Chapter 1Stella
"Get your worthless hide down here this second, or I swear on the Moon Goddess I'll tan it raw with my fucking belt!"
A roar shook the foundations of the house, vibrating up through the floorboards and straight into my bones.
You might not believe it, but it came from my father. That's right.
I knew that tone. It promised pain, the kind that lingered.
And thanks to my charming brother Garrett stirring the pot, today's special was going to be extra brutal.
"You think I'm joking, mutt? I'm coming up there!" he bellowed.
Mutt. His favorite nickname for me. Classy.
I pressed myself deeper into the back corner of my closet, as if the old coats could swallow me whole.
Maybe the floor would open up. Maybe a portal to a nicer dimension would appear.
A girl could dream.
Reality, of course, was a bitch with a mean left hook.
Reality meant I was about to get my ass kicked.
"WHERE ARE YOU?!" The shout was so close it made the door rattle.
A low, guttural growl followed - the kind only a Beta could make, infused with enough power to make the drywall dust shiver.
Crap. He was right outside.
"Last chance, you little damn mutt. Come out! If you don't, you know what will happen!"
He knew I was in here. He just loved the dramatic hunt.
Honestly, whether I walked out or he dragged me out, the result was the same: days of aching misery.
"You should have been downstairs a long time ago, you fucking idiot! It's been over 30 minutes, and now you're going to pay the price. You damn, self-inflicted fool!"
Idiot? Fool? Who? Me?
I think that sounds more like him.
Sometimes I really wonder how my dad, being so stupid, can still lead this wolf pack as the second-in-command.
Does he really think I'm hiding in the closet, deliberately avoiding going downstairs to make breakfast, even though I know he'll beat me senseless?
No, I guess not.
But no matter why I'm stuck here, he won't believe me; he doesn't care at all.
My fate was a done deal.
The door exploded inward.
"Well, look what we have here." His smile was all teeth, no warmth.
He moved faster than I could blink, a blur of anger.
A fist grabbed the front of my shirt, and then I was airborne.
The world spun before I connected with the wall.
A sickening crunch echoed in my ears - that was my spine, greeting the plaster. The air whooshed out of my lungs.
Day's off to a stellar start, Stella.
Okay, I know what you're thinking. Werewolf. Super healing. I should be fine, right?
Yeah, not so much.
See, that's for wolves who aren't half-starved and perpetually bruised.
My body was so broken down from the constant beatings and skipped meals that my healing factor was basically on vacation.
I was the typical example of an unhealthy werewolf.
I gasped, trying to pull in a shred of oxygen. Before I could, he was on me again, hauling me up by my collar like a sack of garbage.
He shook me hard, his spittle spraying my face. I fought the urge to gag.
"Cat got your tongue, mutt?" he sneered. "No pathetic story this time? No excuse?"
Here's the fun family dynamic. Most of these beatings start because Garrett does something awful to me.
But mentioning Prince Charming's name is a one-way ticket to Punishment-Plus.
In Dad's eyes, Garrett - the future Beta - could trip into a pile of dung and come up smelling like a damn rose garden. So, I usually lie. Make something up.
However, sometimes I just can't come up with a suitable excuse, and my father absolutely won't tolerate my silence; he sees it as disrespect and disregard for him.
My brain was scrambled from the wall-impact.
So I had no choice but to tell the truth, and words just tumbled out. "Garrett... he locked me in the closet."
Bad move.
His face purpled with rage. "You lying little - !" Another violent shake, and then I was flying again.
This time, my trajectory involved the window.
The sound of shattering glass was almost pretty. The feeling of shards slicing into my arm and palm was not. A sharp cry tore from my throat.
"Look what you made me do!" he stormed over as I tried to pull a nasty piece of glass from my hand. "You stupid, useless MUTT!"
He didn't help.
He fisted his hand in my hair, yanking my head back until tears pricked my eyes.
With his other hand, he smacked mine away from the glass, then shoved my own hand down, driving the shard deeper into my palm.
White-hot agony lanced up my arm. I screamed.
"I don't know why the hell you were born," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "The world would be better off if you just disappeared."
I clenched my jaw, breathing through the pain. The words? They were just noise.
After eighteen years of this, from him, from Garrett, from my sister... I've heard every kind of insult you can imagine.
Those insults have lost their sting.
But the physical pain... the fists, the belts, the glass bottles... that's far worse, and I'm not sure I'll ever get used to it.
"You slander your brother again," he warned, pulling his hand back for a slap, "and I'll let him deal with you. See how you like that."
The blow snapped my head to the side. Lights danced in my vision, my ears ringing.
As expected, my father hated it when I mentioned my brother's name.
In Dad's eyes, Garrett - the future Beta - could trip into a pile of dung and come up smelling like a damn rose garden.
