Nyx
I stood rigid just inside the kitchen doorway, spine like forged steel, arms locked at my sides while mother and daughter performed their little tableau of devotion. Lysera nestled deeper into the embrace, cheek pressed to our mother's shoulder; my mother's fingers smoothed slow, possessive circles across Lysera's back. Their smiles were mirror images... soft, radiant, practiced. The subtle squeeze of hands, the murmured endearments too quiet for anyone else to catch... it was all choreography.
A private ballet staged for my benefit, whether they admitted it or not.
I almost opened my mouth to ask if the performance was finished. Almost. But the words would have cracked on their way out, and I refused to give my mother fresh ammunition today. Not on this day.
"And why are you looking at her like that?" My mother's voice sliced the air without warning, sharp as a riding crop.
Like how? The question flickered uselessly behind my eyes. I frowned at her, searching her face for some clue, some hint of what offense I had committed simply by existing in the same room. But answers never came when I needed them.
"Sorry, mother," I sighed instead, letting the apology drift out soft and weightless, the way smoke rises from dying coals. "What should I help with?"
"You can start by washing the dishes," she answered, each syllable honed to cut. "And make sure you don't cause any trouble today. It's Lysera's eighteenth birthday, and I hope you won't ruin it for her."
The words landed like stones in deep water, ripples of humiliation spreading outward, touching everything. I nodded once, throat so tight it hurt to swallow, and moved toward the sink. Every step felt deliberate, every breath a quiet act of defiance: I am still here. I still breathe. The maids shifted aside as I passed, skirts rustling, creating that familiar invisible corridor. Their eyes followed me... not openly hostile, never that brave... but wary. Always wary. As though I carried something contagious. Something lethal.
They were used to the sight of me moving through the house like a ghost who had forgotten how to fade completely. My story was not theirs, though. They had families who claimed them, wolves who answered their calls, futures that had not been written off at nine years old. I had none of those things. So they watched, and whispered, and kept their distance.
Only the head maid, Mara, ever spoke to me directly. Her words were always careful, courteous, edged with something that might have been pity if I let myself believe it. Not respect... not real respect... but the kind of deference one gives a live grenade that hasn't yet decided when explode.
I felt the glances now, the quick averted eyes, the hidden scowls folded into polite masks. They thought I didn't notice. They were wrong. I noticed everything. Every lifted brow. Every hissed syllable when they believed I was out of earshot. And I buried it. Deep. Rage was a luxury I could not afford; survival demanded silence.
Mother's favorite saying echoed in my skull like a mantra I could never quite believe: "One's anger is one's enemy." I had tried to learn it.
Gods, how I had tried. Through every locked door, every cold floor, every night spent counting bruises instead of sheep. Fear still clung to me anyway, cold, damp, persistent. A second skin no one else could see.
Everyone in this house, everyone in the Bloodcrest pack, handled me like something fragile and venomous at once. Untouchable. Unwanted.
And why wouldn't they?
I had no gift. No wolf. No power. Nothing.
Just uselessness.
That was the word Father favored. Useless. He said it so often, with such casual venom, that the syllables had branded themselves into my marrow.
After enough repetitions you start to believe them. After enough years you start to wonder whether even the air you pull into your lungs is a theft from someone more deserving.
At nine every child of the pack receives their wolf. A mirror. A companion. A bond forged in blood and moonlight that cannot be severed. Mine never arrived.
Nine years of waiting. Nine years of ceremonies where I stood at the edge of the circle, dressed in white, hoping... praying... that this time the shift would come, that something inside me would finally howl back.
But all I got was Nine years of silence.
Perhaps I had no wolf at all.
Perhaps the Moon Goddess... or whatever indifferent force ruled us, had looked at me and decided I wasn't worth the trouble.
To my parents that night had been public humiliation. To me it had been annihilation. The moment the last candle guttered out and the pack turned away, I ceased to be Nyx, daughter of Alpha Rhygar and Luna Thalira. I became the shadow. The leftover. The proof that perfection had died with Eira and only failure remained.
And Eira...
My twin. My mirror. My other heartbeat.
Dead.
Gone.
And the entire world had decided, without trial, without evidence, that her blood was on my hands.
Not because I had struck her down. Not because I had chosen betrayal. Simply because I was the one who lived. Because I was weak. Because I was me.
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, letting the old grief surge up like bile. It pressed against my ribs until breathing hurt. Every inhale was a fight. Every exhale a surrender.
"Do you know Alpha Thorne will be here today to pick his Luna?"
The whisper sliced clean through my thoughts.
A maid, young, voice bright with gossip, hadn't bothered to lower it enough.
I froze, hands buried in scalding soapy water, pretending fierce concentration on a stubborn grease spot. My ears strained toward the sound.
Even though Thorne carried human blood in his veins, half-wolf, half-mortal... he had clawed his way to the Alpha title of the Ironfang pack. A rise so improbable it bordered on legend. A name spoken in hushed awe or wary respect. And today he would choose a mate. A Luna. From our pack.
"Isn't that wonderful?" another voice sighed, thick with dreamy admiration.
"Who do you think he's going to pick?"
The next words came softer, crueler.
"Who else, aside from Lysera? Only a man on his deathbed would pick Nyx."
Laughter...quick, stifled, followed.
I think it's high time I reminded these people that they are terrible at whispering.
