It Was You

“No! Please, no! Mother! Father!”

Diana screamed her lungs out as she shook her head in a frantic, the attempt to deny the genuine fact boring inside her cursed mind. Clutching the blood-soaked blanket to her chest, imagining them close to her as she closed her eyes, she sniffed the last of the lingering smell of her parents. Not entirely believing what she was seeing even if the truth was already glaring at her.

“Come back, please! I will be good from now on! I will follow Father’s arrangements for me as a beta’s daughter, I will do it with open arms so please! Please! Don’t leave me here alone…”

Tears cascaded, endless anguish-laden tears fell to the blanket she was hugging.

Kneeling on the floor with her hunched back as she hugged the remnants of her parents, Diana did not mind one bit that the blood of her parents was soaking her like a second skin.

A torrential tornado popped right in the middle of the Crescent Pack.

Its fierce winds flipped the roof of the houses near it while werewolves started to scream for help. It was a freak of nature; no one in their right mind would think that the beta family’s daughter did it. Heck, they did not even feel the death of their beta through their bonds!

At the memories of the final moments of her parents, her silent weeps became wracking sobs. After all, she saw it all.

She saw it all.

The rogues came unannounced through the double doors of her parent’s bed chambers. Their arrival caught the beta couple off guard. After all, it was not an everyday occurrence that someone – much more a group of rogues – could dash past the tight security of the Crescent Pack.

Diana saw how Beta Mason Ritchell of the Crescent Pack, her father, fought valiantly against the rogues. She saw how her mother fought alongside her father, her snow-like fur swayed upon her agile shifts to keep her father’s back secured.

They fought well.

And now, they rest.

Diana witnessed through the memories of her parents’ final moments that amid the heated battle between the rogues, they were winning. Though Diana’s father, Beta Mason, was not of alpha bloodline, he made up for his undeniable strength through training and experience.

Her mother was also a member of the Cithen Pack’s commandants before she married Diana’s father, hence, her agility and strength. But even with their winning momentum, darkness engulfed them both before all directions. A cluster of swirling and hissing shadows engulfed the beta couple for a good moment before the memories stopped, signaling the end of their lives.

No struggle. No words were exchanged.

It was a complete silence that ended them.

It was in this moment that Diana’s stormy reddish eyes flashed blood as she tilted her chin and screamed for the second time.

“I will kill you! Whoever you are! I will kill you! Even if it is the last thing I will do in this wretched world, I will kill you!”

Anguish and helplessness wracked her body like the storm outside cabin walls.

The flashes of lightning bolts peeked through the tattered curtains of the large windowpanes.

Canines protruded from her trembling lips.

Sobs wracked her heaving shoulders.

Claws ripped the blood-soaked blanket she was holding like her life depended on it.

Winds whistled upon the raging storm lurking within the premise of the Crescent Pack.

Mothers hugged their children to calm their children’s pounding hearts while fathers secured their homes.

The streets of the Crescent Pack’s central town which were supposed to be buzzing with people were now like a wasteland – completely deserted as merchants evacuated their tents to the available inns in the city. Everyone knew of the abnormal storm.

Their fear was so great that they failed to realize the missing link they had to their beta.

It was in this moment of momentary lapse that a gleam from the lightning’s sheen glinted a piece of jewelry hidden halfway by the collapsed canopy. Though tear-stricken, Diana let go of the blanket, which lingering smell of the late imperial couple was entirely gone. She inched herself to the canopy.

Crawling and hiccupping, her blood-soaked left hand reached out the gleaming necklace, thinking that it was owned by her late mother.

“What… What is this?” asked Diana to no one but herself as she stared at the piece of jewelry on her bloody left palm. The familiar golden necklace drained all the colors of Diana’s tear-soaked face. She continued.

“Why is it here?”

The blood-soaked sword-shaped pendant of the necklace was openly mocking Diana who was now shaking her head with denial for the inevitable.

“No! No! No! Please, Moon Goddess, no!”

Stumbling backward from the canopy, she let go of the necklace as if it had burned her skin. In a way, it did burn her. It burned her to the point that she curled up into a cocoon in the middle of the tragic room.

With widened eyes and body leaning away from the wretched necklace, her chest heaved upon the fear that was cloaking her.

Why was it there?

A question that wreaked her mind, making her numb, there was a limit to what she could take but she did not know that… the worst was yet to come.

And it did come; led by the armored Shananel Ritchell followed by the Werewolf Committee’s elite deltas.

Diana whipped her head in the newly comers’ direction. For a fraction of a second, as she met her aunt’s eyes, relief flooded within Diana – only to be plunged into the endless abyss upon her supposed savior’s next words.

“Seize the criminal!” Shananel’s icy words slapped Diana from her delusions of everything being fine.

The moment her supposed savior pointed her finger at her with blazing eyes, Diana’s shattering world turned into cinders in a blink of an eye.

“Should she dare shift, render her unconscious with any means. Remember, she is the traitor’s daughter.”

It was at this moment that Diana’s gaze shifted from her aunt to the necklace buried under the crimson ink on the floor.

Everything was aligning for Diana.

This was the cruel truth both from her first lifetime and this lifetime.

Never in her wildest dream that her father’s beloved younger sister whom Diana looked up to would actually sell her family for merits.

Diana’s face darkened. “It was you.”