"What?" Elyra stepped back, her knees knocking together so hard she almost lost her balance on the plush office rug. "You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking, Father."
Lord Veyrith didn’t laugh. He didn’t even blink. His sharp, angular face remained an icy mask of indifference as he smoothed the cuffs of his linen shirt, his movements precise and unhurried, as though the conversation were of no more consequence than discussing the weather.
"It has been decided," he said, his voice flat, devoid of any pitch or warmth. "The arrangements are already being finalized."
"Decided?" Elyra’s voice cracked, rising an octave as a wave of hot, suffocating panic surged up her throat. "Decided by who? You can’t just decide my fate... my entire life like I don’t even exist! You can’t just barter me away!"
"It is not up for discussion, Elyra," he replied, taking a slow sip from his glass, his eyes flicking over her head as if he were addressing a servant who was taking too long to clear a table. "You will do what is required for the survival of this pack"
"No, Father!" Elyra snapped, her hands trembling violently at her sides as she took a defiant step forward. "No! I have endured everything from you... from Mother... from every single person in this pack for eighteen years! I am twenty-two now! I’m not a child you can lock in a cupboard, and I refuse to be pushed away like a sacrificial lamb! I refuse to be used just to protect your precious Elowen!"
The air in the room instantly went dead. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to hold its breath, the crackle of the logs suddenly too loud in the silence that followed.
Lord Veyrith didn’t yell. He moved with a horrific, blinding speed that only a high-born Alpha possessed.
Before Elyra could even raise a hand to shield herself, his arm whipped across the space between them. The back of his heavy ringed hand slammed straight into the side of her jaw.
CRACK.
The sheer physical force snapped her head sideways. Elyra was thrown off her feet, crashing heavily onto her left side. Her raw, lacerated back hit the hard floorboards beneath the rug, and the shock of it sent a blinding white pain straight into her brain. She hit the floor so hard her breath left her in a wet, choking gasp, and a dark spray of blood hit the cream-colored carpet.
Her jaw throbbed with a dull, sickening crunch. She pulled her hands to her mouth, her fingers coming away slick and hot with dark crimson where her inner cheek had been sliced open against her teeth. For a moment, the world tilted and blurred, the ceiling swimming above her in dizzying spirals of white and gold.
"How dare you?" Lord Veyrith sneered, stepping over her fallen body until the polished leather of his boot was inches from her eyes. "How dare you speak her name with that filthy mouth? For eighteen years, I have tolerated the pathetic affliction of your existence. I let you breathe my air. I let you eat my food. I gave you a roof over your head when any other Alpha would have drowned a wolfless defect at birth!"
The words tore into her far worse than the blow. Elyra lay there, her chest heaving, every breath pulling at the fresh bandages beneath her shirt. Tears burned hot and fast in her eyes, cutting tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
Somewhere beneath the pain, a small, exhausted voice whispered that she should have expected nothing less, that hope had always been a foolish luxury she couldn’t afford.
I didn’t choose to be born like this, she wanted to scream. I didn’t ask to be empty inside.
"You think you have a voice in this house?" he continued, his tone dripping with pure, toxic venom as he towered over her. "You are nothing, Elyra. You are a mistake. An embarrassment I’ve had to hide from the regional council for almost two decades. And now, for the first time in your useless, miserable life, you actually have a purpose. You can serve this family."
Elyra dug her fingernails into the carpet, forcing her trembling arms to push her upper body off the floor. Her jaw locked, blood dripping down her chin and staining the collar of her oversized cotton shirt. She dragged herself to her feet, her legs shaking so badly she had to lean against the heavy edge of the oak desk just to stay upright.
Every fiber of her being screamed at her to stay down, to let the darkness take her, but something stubborn and unyielding kept her rising, again and again, the way she always had.
"The Lycan King wants the heir," Elyra spat out, wiping her bloody mouth with the back of her sleeve, her dark eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate fire. "And I am not your heir! Elowen is! You made damn sure the whole world knew that! You can’t force me to do this! If he discovers the treachery... if King Vaelric finds out you handed him a wolfless nobody instead of the Alpha’s true heir, he will level this entire pack! He will burn Bloodridge to the ground, with you and your precious Elowen inside it! That’s treason, Father! You’re committing treason against the Lycan throne!"
Lord Veyrith’s eyes narrowed into dark, lethal slits.
"So you want me to send your sister to him to die?" he asked, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "You want me to hand over the future Alpha of Bloodridge to a savage monster who will break her?"
Elyra swallowed the copper taste in her mouth, her voice trembling with raw, heartbreaking bitterness. "So you prefer me to die in her place? Is that it? You’d rather he slaughter me when he realizes I have no wolf?"