I heard every word. Every sneer. Every casual assassination of my worth.
And maybe, one day, I would remind them exactly how wrong they were.
Why were they so certain Thorne would choose Lysera?
They didn't know.
Thorne had been my best friend since we were children running barefoot through the pine woods, him always faster, always stronger, always turning back to pull me over the next fallen log when my shorter legs faltered. After Eira died, after the blame settled over me like ash, after my parents' disgust became a living thing that followed me from room to room, Thorne stayed.
He never flinched.
Never wavered.
Never looked at me like I carried a curse.
He saw me, wolfless, powerless, unwanted... and still chose to stay.
And we had been more than friends.
Secretly. Quietly. Desperately.
Ever since I turned sixteen and realized the way my pulse raced when he stood too close wasn't fear or friendship.
Yesterday…
The mate bond had ignited.
Sudden. Violent. Beautiful.
A golden thread snapping taut between us, searing every nerve, rewriting every heartbeat. There was no denying it, no outrunning it. I hadn't wanted to.
He had looked into my eyes, thumb brushing my cheek, and promised he would speak to my parents. That he would claim me. That he would take me away from this house of ice and thorns.
For the first time in nine years the walls around me felt thin. Temporary. Breakable.
I would be free.
---
Evening descended on the mansion the way it always did, loud, bright, and merciless.
Alpha Rhygar's home never slept quietly. There was always an occasion. Always a reason to fill the halls with music, torchlight, forced laughter, clinking glasses. Tonight was no exception.
Princess Lysera's eighteenth birthday.
And... according to calendars that no longer included me... mine.
But my parents had long since rewritten the rules of worth. Only Lysera deserved candles and congratulations. Only Lysera deserved to be seen.
I told myself I didn't care.
But who was I deceiving?
I cared.
I cared so much the ache lived behind my sternum like a second heart.
Caring had never changed anything. It had never softened my mother's gaze. It had never quieted my father's contempt. It would not change tonight.
Still, I cared.
I exhaled slowly and looked around the small, mean room that had been mine for nine years.
Soon I would leave it.
Not that I would miss the space. The thin mattress laid straight on old torn furniture. The chipped wardrobe leaning against the wall like it might collapse any day. The single narrow window that let in more drafts than light.
Above the wardrobe hung the smaller portrait.
Eira.
My mother insisted it stay here.
Not the grand oil painting that dominated the old punishment room... the one positioned to stare me awake every morning... but this quieter, more intimate version. Enough to wound. Enough to remind.
"You need to remember the harm you caused her," my mother had said the day she hung it.
I remembered nothing of the kind.
I remembered laughter. Shared secrets. Hands clasped under blankets during thunderstorms. I remembered loving her so completely that her death had torn half my soul away.
I did not remember killing her.
"Enough"
I shook my head hard, forcing the memories back into their cage.
Tonight was not about ghosts.
Tonight was about Thorne.
Thorne was coming.
He was coming to keep his promise. To stand before my father and claim me. To lead me out of this loveless wasteland into a place where I was wanted. Chosen. Seen.
The thought alone coaxed a small, fragile smile to my mouth, tentative, almost afraid to hope.
I turned to the wardrobe and began searching for something suitable.
My parents never bought me clothes. Why would they? I was never allowed beyond the pack borders, and trust me I have tried to run away countless of time but they always found a way to drag me back into this house. I was never permitted to earn coin. Even if they had permitted it, no merchant in Bloodcrest would have hired the cursed, wolfless daughter of the Alpha.
So my wardrobe was a graveyard of hand-me-downs: Rhett's outgrown tunics, Lysera's discarded dresses worn twice before boredom claimed them.
Tonight I chose one of hers.
Pale lavender. Soft chiffon. Simple cut, elegant lines. Barely worn.
I slipped it over my head, smoothed the fabric across my hips, and turned toward the cracked mirror propped against the wall.
The girl staring back did not look broken.
She looked… fine.
Pretty, even.
My hair... burning flame, vivid and untamed. My eyes, still clear despite everything. My skin pale, untouched… at least for tonight.
For one reckless heartbeat I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, everything was about to change.
"Young Mistress Nyx."
The maid's voice, soft, cautious, snapped me back.
"Yes?" I answered.
I was still Young Mistress. The title clung to me like a joke no one had the courage to explain.
"Your mother said you should bring a bottle of champagne to the main hall," she said, eyes lowered.
I nodded and stepped out at once.
My father kept the finest wines and spirits locked in the cedar-lined cellar room off the east corridor, treasures reserved for alliances, victories, and nights like this. I selected the bottle she had named, cradled it carefully against my chest, and started toward the main hall.
The closer I drew, the louder the world became.
Soft music. Laughter. Clinking crystal. Voices rising over one another in bright, artificial joy.
Then I heard him.
Thorne.
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I almost stumbled.
He was here.
He had come.
He was going to do it.
I took another step, fingers tightening around the chilled glass...
And then his voice carried clear above the crowd.
"Alpha Rhygar, I am here to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage… Lysera."
The bottle slipped from my numb fingers.
Glass exploded against stone in a bright, violent starburst.
The sound ricocheted through the hall, louder than my heartbeat, louder than the music, louder than the sudden, collective intake of breath.
Every eye turned.
Every voice died.
Including Thorne's.
He looked at me.
And the world I had dared to hope for shattered at my feet, just like the glass.