Thad just woken up from a restless nap when my phone buzzed.
For a second, I thought I was still dreaming. But when I saw the name on the screen–Marcus Nightshade my stomach twisted into a tight knot.
I didn’t answer right away. I just stared at it, my heart pounding. Of all the people in the pack, he was the last one I expected to hear from.
Eventually, I answered, my voice clipped and cold.
“I already told you. I’m not coming back. Never.”
There was a pause.
Then, Marcus’s growl came through the line, low and sharp, barely restrained.
“Isn’t Ava living with you now?”
1 added,
“Just have her follow my recipe. The kid’s stew doesn’t need a damned pack ritual to taste right.”
His voice sharpened instantly.
“Brianna, I’m giving you a chance here. You’re clearly just throwing a tantrum, waiting for me to lower my pride and call first. Well, here I am.”
I could almost see his arrogant scowl as he said it.
“Come back. Take care of Lucas, and I swear I won’t let Ava near the pack house again.”
I let out a bitter laugh, my wolf stirring uneasily beneath my skin.
“You Ambroses are all the same. Entitled. Arrogant. Full of empty promises.”
My voice cracked like frost over the fire.
“I’m not coming back, Marcus. Figure it out on your own.”
Then I ended the call.
I’d left the Shadow Walker Pack’s lands just yesterday, after finally having enough of being treated like a placeholder for someone they lost. I flew straight to the old town nestled deep in the northern forests, where the moonlight still touched the earth with gentleness.
My hometown.
The place where I was born before fate dragged me into the Ambrose Estate, into the Shadow Walker Pack, a world of dominance and cold–blooded hierarchy.
It wasn’t much–a sleepy border town at the edge of the northern territories.
No Alpha ruled here.
Just loners, healers, retired wolves, and a few humans who never feared us.
But it held my peace.
And the apartment I used to rent still stood untouched.
I’d paid the landlord to hold it in secret, just in case I ever needed to disappear. Apparently, he’d
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kept his promise.
The moment I walked in, I was hit with the scent of lavender and cedarwood.
Everything was just how I remembered it–clean, simple, untouched.
Like it had been waiting for me to come home.
I dropped my bag by the door and was just about to shift into something more comfortable when a knock echoed through the apartment.
It was Mr. Parker, my old landlord.
A grizzled man in his early sixties with wolf’s blood so thin it barely stirred.
People in town called him “Half–Lune.”
He’d always treated me kindly, ever since he told me I reminded him of his granddaughter, who’c died during a rogue raid.
“Brianna…”
He said softly, his faded amber eyes watering.
“You’re really back. Moon above, it’s good to see you again.”
I gave him a small smile and reached into my suitcase, handing him a slim black box.
“Brought you something. It’s from the city. Hope you like it.”
a rare
He opened the lid with trembling hands. Inside was a polished obsidian watch, forged by a craftsman in the Eastern mountains.
Its face shimmered under the dim hallway light like moonlight over dark water.
“I… this is too much…”
He murmured.
“You didn’t have to do this, pup.”
“I wanted to…
I replied firmly.
“You looked after me like I was your own. That matters.”
He tried to hand it back, but I slapped it into his palm with a glare.
“Don’t make me shift and force it on you.”
He chuckled, then sniffed.
“Still fiery as ever.”
I shoved him out the door with mock irritation.
“Go on, old man. I need to rest before the moon rises.”
Once he was gone, the silence wrapped around me again.
I leaned back against the couch, then pulled out a small wooden box from the bottom of my bag. Inside was a bracelet–silver, worn, with tiny etched wolves running along its surface.
It had belonged to my mother.
Her story played out in my head like an old, bitter tale passed down through every corner of the
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pack.
She had no rank. No family cared.
Her pack, if you could even call it that, was just a collection of rogues and exiles who used her until she had nothing left.
When she was barely thirteen, they sent her out to work, forcing her to scavenge, steal, beg… all for scraps they handed to her worthless older brother, because he was the one with a wolf strong enough to shift.
She was invisible.
Powerless.
Starving for affection.
So when my father came into her life–an Alpha wolf with smooth words and glittering promises
-she fell.
Hard.
But her fairy tale ended the second she mated with him.
He changed.
The charming Alpha turned cruel and possessive. He drank, he raged. He hit her–worse when the full moon neared.
And when she got pregnant with me, he lost control one night and kicked her so hard she nearly lost me.
The memory of that still made my wolf stir, anger pulsing through my veins.
The fact that I existed at all was nothing short of a miracle.
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