Chapter 12
The damn flight landed, and my wolf was already pacing, claws scraping beneath my skin. I should’ve returned sun-kissed, relaxed, maybe even grateful after a week of champagne, yachts, and Marga shrieking at every gull bold enough to cross her path. Instead, my jaw ached from grinding my teeth the whole way home, because my phone lit up with fifteen missed calls. All of them are about dead dogs.
What kind of woman kills a pair of Great Danes while her ex-sister-in-law is away on a cruise?
I slammed the front door open, Mark and Lydia trailing behind me, while the twins, Ken and Kurt raced past like wind, giggling too loudly for the mood I was in.
“Stella!” I roared into the marble foyer, my voice echoing off the stone. Silence answered back. No scent of her cooking, no trace of her laughter lingering in the air. Nothing. Normally, her warmth would be all over the place, barefoot in the kitchen, humming, pretending she didn’t notice the Alpha had come home.
The place was dead. Silent.
Mark shrugged off his blazer, trying to emulate my temper but failing at subtlety.
“Maybe she ran, Dad. Marga said she called the cops.”
I waved him off and stormed through the ground floor. Checked the kitchen. Nothing. No candles, no fresh towels, even the coffee machine was dusted with abandonment.
I pulled out my phone. Still blocked. Checked Lydia’s, also blocked.
“What the hell is this?” I muttered, scrolling through old messages untouched.
Lydia rubbed her temples, on the verge of tears. “You think she’s mad at us, too?”
“She’s hiding. Always does this when she’s guilty,” I said, sinking into the leather armchair loosening my collar. “She killed those dogs and now sulks like a teenager.”
The twins came barreling down the hall. Kurt clutched one of Stella’s silk robes.
“Grandpa!” Ken shouted. “Grandma Stella’s stuff is still in her room!”
“She didn’t leave!” Kurt added. “Her perfumes, her clothes, everything!”
I leaned back, smug, and laced my fingers behind my head. “See? Stella wouldn’t leave without a fight.”
Lydia stared, growing horns in my imagination. “You really think she stayed after what Marga said?”
I snorted. “Stella thrives on drama. She’ll crawl back once she realizes she overplayed her hand. Probably buying basil at the market now. Dramatic but predictable.”
The phone rang again. Marga. That voice grated against my skull.
“Alpha Shawn! Alpha Shawn! She’s a murderer! My babies, they’re gone, and it’s HER FAULT! What are you doing?!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Calm down, Marga. When Stella reappears, she’ll pay. I’ll make
sure of it.”
A
6:46 pm
A
“She didn’t even text you!” she shrieked. “She laughed when I called her! Told me I’m next!”
“She’ll pay. I swear it.”
Then Mark flopped onto the couch, phone in hand, smirking like the devil’s intern.
“Dad,” he said, “you might want to see this. The Elder Alpha king, Magnus Vale, is hosting a major auction in two months, and he’s naming a new heir. Finally introducing his ‘mystery daughter.”
paused. Blinked. Blood pressure spiking.
‘And you’re telling me this now?”
Mark shrugged. “Didn’t think it mattered… until I saw the invite list.”
He handed me his phone. My name. Mark’s. Turns out hell keeps a guest list.
STELLA’S POV
[wo months.
That’s how long it’s been since I slipped from that house like breath on frost, leaving no note, no Joodbye, just a silence sharp enough to shred Alpha Shawn’s pride and leave him bleeding in his narble den.
n that time, while he paced in silk robes, demanding where his Luna had gone, I was being emade. Not pampered, reborn. My skin hums with moonfire. My sinews tempered in the Vale’s sacred springs, where wolves have healed for centuries. My stance was corrected not by some nistress, but by an elder she-wolf who forced me to hold my head high, spine unbroken, while eciting the lineages of alphas carved into our blood.
have not returned as someone new. I have returned as the wolf they tried to bury-unearthed, inbound, and hungrier than ever.
And yes, I remember Marga’s tantrum texts. All seventeen of them. Threatening lawsuits for
emotional trauma” because I sent her a condolence bouquet with a card that read:
Too bad your dogs died. They deserved better. Honestly, you should’ve been the one cremated; eeches make great bonfire fuel.”
The delivery boy said she screamed so hard that the vase shattered. Good.
Now I stand at the Vale Pack’s private auction gala in Milan, an event so exclusive it smells of bloodlines older than the marble columns, where treachery prowls in diamonds and every laugh nides teeth.
The car door opened like the first howl before battle. My gown, blood-red satin, slit to the hip, moved like liquid war paint. Black gloves clung to my arms like mourning bands for every wolf who underestimated me. My heels clicked against stone like sharpened claws.
The night air carried the scent of envy and fear. Cameras flashed, but to my wolf, they were nothing but fireflies scattering before my presence. I stepped out slowly, letting the weight of my aura press over the crowd. Owning the moment. Owning the room. Owning them.
Someone whispered behind a jeweled fan.
“Is that her?”
Chapter 12
6:46 pm
“Vale’s heir?”
I didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Wolves don’t need masks. Let them guess how Alpha Shawn’s so-called “kitchen shadow” became the predator stalking the most powerful pack in Europe.
Damien stood at the marble steps, tailored like sin wrapped in security, his wolf brushing mine with steady fire. He offered his arm, a gesture of alliance and respect. I took it, grace sharpened into dominance.
“Ready, princess?” he murmured, low, wolf to wolf.
“Born ready,” I said, voice laced with the promise of blood and ghosts.
And as we climbed the steps, the scent hit me before sight did, familiar, rancid, like old chains Alpha Shawn. Mark. Lydia. And Marga, mascaraed like a cockroach in heels too tight for he bunions, scurrying after them.
My wolf growled inside me. Tonight, the dead would walk, and I would be the one to bury them.
6:46 pm A
Lucia Morh is a passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.