My mother was the proud Luna of the Blood River Pack, but she died as a breeding slave in the mud of the Rogue Territory. From the moment I can remember, all I see is her belly. Swollen, then empty, then swollen again. By the time I am barely tall enough to reach the wash basin, I am already hauling water, feeding pigs, scrubbing blood out of birthing sheets. She dies on the straw mat. And the moment that Rogue bastard realizes he cannot squeeze another coin out of her body, his yellow eyes turn on me. I run. I tear out of that village and onto the main road, and that is where I meet him. The father I have never seen. His scent hits me first. Alpha. Pure-blood. He stares at my face. His pupils shrink to slits. Because I look exactly like her. “I was just coming to find you,” he says, voice smooth as poured whiskey. “My mate Rose and I, we already have our daughter, our little Rosie. One pup is enough for us. But I am the Alpha. I need a son. An heir. And Rose is too delicate to go through another pregnancy. How could I let my Luna suffer like that?” His eyes flick down my body. Bones. Bruises. Dirt. “Your mother was always known for being a good breeder. If she gives Rose a son this time, I will bring you both back to the Pack House. What she did to Rose all those years ago, I will forgive it.” I look past him. At the woman in the carriage window, all soft curls and silk. At the little girl in her lap, plump and pink. A perfect Luna. A perfect pup. I laugh until I cry. “Then come with me,” I whisper. “Alpha.” The carriage smells like roses and old money. Rose, Luna Rose, hands me a stack of rough beggar’s linen and smiles like she is doing me a favor. “The caravan only packed coarse clothing for the help,” she sighs, stroking little Rosie’s curls. “Rosie’s dresses are all imported silk. She does not like anyone else touching them.” I look up. Her eyes glitter. Triumph. Mockery. But I am not angry. I am just stunned. So even the beggars in the Pack House get fabric this thick? No wonder my mother used to whisper about home like it was heaven. Rosie peeks out from her mother’s arms, fat little fingers wrapped around an amber bead. Her nails are trimmed. Pink. Healthy. I look at my own hands. Bones. Calluses. Dirt jammed so deep under my nails it will never wash out. “Hmph.” The Alpha’s voice cuts through the carriage. “You were supposed to grow up like her. Silk and silver, in the Pack House. But your mother was too stubborn to bow her head, and she dragged you into the wild for ten years. Now that you are back, you will treat your little sister with respect.” I lift my eyes. Crack a dry smile. “Sister? Which number sister is she?” His brow snaps together. “What the hell are you talking about? You do not have other sisters.” “Sure I do.” I tug the corner of my mouth higher. “Half the pups in that village are my brothers and sisters. I just need to figure out the birth order.” His face goes white. Then red. “You little liar! Ten years gone and you have turned into your mother. Mouth full of poison!” His eyes drag down my skeletal frame, disgust curling his lip. “You are a daughter of Alpha Sloan. How are you this thin? And what was that rag you came in wearing? Like something dragged out of a swamp.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I send silver to that village every single year. More than enough to keep you both fed and clothed. Where did your mother piss it all away? When I see her, I am going to have words.” I smile bitterly. Silver? That Rogue bastard gambled every coin away. If my mother had not starved herself to keep me alive, the Alpha would not even have these bones to look at. “She is already dead,” I say. Light. Floating. SLAP. My head cracks against the carriage wall. My temple splits. Blood runs hot down my cheek. “You wicked pup! How dare you curse your own mother!” I turn my head slowly. Look him dead in the eye. “She is dead.” “That Rogue thought she was taking too long to whelp. So he used a wooden rolling pin and pressed down on her belly until she burst. Her intestines came out on the floor.” A boot slams into my chest. I fly out of the carriage door.
I hit the dirt and roll. The wheel grinds over my ankle. Bone crunches. My vision blacks at the edges. The carriage stops. The Alpha, my father, what a joke, steps out and looks down at me like I am something his boot scraped up. “You filthy little liar. That Rogue is my sworn brother! He took a blade for me on the battlefield! You and your mother were under his protection. He would never do that to you. If you are going to lie, at least make it believable!” He pauses. His voice softens, but only into something worse. That tired, disappointed tone. “All your mother had to do was come back. Bow her head once. I would have forgiven everything. Ten years she had. She has hands. She has feet. Even if she had to crawl, she should have crawled her way back by now. She is just still angry. Still punishing me.” Thunder cracks overhead. Rain starts hammering down. I lie in the mud, blood and water mixing on my face, and I start to laugh. Legs. Legs. A breeding slave does not need legs. They cut hers off years ago. How exactly was she supposed to crawl across a thousand miles of forest with no hands and no feet? From the time I could remember, that Rogue rented my mother out. One pup, a few sacks of grain. A litter, a handful of coin. She refused. He beat her. She still refused. Then he grabbed me by the throat and held a silver blade to my heart. And my Luna, my proud, beautiful Luna mother, dropped to her knees. Every night I curled up in the goat shed and watched the line of males trail in and out of her door. I heard the sounds she made. The broken, swallowed whimpers a mother makes when she does not want her pup to hear. One night she scratched the Chief’s son too deep. The Rogue had to pay restitution. He came home drunk and furious. He took an axe to her hands. Then her feet. “The Alpha forgot about you two a long time ago,” he laughed. “What do you need limbs for? You can still lie on your back and breed me silver.” That is the night I learned my father was an Alpha. Rain stings my face. I cough up a mouthful of blood and force myself upright