ISKERA
"Two weeks of rationed feeding."
My father's voice two hours later, is muffled by the thick oak of the door, but the cold authority in it cuts right through.
He doesn't even have the decency to look at the 'trash' he's discarding.
"Food will be brought once every three days. Perhaps a taste of true starvation will teach you to stay in the shadows where you belong, instead of staining our sacred gatherings with your presence."
I don't plead. I don't cry out. I sit on the edge of my sagging cot, staring at the peeling wallpaper.
I'm tired. Not the kind of tired that a night's sleep fixes, but a bone-deep exhaustion from eighteen years of breathing air I'm told I don't deserve.
Why did my mother give birth to me?
And why did she die? Why didn't she take me with her?
At least then I wouldn't deal with an Alpha that hates me for killing his true mate.
"And Iskera?" his voice drops, carrying an edge of cruelty peculiar to him.
"Don't bother pining for the Beta's son. The Goddess has already corrected your mess. Rian has found his true match. He and Seren were mated an hour ago. Her wolf has already emerged… a white wolf, very pure. A real Alpha's daughter. Not a wimp like you."
The silence that follows his departure is deafening.
I wait. I count my heartbeats—one, two, ten, fifty—until I'm sure his heavy footsteps have faded down the stairs. Only then do I let the mask slip.
I lunged off the bed as a silent scream tears through my throat, my hands grasping my cracked ceramic washbasin and flinging it across the room. It shattered with a loud echo against the far wall.
But I am not satisfied.
Next, I rip the thin, moth-eaten blankets from the cot. I try to tear it to pieces, but end up flinging it away when it proves stubborn, while cussing out loud.
I shove the small, rickety table, angrily, watching it splinter.
I am a whirlwind of grief, but underneath the sadness, there is something else. Something viscous.
A dark, oily heat is rising from my gut, feeding on my rage, whispering that I should have clawed Rian's eyes out instead of crying.
I stop, chest heaving, as I look at the wreckage. What is wrong with me?
I've always been the docile one. The girl who took the slaps, the girl who ate the scraps, the girl who apologized for existing.
But since my eighteenth birthday two days ago, a switch has flipped. Yes, I did notice. There is a sassy, bitter creature in me now that hates the sight of Selene's perfect curls and smell, and my father's judgmental eyes.
Maybe I'm just fed up.
I survey my broken room. I've been here, alone since I was old enough to hold a spoon. I wasn't invited to dinners.
I wonder, briefly, who even fed me when I was a baby. Did some servant pity the 'curse' enough to give me a bottle? I doubt I was ever breastfed. I probably survived on spite and rainwater.
Why am I still alive, Goddess? If I'm such a mistake, why didn't you just let me die?
A soft knock echoes on the door.
My stomach gives a traitorous growl. Is it food? Did a servant take pity on me already?
The bolt slides back, but it isn't a servant. It's Seren.
She slips inside, her silver dress swapped for a red robe. She looks radiant in the pale light slipping through the window. She looks like a girl who just found her soulmate.
"Iskera?" she whispers, her voice trembling with a fake, melodic sorrow. "I am so, so sorry. I didn't want it to happen like this. I never meant to take Rian from you. But the Moon Goddess... she works in mysterious ways. He chose me. We're going to rule the pack together."
I look at her. I don't blink. I don't let a single flicker of the agony I felt at the clearing show on my face. I keep my expression as flat and empty as a frozen lake.
The confusion that flits across Seren's face is a tiny, delicious victory. She came here for a show. She came to see me broken, weeping. Seeing the opposite unnerves her.
"It's going to be a grand wedding," she continues, her voice getting faster as she tries to provoke a reaction.
"The whole region is coming. But... the elders are worried, Iskera. They say some wrong might happen in the pack because of you. They're talking about exile. Or worse. They say you're a magnet for bad luck."
I say nothing. I just watch her lips move. How did I ever think she loved me?
Seren huffs meanwhile, her facade of sympathy cracking just a little. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two bars of chocolate. She drops them on the floor.
"I'll try to visit when I can," she says, backing toward the door. "Try not to... well, try not to be so you."
The door slams. And I'm alone again.
I don't reach for the chocolate. Instead, I crawl back onto my mattress, my body feeling heavy, as if I'm made of lead.
I close my eyes, but the darkness behind my lids isn't still.
In the corners of my vision, I see them. Shadows.
They aren't flat shapes on the wall; they are three-dimensional, moving like ink dropped into water. They swirl around my bed, dancing in the periphery.
What?
I jump up, my heart racing. "Who's there?"
Nothing. The room is empty. The restored moonlight through the small window shows only the mess I made.
But when I lay back down and press my head to the pillow, I don't just hear the wind… I feel a cold, silken presence brushing against the inside of my mind.
What is happening to me?
I wrap my arms around myself, shivering as the darkness in the room seems to lean in closer, willing myself to go to sleep.