Aysel
“DONE?” My father spun around like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said.
“You don’t get to be done.
You’re a Stormborn.
You have responsibilities…”
“Responsibilities to people who don’t give a damn about me?” I laughed.
“To a father who slaps me before asking if I’m hurt?
To a mother who thinks I’m hysterical and jealous?” I turned to Damon.
“To a fiancé who can’t even look me in the eye while choosing my sister over me?”
“Aysel…” Damon started.
“Aren’t you ashamed?” I asked, my voice filled with disgust.
“Having two sisters serve the same man?
Is that what Moon Valley has come to?”
Father’s face darkened.
“You watch your mouth…”
“Since I’ve already rejected him myself, I may as well hand him over to Celestine entirely.
No need to keep using me to patch up this wedding.”
“Aysel!” My mother grabbed my arm again, her nails digging in.
“This isn’t you.
You’re not yourself…”
“I’ve never been more myself.”
A figure pushed past the crowd in the doorway, my older brother, Theron.
He’d been standing in the hall, listening.
His face was twisted with rage.
“How dare you speak to our parents that way?” He lunged forward, his hand raised to strike me.
I caught his swing mid-air.
My fingers closed around his wrist, and I held him there, watching his eyes go wide as he tried to pull away.
The strength radiating from my arm was effortless.
I could have snapped his bones like twigs.
I released him and he stumbled back, cradling his wrist and staring at me like he’d never seen me before.
Every single one of them had shown their true colors tonight.
Every outwardly impressive Alpha had revealed nothing but cowardice and incompetence when it mattered most.
There was no one here worth holding onto.
“I’m leaving Moon Valley,” I said.
“What?” Damon exclaimed, rising from Celestine’s bedside.
“I’m going to New York and I’m severing ties with you.
I’m never going to return here and I want none of you to look for me.”
“Aysel….” Mother said the same time Damon also said, “You can’t do that,” but I ignored them and turned, walking away without looking back.
*****
Magnus
The dossier landed on my desk with a thud.
Nathaniel had compiled it overnight, every piece of information he could gather about Aysel Stormborn.
I began to flip through the pages to read.
Before the age of six, Aysel was the cherished little princess of Moon Valley.
The center of everyone’s affection.
Her mother, Evelyn, doted on her and her older brother, Theron, was fiercely protective.
Then Celestine was brought into the household.
I read the account of how everything had shifted overnight.
How the family’s attention moved from Aysel to the new, fragile girl who had lost her parents.
She changed from a lively child into a quiet one.
I turned the page.
At seventeen, she broke free of the family’s hold and left for New York alone to study.
She pursued a pharmacology degree at a top university and was on the verge of entering an elite research institute.
She fully integrated into human society, keeping Moon Valley at a cold distance ever since.
There were photos included.
The submitted report includes a character profile of her, impulsive, overbearing, difficult, unlikeable.
I looked up at Nathaniel, who was standing by the door.
“Impulsive?
Overbearing?”
Nathaniel’s expression was carefully neutral.
“Those are the assessments of the Moon Valley pack members who provided information, Alpha.”
“And what do you think?”
Nathaniel paused.
“I think…
She’s been through a great deal.
But the reports indicate her own conduct…”
“The reports indicate she’s been surviving.” I closed the dossier.
“Everything she has, she’s had to fight for.
Everything she is, she’s had to build on her own.
And you want to tell me she’s difficult?”
Nathaniel fell silent.
I looked back at the files.
“She’s braver than I am.”
“Alpha?”
“I couldn’t even bring myself to defy the person who killed my own mother.”
Nathaniel fell silent at that.
I thought about the way her bloodline had awakened and now she had killed that rogue.
Her aura had surged from its lowest point to its absolute peak in an instant.
I must have her, I thought.
Once I have her, every problem I face will resolve itself.