He'd threatened that before - letting Garrett loose on me. But he never actually did it.
I wasn't dumb enough to think he was protecting me. He'd never protected me a day in my life. No.
I figured he was scared Garrett's infamous temper would go too far and he'd actually kill me.
And then who would Dad have to punch when he had a bad day?
Plus, a dead daughter is harder to explain than a bruised one.
His hand tangled in my hair again, his favorite handle. Seriously, how was I not bald?
I braced for the next hit.
But it didn't come.
His eyes went distant, glazed over. A mind-link. Someone was talking in his head.
Abruptly, he let go of my hair and took a step back, his expression shifting from fury to sharp urgency.
"Get downstairs. Now. Move your ass!"
He turned and stormed out, slamming my bedroom door so hard the frame cracked.
What. The. Actual. Hell?
Nothing ever stopped mid-beating. Nothing.
Unless it was pack business. Big, important pack business.
The second the door closed, the dam broke.
Sobs wracked my body, shaking me apart as all the pain I'd been holding back surged to the surface.
I crumpled to the floor amidst the glass and dust.
A soft, gentle voice brushed against my mind. "Oh, sweet girl. Come on, up you get. Let's see the damage."
Kira. My wolf. My only real friend in this whole cursed world.
I'd never understand why she stayed.
I turned eighteen six months ago, managed to shift for about a month, and then... nothing.
My body gave out. Too weak. Too broken.
I'd told her to leave me, to find a stronger person. She deserved better.
She always refused. "We're together, Stella. I'm not going anywhere."
She was the only thing that kept me breathing most days. I fought for her. Because of her.
As I shakily pushed myself up, a single, fierce thought cut through the pain.
One day.
One way or another, Kira and I were getting out of this house, away from this pack.
And far, far away from the monster I was forced to call Dad.
Chapter 2
The second my bedroom door clicked shut, I forced myself to move.
I definitely can't go downstairs like this; I need to clean myself up.
Getting off the floor was a production, every muscle screaming a protest.
Alright, Stella. Up and at 'em.
I hauled myself into the bathroom, my back a solid block of dull, throbbing agony.
The glass cuts, though? The cuts are still stinging. Fantastic.
A quick check in the mirror showed most of the wounds on my back were shallow, already clotting.
No embedded shards. They'd be fine.
The one in my palm was the real prize - deep, angry, and pulsing with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat.
I gritted my teeth and yanked the biggest piece out. A hiss escaped my lips.
Wrapping a clean-ish cloth around it was a clumsy, one-handed affair. Good enough.
"I wish I could do more for you." Kira's voice in my head was a soft, sorrowful brush against my thoughts. "I'm so sorry, my girl."
"Stop," I whispered to the empty room. "It's not your fault, Kira. You know it's not."
And she did, but she never believed it.
Sure, she was too weak from my constant state of crap to heal the big stuff.
But the little cuts? The bruises? She nudged those along.
More importantly, she was here. Talking to me.
That meant more than any super-healing ever could.
The truth was, the daily special of abuse from my dad and brother had left my body - and by extension, Kira - a wreck.
It's why I couldn't shift anymore.
For a while, I'd been terrified the connection would snap entirely.
But she stayed. Our daily chats were my lifeline.
We went back and forth for a minute, me insisting she had nothing to apologize for, her radiating guilt.
Finally, I convinced her to retreat, her presence soothing to a quiet hum in the back of my mind.
We'd have this talk again. We always did. And I'd always mean what I said.
A fast cleanup, a fresh shirt to cover the worst of it, and I was as presentable as I'd get.
Time to face the music.
Walking downstairs always felt like descending into a pit.
That familiar dread coiled in my gut. But today was different.
That mind-link. What was so important it stopped a beating cold?
I clung to that curiosity like a shield against the fear.
At the bottom of the stairs, I paused. My ritual.
A small, faded photo of my mom hung on the wall. She was laughing, young, her eyes full of a light I'd never known.
I never met her, but in this picture, she felt real.
I reached out, my fingertips barely brushing the glass frame. Hi, Mom.Then I softly kissed it.
The story, as I'd heard it a thousand times, was a tragedy in three acts.
Mom and Dad found each other right at eighteen, fated and mated in a whirlwind.
My brother Garrett came along eight months later.
Two years after that, Mom was pregnant with twins - my sister Sienna and me.
The perfect family.
Then everything broke.
Mom got sick during the pregnancy. She went into labor early.
She held on long enough to deliver Sienna, then her body gave out.
They had to cut me out of her afterward. A few more minutes, and I would've died with her.
My dad's world shattered.
He lost his mate and was left with three kids under three.
I haven't met my mate yet, so I can't even begin to imagine what he's gone through.