"It would be your honor, Elyra," he said without a single second of hesitation. "It is the only useful thing your blood will ever accomplish."
The finality of those words broke something deep inside her chest. A quiet, terrible crack, like ice giving way beneath a weight it could no longer bear. He didn’t just dislike her. He wanted her gone. He was actively using the Lycan King as an executioner to scrub the shame of her existence off his family crest once and for all. Eighteen years of small cruelties, of averted eyes and clipped words, suddenly made a horrible kind of sense.
"I won’t do it," Elyra whispered, backing toward the door. "I’ll go to the council. I’ll tell the scouts at the gate. I’ll run..."
"You will do as you are told," Lord Veyrith growled.
He didn’t raise his hand this time. He didn’t have to.
Suddenly, the air in the room compressed. A massive, suffocating wave of heavy, dark pressure exploded from his chest... the raw, unyielding aura of a Command Alpha.
To a shifter, an Alpha’s aura was a heavy weight that forced obedience. But to Elyra... a girl with no wolf, no inner beast to cushion the strike, it was a physical assault.
BOOM.
It felt like a concrete wall had just collapsed straight onto her spine.
Elyra’s knees instantly snapped. She slammed face-first into the carpet, the sheer gravitational force of his command pinning her flat against the floorboards. The pressure pushed down on her lungs, squeezing the air out of her chest until her ribs groaned under the strain.
"AGH!" she shrieked, but the sound was choked off instantly as her throat collapsed under the heavy aura.
Blood burst from her nose, pooling on the floor beneath her face. Every single gash on her back tore open under the immense pressure, fresh, hot blood soaking straight through Kira’s clean bandages and blooming dark across the back of her shirt.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t lift a finger. It felt like a multi-story building had been dropped on top of her small frame, slowly crushing her bones into dust.
Lord Veyrith stood over her, his eyes glowing a harsh, terrifying yellow, his aura radiating off him in suffocating waves.
"You will stand at that altar," he commanded, his voice echoing inside her skull like thunder. "You will smile. You will sign your name to that parchment. And you will walk out of these gates without saying a single word."
Elyra’s vision began to blur into dark, swimming spots. Her lips moved, trying to gasp for oxygen, but her chest couldn’t expand. The two guards standing by the mahogany door didn’t move an inch. They kept their hands resting casually on their weapons, their faces blank, watching their Alpha slowly crush his own daughter to death on the office floor, as though this were nothing more than an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon.
Please... she tried to cry out in her mind. Please, stop... I can’t... I can’t breathe...
Her lungs burned. The metallic taste of blood filled her throat, choking her.
"Father, stop! You’re going to kill her!"
The sharp, high-pitched scream cut through the heavy silence of the study.
The suffocating pressure suddenly wavered. The heavy oak door was shoved open, and Elowen rushed into the room. She wore a tailored cream silk dress, her golden-blonde hair styled in effortless, perfect waves, looking every inch the untouched, beloved daughter of the house.
Elowen threw herself forward, grabbing Lord Veyrith’s arm with both hands.
"Please, Father!" Elowen begged, her voice frantic as she pulled at his sleeve. "Stop it! She’s your daughter! She’s my sister! Please, let her go!"
Lord Veyrith looked down at his favored child, the yellow glow in his eyes slowly fading. He took a step back, severing the mental connection, and retracted his heavy command aura.
The crushing weight vanished in an instant.
Elyra’s lungs snapped open. She dragged in a violent, ragged gulp of air, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood onto the rug. She lay there sideways, gasping, weeping, her entire body shaking violently as oxygen slowly flooded back into her brain. The relief of simply breathing again felt almost obscene, a small mercy in a room that had shown her none.
"You’re my daughter, Elowen," Lord Veyrith said softly, his voice instantly shifting into a warm, gentle tone as he patted Elowen’s hand. "She is nothing to you. Do not waste your tears on this."
"Don’t say that, Father," Elowen said, her blue eyes wide and shining with apparent concern as she looked down at Elyra’s collapsed form. "She is my younger sister. We share the same blood."
Elowen took a breath, turning to face her father fully, her jaw set with a brave, tragic nobility.
"Father... the Lycan King wants the heir," Elowen said softly, her voice carrying a tragic, heroic weight. "And I am your heir. I am the one who was trained to bear the burdens of this pack. If King Vaelric comes for a bride... I will go."
Lord Veyrith’s face went completely pale. "What? No! Elowen, absolutely not..."
"Yes, Father, I will," Elowen insisted, taking his hands into hers and shaking her head gently. "Please, don’t force Elyra to do this. She has no wolf. She’s so fragile... she wouldn’t survive three days in the northern crags. If someone has to be sacrificed to keep Bloodridge safe... let it be me."
