Chapter: 3

My parents and brother hated me for breaking Celeste's heart.

Kieran's pack, NightFang, loathed me because I was not the Luna they wanted. And Celeste was so enraged, she moved abroad.

"You ruined everything!" Ethan's accusing voice cut through my thoughts. The venom in his glare cut deep. Undiluted after a decade. Blood may have made us siblings, but Ethan had never once treated me as his sister. Celeste was the only sister he cherished. He loathed me for driving her away.

But was it truly all my fault? I may be weak and ordinary, but never so vile as to deliberately seduce my sister's lover. Yet they never cared. They just needed someone to blame.

"See this?" My hands trembled, but my voice hardened like winter frost. "My voice was never heard. My existence never mattered. So tell me, Mom-" I turned to face her, throat constricted. "If you never wanted me, why didn't you just smother me in my cradle? Why pretend I still mattered enough to call me here?"

"How dare you speak to Mom like that?!" Ethan roared, his canines lengthening. "Marrying Kieran didn't magically make you Luna material. That title was always meant for Celeste!"

"I never asked for any of this!" I snarled back, bitterness filling my tone. "I was ready to disappear. You could have let Celeste and Kieran have their perfect mating ceremony and pretended I never existed!"

Ethan's lips curled mockingly. "Don't play the martyr," he sneered. "You knew damn well Kieran would never abandon his pup-"

"Ethan!" Mother's command carried the faintest echo of her former Luna authority, though her scent now held only exhaustion and grief. "Enough. We will not waste your father's final moments on this old blood feud."

She couldn't even look at me as she said, "Go see your father." Her gaze darted away like the sight of me pained her. Ethan shot me one last venomous glare before slumping into a chair.

Steeling myself, I pushed open the door.

The fear nearly choked me-fear of seeing that familiar disappointment in his eyes one last time. But when I saw him lying there, the man I'd spent my life both fearing and longing to please... Gone was the towering figure of my nightmares. The father who'd once seemed invincible now lay motionless, his chest swathed in bandages, his face ashen. The eyes that had always burned with contempt when they looked at me... now held nothing at all.

Tears streamed down my face. Why did this hurt so much?

This man-this giant who'd hated me from the moment I presented as a wolfless. Who'd looked at Celeste with pride and me with shame.

The memory of our last meeting still clawed at my heart.

There had been no wedding for Kieran and me. No celebration. Only my father's iron grip forcing my hand to scrawl my name on the marriage paper.

"Now you've gotten what you wanted," he'd snarled, his Alpha power choking the air between us. "From this day forward, you are no daughter of mine."

I'd never wept so violently-never begged so desperately. But all I earned was the frozen line of his back and his final, venomous curse:

"Your birth was a mistake, Seraphina. Dare to show your face again, and I swear you'll never know another moment of happiness."

He kept his promise.

His curse had poisoned every moment of my life, while my "honorable" husband turned our marriage into a gilded cage with his endless silence and contempt.

I should have hated them all-this family, this fate.

But when my father's fingers twitched weakly on the sheets, my traitorous heart lurched. Before I could think, I was at his side, clutching his ice-cold hand.

"Dad?" My voice trembled with something dangerously close to hope. His pale lips parted slightly, as if struggling to form words.