Even though he's put me through so much pain, I still feel sorry for him for losing his mate.
They say losing a mate can destroy a wolf, make them crazy or suicidal.
Dad never hurt himself. But sometimes I wondered if Mom's death did break him, just in a quieter, more focused way.
Typically, when a wolf goes mad, it becomes vicious towards everyone around it.
Although my father didn't exhibit this behavior, that doesn't stop me from suspecting he might be going mad in a different way.
Instead of lashing out at everyone, he channeled all that brokenness onto one target.
Me.
I heard that my father was incredibly excited about the arrival of his twin daughters.
He and my mother already had a young son, and they felt that having two daughters would make their family complete.
They had also decided that they wouldn't have any more children after us.
No one could have predicted that my mother would pass away.
He couldn't look at Sienna or me for days after the funeral.
When he finally did, he saw Sienna.
And he saw me - the one who'd survived, the one whose birth was tied to his greatest loss.
He decided it all was my fault. Doctors told him it wasn't, that a brain bleed would have taken Mom regardless.
He didn't listen. He's never listened.
He has always hated me and blamed me, simply because I was the last one born.
So, here we are.
Fraternal twins living in two different universes under one roof.
Garrett and Sienna are the golden children. I'm the unwanted souvenir, the leftover reminder.
"Stella, darling, join us."
I flinched. That voice. Polite. Pleasant.
Dad's company voice.
It was the only time he ever sounded remotely decent to me.
Pathetic, maybe, but when kindness is a foreign currency, you hoard every counterfeit penny.
I savored the brief, pain-free moment.
I stepped into the living room.
Dad, Garrett, and Sienna were perched on the couch like a perfect, smirking little family unit.
Across from them sat Alpha Preston, our pack leader, with an older man I didn't recognize.
"Stella," Alpha Preston said, his smile warm and genuine.
My throat tightened. It was stupid, how a little bit of normal kindness could make me want to bawl.
He was a good Alpha. A fair one.
If he knew what happened behind these walls, he'd lose his mind and stand up for me.
I'd stood outside his office door more than once, fist raised to knock.
I never did. Because my dad's threat always echoed, cold and final: "You breathe a word, and I'll track down your grandmother Mabel and end her. You think I'm bluffing?"
Mabel. My mom's mother.
She left pack life years ago, after Mom died, to live alone in a forest cabin.
We hadn't seen her in over a decade.
She was never overly affectionate, but she was never cruel.
She didn't know. Dad was good at hiding the evidence, and after she left, he severed all ties.
But I loved her.
I knew it wasn't just a threat; my father could really kill her.
I cannot let this innocent old lady be killed by my father because of me.
So it would always keep me quiet.
I can only remain quiet.
Chapter 3
Stella
"Everything alright, Stella?"
Alpha Preston's voice cut through the fog in my head, yanking me back to the living room.
Crap. I'd totally zoned out staring at a water stain on the ceiling.
How long had I been doing that?
A hot wave of embarrassment flooded me. Fantastic.
Spacing out in front of the Alpha. Classy.
"Sorry, Alpha," I blurted, forcing a smile that felt tight on my face. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just... tired. How are you?"
"Pretty good, sweetie," he said, his kind eyes crinkling. "Have a seat. This won't take long. I know you and Sienna have class."
I nodded and took the only available spot - right next to my twin.
Sienna shifted an inch away, as if my mere presence might be contagious. Story of my life.
I could feel Dad's gaze drilling into the side of my head. "What happened, Alpha?"
He was smiling politely for Alpha Preston, but his eyes were sharp, confused.
As Beta, he was usually the first to know about any pack business.
The fact that Alpha Preston was here, unannounced, was clearly pissing him off.
I could almost see the gears grinding in his head.
"Beta," Alpha Preston began, his tone shifting to formal. "We've touched base on this matter already, but I felt a personal visit was warranted."
I watched Dad's face.
A flicker of understanding, then a flash of pure, unadulterated irritation he quickly smothered with a neutral mask.
Oh, he knew exactly what this was about. And he was not happy.
"Stella," Alpha Preston turned his attention back to me. "This is Elder Aldwin. He's visiting on official council business and joined me today."
I gave the older man a small, polite nod. Never seen him before.
Dad probably had, but the rest of us were clearly out of the loop.
"No need for concern," Alpha Preston continued, his voice softening. "I wanted to remind everyone about the Dark Lunar Ball at the Silvercrest Pack this weekend. And I wanted to speak with you directly for a moment."
The ball. As if anyone could forget.
It was all anyone at school talked about.
The annual event where packs rotated hosting duties, all in the name of helping unmated wolves find their one true pair.
The fact that the Silvercrest Pack's Alpha, Caspian, was famously single and eligible only cranked the hype to ridiculous levels.
