, and I'd just kill the mood. Even now, when it came to college, they thought I wasn't as good as my sister. I looked at the acceptance letter on my computer. Then I chose the university more than 600 miles from home because it had offered me a full tuition waiver. I was done with this home where I'd never been anyone's favorite.

A woman showed up at my cabin door, claiming to be a Beta's mate. She said she wanted to rent my herb field for three hundred dollars a month, to grow medicine for her injured mate. Three hundred? Seriously? That land is the only one in the entire pack—blessed ground that drinks in the Moon Goddess's power. Herbs grown there could pull a dying wolf back from the dead. I turned her down. But she wouldn't let it go. So Sun, my dog, barked and chased her off. Figured that'd be the end of it. Wrong. The next day she came back with two Gammas, busting right through my door. They screamed at me, called me a worthless human who had no business touching pack land. Then they tied me up and made me watch as they burned my herb books, beat Sun, and tore out every single plant I'd grown. What they didn't know? I'm human, yeah. But I'm the adopted human daughter of the Bloodmoon Alpha and Luna. That herb field? Their gift to me on my eighteenth birthday. And those herbs they burned? The only cure for her mate's dying breath.

On the day of the family's "Legacy Day," Dad announced he was giving us necklaces blessed by our ancestors. Everyone got one. Everyone except me. My older brother Leon received an obsidian necklace. Even the old butler who'd served our household for twenty years got a protective charm to calm his mind. The most beautiful one—a moonstone wrapped in rare runes, glowing with soft holy light—was gently placed around Mia's neck by our father. Mia is my little sister. She's been a rare white wolf since birth, but she's always been frail. She accepted it with delight. I stood at the very edge, running on no sleep after just returning from border patrol. I stepped forward and instinctively reached out my hand. But my Dad didn't even look at me. Click. The velvet box snapped shut in front of everyone. That sharp sound of the lid closing jolted me fully awake. Father dusted off his hands. "Yours isn't urgent. We'll talk about it later." My eyes stung. I walked over to Mother, who stood to the side. "Mom, what about me? Why does even the butler get one, but not me?" Mother just told me to wait a little longer. Just then, Mia coughed from the cold wind. My future mate, Garrett Whitfield, immediately took off his coat and wrapped it around her, escorting her all the way into the warm room. I stood alone in the biting wind, pulled out my phone, and replied to a warrior invitation message from the Silver Creek pack next door—one that had been sitting there for a week.

On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, I collapsed in the pack clinic after my ninety-ninth blood donation to my twin sister, Maeve. She'd been cursed since birth—a curse that could only be sustained by my blood. Our shared bond from the womb was the only thing keeping the dark magic at bay. When I woke up, the healer told me I had developed Aplastic anemia—a rare condition where my bone marrow was failing. Years of constant donations had finally broken my body down, and my wolf, Aurora, was too weak to fight it. I rushed to tell my family, hoping that this time would be different, only to find them at the bakery ordering a custom birthday cake with only Maeve's name on it. They'd forgotten my birthday entirely, even though we were twins born five minutes apart. At first, my sacrifice was met with love and praise. Now, it was nothing more than an obligation everyone expected. My family had chosen Maeve over me countless times before. This time, I decided to choose myself. I had two weeks before I would slip away from this pack house and their lives. Two weeks to prepare everything in silence while they remained oblivious. They would think I'd finally learned my place as Maeve's blood supply. But they would never realize I was counting down the days until I disappeared from their lives forever. By then, it would be too late.

To get rid of our pup and date with his assistant on Valentine's Day, my mate Marcus forced our injured pup to go rock climbing and poisoned him. When I rushed my dying pup to the hospital, I unexpectedly saw my mate accompanying his assistant for a prenatal checkup. Our terrified pup lay convulsing from the poison, but Marcus didn’t even care about him. "He's just an Omega. If he was a proper wolf, he'd heal instantly!" I clutched the $100 million Moonlight Blessing herb in my pocket. I accidentally found it in the forest this morning. I was planning to tell him the good news today. But now? It was time to break this five-year mate bond.

I was the only she-wolf in the Frostfang Pack in the past hundred years to shift at just twelve. I even earned honors in battle. But my family saw my early shift as an unforgivable sin. When my sister found out, she burst into tears and threw herself into our mother's arms. "It's all right, Elsie. None of this is your fault. Your sister took too much from you before you were even born." My mother frowned and kissed the top of Elsie's head again and again. My father shot me an irritated glare. "Freya, you know Elsie can't shift. Did you really have to rub it in her face?" Even the priest stood before the whole pack and blamed me for Elsie's condition. He claimed I'd taken too much from her in the womb, leaving her too weak to ever shift. To them, I had been guilty since birth. So I walked away. I found a pack that truly accepted me. And when I finally returned to Frostfang, I came back as North Ridge's Alpha heir.

My mother, Margaret Harper, carries the blood of a Word Witch. Once every lunar cycle, she can speak one blessing that fate itself is forced to obey. But all my life, the only thing she ever gave me was half a sentence. When I was eighteen, I received early admission to the Northern Royal Healers' Academy. My mother looked at the letter and said, "If you go north..." Her instincts had never been wrong, so I thought she'd seen danger waiting for me there. I turned the academy down with my own hands. Months later, she used her recommendation and a binding blessing to send my younger sister, Chloe, to the best healing school near our pack, even though Chloe had nowhere near my talent. After that, I stopped asking about my future. I started at the bottom of Black Pine Pack's medical system and fought my way up until the Northern Royal Pack appointed me Chief Healer. One month before I was due to leave, my mother saw the appointment letter and still offered me nothing but another unfinished warning. "Climbing too high might..." That same night, I heard her give Chloe the only blessing she could use that month. "You'll pass the senior healer examination. Your wolf will remain calm, and every examiner will recognize your ability." So that's the truth. My mother wasn't unable to finish a sentence. She simply never thought I was worth one. If every blessing she had belonged to Chloe, then Margaret didn't need to know that in one month, I would leave her house and Black Pine Pack for good.