Chapter 9
Elena's POV
My father's laugh was bitter and ugly.
"Ask your mother. Ask her about the territory negotiations. Ask her about the perfect twin Alphas who were supposed to save this family."
The air seemed to leave the room. My mother's hands clenched into fists at her sides, her knuckles going white.
"You bastard," she whispered.
"Tell her," my father pressed, taking a stumbling step forward. "Tell her about Alex. About how if you'd just stayed home like I asked, we'd have the future we were promised."
My throat closed. I'd known, in a vague way, that I'd been told I had a twin brother. But no one ever talked about it, not in detail, not like this.
"Is that what you tell yourself?" My mother's voice shook with rage and something that sounded like grief. "That it was my fault? That I killed our son?"
"You were seven months pregnant!" my father roared. "Seven months, and you insisted on coming to that goddamn territory meeting. You had to prove you were strong, had to show you were still alpha material. And what happened? You went into labor right there at the negotiating table, and—"
"And I lost him!" My mother screamed the words, her careful mask finally shattering. "I know I lost him, Donald! I was there! I felt him die inside me while strange pack doctors tried to save us both!"
My legs felt weak. I reached for the doorframe to steady myself.
"You lost him," my father said, and his voice had gone quiet now, which was somehow worse than the shouting. "Twin Alphas, Elena. Male and female, born under the full moon. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know what the prophecy said about them?"
He turned to look at me then, and I saw something in his expression that made my stomach drop. Not quite hatred, but close to it. Resentment, bitter and deep.
"They would have been the twin pillars of the Cross pack," he continued. "Alexander and Elena. Perfect balance, perfect power. But instead..." He gestured at me, a sweeping motion that felt like dismissal. "Instead we got one. And not even one who can complete her first shift."
The words hit like a physical blow. My mother made a sound, something broken and wounded, but I couldn't look away from my father's face.
"That's not fair," I whispered.
"Fair?" He laughed again, that awful, hollow sound. "You want to talk about fair? Your brother's been dead for twenty-one years, and you can't even shift into the form you were supposed to share with him. Can't even prove you deserved to be the one who survived."
"Stop it!" My mother lunged forward, grabbing the whiskey bottle from his hand and hurling it against the wall. It shattered in an explosion of glass and amber liquid. "Stop talking about her like that! Alex is gone, and nothing will bring him back. Elena is our daughter, our only child, and if you can't see her value then you're even more lost than I thought!"
"Her value?" My father's smile was cruel. "Oh, I see her value. She's worth exactly one blood pact marriage to a Vance boy. That's her value, Vivian. That's the only thing keeping this family from total collapse."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Could only stand there while my father's words carved themselves into my bones.
My mother was crying now, tears streaming down her face and ruining her perfect makeup. "Get out," she said to my father. "Get out of this house. I can't look at you right now."
"This is my house—"
"GET OUT!"
The command carried the weight of alpha authority, and even drunk and bitter, my father couldn't resist it completely. He stumbled toward the door, shoving past me without a glance, and disappeared down the stairs. A moment later, I heard the front door slam.
The silence he left behind was deafening.
My mother collapsed onto the sofa, her face in her hands, her whole body shaking with sobs. I wanted to go to her, to offer comfort, but I couldn't make myself move. Couldn't make sense of what I'd just learned.
I had a brother. A twin. He died because my mother went to a pack meeting when she should have been resting. And my father blamed her. Blamed me for surviving when Alex didn't.
The room tilted slightly. I grabbed the doorframe harder, my nails digging into the wood.
"Elena." My mother's voice was thick with tears. "Baby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to hear that."
But I was already backing away, shaking my head. "I need—I should—"
I didn't finish the sentence. Just turned and ran for the stairs, my mother's broken sobs following me all the way to my room.
---
I slammed my bedroom door and locked it, then stood in the darkness with my back pressed against the wood, trying to remember how to breathe.
The wolf inside me stirred awake again, a sound of pure anguish. She was in pain, confused and angry by emotions too big for either of us to process.
My hands were shaking. Actually shaking, trembling so hard I had to clasp them together to make it stop. But that didn't help the rest of me—my whole body felt like it was vibrating apart, like something was trying to claw its way out of my skin.
I stumbled to the bed and collapsed onto it, curling into a tight ball.
You can't even prove you deserved to be the one who survived.
My father's words echoed in my head, over and over, each repetition driving deeper like a knife between my ribs.
I'd known he was disappointed in me. That much had been obvious from the way he looked at me sometimes, from the heaviness in his voice when he talked about my future.
She's worth exactly one blood pact marriage to a Vance boy. That's her value.
The pain in my chest intensified, sharp and sudden, like something was actually tearing inside me. I gasped, pressing a hand to my sternum, but that didn't help. If anything, it got worse—a burning sensation that spread from my core outward, making my skin feel too tight and my bones ache.
The blood pact.