Every she-wolf in a hundred-mile radius was probably practicing her smile.
"So, Stella," Alpha Preston said, leaning forward slightly. "I understand you don't plan to attend?"
Bingo. There it was.
You had to be eighteen to go, so this was Sienna's and my first eligible year.
Dad had laid down the law weeks ago: You're not going.
You'd only humiliate me. No mate would want you anyway. Spare us both the shame.
His words, not mine.
"That's right, Alpha," I said, keeping my voice even. "I won't be attending."
He raised an eyebrow. "May I ask why?"
A sharp, hidden pinch to my side from my dad behind Sienna's back made me jerk. I swallowed a yelp.
Smooth, Dad. Real smooth. Think, Stella, think.
"I'm just not feeling up to it," I said, the lie tasting bland. "And I have final assignments to finish; we have exams coming up. I think I'll just stay home and focus on my homework."
Not a total lie.
I was finishing an assignment - Sienna's. Mine was done.
Please don't let Alpha know that.
Moreover, I have my own plans after they leave. I don't want to cancel those plans.
Alpha Preston studied me for a second that felt like an hour. "You've always been dedicated to your studies, Stella. I admire that.
But I'm afraid the work will have to wait.
I'm here to formally inform you that, as of this year, attendance at the Dark Lunar Ball is mandatory for all wolves of age.
Short of a life-threatening illness, there are no exceptions. Homework doesn't qualify."
Well, shit. My stomach dropped to my toes.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard, forcing myself to nod and smile like this was good news. "I understand, Alpha."
"Good," he said, standing up with Elder Aldwin following suit. "Try to see it as an opportunity. I have a feeling you might enjoy yourself."
He offered a final, genuine smile and said his goodbyes.
The moment the front door shut, the air in the room turned to ice.
Confusion was gone, replaced by a cold, simmering fury radiating from Dad's chair.
Scared? That didn't cover it. I was terrified.
It wouldn't matter that the Alpha himself delivered the news.
It wouldn't matter that it was a new pack law.
In Dad's world, this would somehow be my fault. A new excuse to make me pay.
My body, still aching from last night and this morning, screamed in protest at the mere thought of more.
But his logic didn't follow pain thresholds.
He'd beat me until he got tired, leave me in a heap, and maybe start again when I woke up.
We'd played this game before.
I didn't wait for the explosion.
While Dad was still staring furiously at the closed door, I slid off the couch.
I'd been smart enough to sit closest to the hallway. A quick, silent exit.
I was out of the living room and grabbing my bag from the hook by the front door before anyone could utter a word.
I was no idiot. I'd pay for this escape later.
But for now... for now, I was free.
I shoved open the front door and stepped into the morning air, holding my head up.
One more week of school. One more week, and I'd be done with it all.
Done with classes, done with this house, done with this pack for good.
"Hey, you. Look alive."
I turned, and the world felt a little lighter.
Willow was leaning against her porch railing, backpack slung over one shoulder.
My best friend. My only friend, before Kira.
She knew everything - the bruises, the insults, the quiet despair - and had never once looked at me with pity, only solidarity.
Before Kira came along, Willow was the only good thing in my life, and now that I have both of them, I feel incredibly lucky.
I know that might sound cliché considering my current life, but it's true.
I don't want to lose either of them.
Unluckily, her life, just like mine, was also a living hell.
Her dad was cut from the same abusive cloth as mine.
He'd driven her mom to an early grave, and now Willow was his only target.
Alpha and the others in the pack were completely unaware of the abuse, and her father, also like mine, hid her injuries from others.
Although her father didn't beat her as often as my father beat me, I often suspected that she suffered even worse abuse than I did.
I don't know the specifics, but something always felt wrong, and I hoped that one day she would tell me.
She was the reason I was still here, even after turning eighteen months ago.
We'd had a plan since we were nine: run the second we were both legal adults.
No one could force us back then.
Her eighteenth birthday was in two days. The day of escape is fast approaching.
Freedom was so close I could taste it.
"Stel," her voice came through our mind-link, private and urgent. "Change of plan. What if we use the ball?"
I blinked at her. What?
She didn't wait, her mental words tumbling out. "Think about it. Silvercrest Pack is four hours away. If we run from there the night of the ball, we get a huge head start. By the time anyone even realizes we're missing, we could be states away. I can't wait any longer. I just... can't."
The raw ache in her mental tone hit me square in the chest.
It was riskier. But looking at her, seeing the silent plea in her eyes, I got it.
The waiting was killing her. It was killing me too.
"You're right," I said out loud, a new, reckless resolve settling in my veins.
I met her gaze and nodded. "Let's do it. We just need a new blueprint."
A real, relieved smile broke across her face.
She bumped my shoulder with hers. "Leave it to me. We can make it."