Elyra lay on the floor, her cheek pressed against the blood-stained carpet, listening to her sister’s brave speech. For a split second, a tiny, foolish ember of shock flickered in Elyra’s chest, warm and unfamiliar, almost painful in its rarity. Elowen? Is she... is she actually trying to protect me?
Lord Veyrith looked at Elowen as if she were a martyr, his face filled with agonizing pride and despair. "Elowen... my sweet girl..."
"It’s settled, Father," Elowen murmured, giving him a soft, reassuring smile. Then she turned her head, looking down at Elyra with a soft, gentle expression. "Sister... please, get up. Help me pick out my travel dress. I need your help getting ready."
Elyra slowly, excruciatingly pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Every muscle in her body screamed in agony, her back bleeding freely beneath her soaked shirt. She didn’t look at her father. She just kept her eyes on the floor, staggering to her feet like an old woman, each movement a fresh negotiation with her own broken body.
"Follow me, Elyra," Elowen said softly, holding the door open.
Elyra bowed her head and dragged her bloody, exhausted body out of the study, following the swish of Elowen’s cream silk skirt down the long, carpeted hallway toward the estate’s west wing. The portraits of long-dead Alphas seemed to watch her pass, their painted eyes indifferent to the blood dripping onto the fine runner beneath her feet.
They reached Elowen’s suite... a massive, sunlit room filled with velvet furniture, fresh flowers, and racks of designer clothes, a world so far removed from Elyra’s own sparse quarters that it might have belonged to a different family entirely.
The moment the heavy bedroom door clicked shut behind them, the gentle, tragic expression on Elowen’s face completely vanished.
SLAP.
The sharp blow caught Elyra squarely across her wounded jaw.
Elyra stumbled back, hitting the edge of a mahogany vanity table, her hand instantly jumping to her burning cheek. The shock of the betrayal hurt almost more than the blow itself, though some small, weary part of her wondered why she was still capable of being surprised.
Elowen stood in front of her, her blue eyes dark with a lethal, psychotic rage, her manicured nails dug so hard into her own palms that her knuckles were white.
"You little bitch," Elowen hissed, her voice dropping into a vicious, poison-laced snarl. "How dare you? How dare you defy Father in there?"
Elyra stared at her sister in shock, her mouth open, fresh blood trickling down her chin. "Elowen..."
"Shut up!" Elowen shrieked, taking a step forward and grabbing Elyra by the collar of her torn shirt, dragging her down so their faces were inches apart. "You stupid, useless, wolfless bitch! You almost ruined everything! Do you have any idea how close Father was to changing his mind because of your loud, dramatic crying?"
Elyra blinked, confusion cutting through her pain. "What... what are you talking about? You just told him..."
"I told him what he needed to hear so he wouldn’t look like a total monster in front of the household guards!" Elowen sneered, shoving Elyra back against the vanity so hard the crystal perfume bottles rattled. "Did you really think I was going to pack my bags and go live with a savage Lycan in the mountains? Are you completely insane?"
Elowen laughed... a short, nasty, bitter sound - and crossed her arms, looking down her nose at Elyra with absolute disgust.
"I am the heir of Bloodridge," Elowen said, her eyes flashing gold for a fraction of a second. "I am going to rule this pack. I am going to marry a high-ranking Alpha from the southern coalition and live in luxury. If anyone is going out to the northern border to be used, abused, and discarded by King Vaelric... it’s going to be you."
Elyra’s breath caught in her throat. The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water, colder and crueler than anything her father’s fists had done to her that night.
The speech in the office. The heroic sacrifice. The gentle tears. It was all a show. Elowen had played her father like a fiddle, putting on a performance of tragic sisterly love so that when Lord Veyrith ultimately "overruled" her and forced Elyra to go instead, Elowen would look like a blameless, heartbroken victim rather than a coward who threw her broken sister to the wolves.
"You... you set this up," Elyra whispered, her voice cracking with raw disbelief.
"Of course I set it up!" Elowen snapped, stepping closer and poking her sharp, polished fingernail hard into Elyra’s chest, right over her bruised ribs. "Father is going to ’override’ my noble offer by tomorrow morning. He’s going to lock you in the carriage, sign the papers, and hand you over to Vaelric Draeven’s guards. And everyone in this pack will praise me for being such a loving sister while you rot in the snow."
Elowen leaned in close, her breath warm against Elyra’s bleeding ear.
"If anyone is going out there to die, sister," Elowen whispered viciously, "it should be you. You’re a wolfless bitch. You were born to be trash, and tomorrow... we’re finally throwing you away."