on shaking legs. I scream at the carriage. “They say you were my mother’s closest sister! When your father was executed for treason, when your family’s females were sold to the brothels, she pawned her bridal jewelry. She shamed herself in front of every Alpha in the territory to buy you out!” Rose’s knuckles go bone-white around her embroidered handkerchief. CRACK. A whip slashes across my back. The beggar’s linen splits open. Skin opens with it. The Alpha stands over me, chest heaving. The Silver-Weaved Whip glints in his hand. “How DARE you! Rose is your stepmother. Your elder. You are a half-grown pup. You do not get to speak her name!” I lie in the mud, and I laugh at that whip. Because my mother told me the story. She begged a sacred elder for it. Mountain serpent leather. Three years soaked in healing wine. Silver threaded through by hand. A gift for her Alpha mate. May this whip strike down injustice. May it protect the weak. May it protect us, your Luna, your daughter. And now it is tearing the skin off her only pup. My eyes burn. Not tears. Hate. I drag myself upright. Sway. Stare straight at Rose. “My mother loved you like blood. And on the night of her first pregnancy, you climbed into the Alpha’s bed while he was drunk. She walked in on you. She lost the pup right there on the floor. Isn’t that right?” CRACK. CRACK. Two more lashes. “Demon spawn!” The Alpha’s eyes are red. “Your mother was jealous and bitter! She slipped on her own! She blamed Rose to save face!” I look up at his face, the face that gave me my eyes, my temper, my stubborn jaw, and I scream with everything I have left. “You spoiled your mistress and destroyed your mate! You don’t deserve to be called a mate! That’s why you have no son! My mother is DEAD! You will die alone! No heir, no bloodline, no one to mourn you!” “INSOLENT…” “Alpha, please. She is still a pup.” Rose’s voice. Soft. Practiced. Not one ounce of real mercy in it. The Alpha’s hand keeps rising. The whip keeps falling. Blood blooms across the linen. The fabric glues to my skin. Every twitch feels like flesh being peeled off. When he finally stops, panting like a wounded animal, I am barely shaped like a girl anymore. “Do you admit you are wrong?!” I lie in the cold mud. Every cut screams. I do not make a sound. His face twists. He turns to his guards. “Tie this little demon to the back of the carriage. She runs behind us until she begs forgiveness.”
The rain has not stopped. A rough rope cuts into my wrists. The carriage rolls forward and I stumble after it, bare feet slipping in mud. Every jolt yanks the rope. Every yank tears the lash wounds on my back wider. The silver residue from the whip burns under my skin like acid. My wolf is whimpering somewhere deep inside, too weak to even lift her head. My vision blurs. My head feels packed with wet sand. But somehow, through the rain, through the wind, I can still hear them. Laughter. Inside the carriage. Rosie is doing her baby voice. “Daddy, Daddy.” The Alpha chuckles low and indulgent. A perfect little family of three. And in the smeared, half-conscious dark behind my eyes, I see my mother. The way she was at the end. Just a torso on a rotting straw mat. The stumps where her hands used to be, weeping yellow. The stumps where her feet used to be, scarred over ugly and black. At first, she still sang. The old pack lullabies from the Pack House. She told me stories. How she and the Alpha used to sneak out at midnight to run as wolves under the moon. How he would put wildflowers in her hair in the spring meadows. How he swore, with his fangs against her throat, that he would protect his Luna forever. Then she stopped singing. She became something hollow. Something that only spoke when she dreamed. “Believe me. I didn’t push her. I didn’t push her. I didn’t…” I would crouch beside her mat, wipe the tears off her face with my dirty little fingers, and beg her to look at me. Please, Mama. Please just see me. Stop thinking about it. But that one sentence was carved into her bones. She could not let it go. She always told me, When your father learns the truth, he’ll come for us. He’ll protect us. Well, Mama. He came. In a carriage with silver bells. With a new Luna in his lap and a new pup at her breast. And he came to use your womb. My consciousness sinks like a stone in dark water. My knees give. I drop face-first into the mud and let the carriage drag me. Drag me to death. Good. If I die, I get to see her. I will not have to watch this happy little family anymore. I will not have to feel the silver burning under my skin. I will not have to keep being alive in a world that took everything… I wake up to the smell of healing herbs and a soft, sing-song voice in my ear. “Sissy, you’re awake!” A round little face hovers over mine. Pink cheeks. Curls. Wide, wet eyes. Rosie. The Alpha sits a few feet away, holding a steaming mug, watching me. His voice is flat. “Lucky you. If Rosie hadn’t whined that you were turning blue, you’d be a corpse on the road. Thank your sister.” I do not say a word. I just stare at her, cold as winter. Rosie shrinks back, hiding behind his arm. But the Alpha, instead of getting angry, actually smirks. There is something almost like approval in his eyes. “Tough little thing. You took every lash, dragged for miles, and didn’t whimper once. Didn’t beg. You’ve got my blood in you, all right.” Rose curls into his side, fingers tightening on his sleeve. Her smile stays sweet, but her voice slips in like a needle. “The Alpha is right, of course. Such a pity though. She is just a she-wolf. She will never run with the warriors like you did, my love. She will never fight wars or claim territory. In the end, she will just be someone’s mate. Someone’s Luna. Raising pups.” The Alpha’s brow snaps tight. That sentence finds the exact spot Rose was aiming for. “Yeah. Just a daughter.” He looks at me again, but the pride is already gone. Replaced by something colder. “Soon as we get back to the Pack House, I’m hiring the strictest matron in the territory. This one needs to be broken in. She’ll be of mating age in a few seasons. Mouth like a gutter, attitude like a feral. No respectable Alpha’s son will touch her.” Rose nods, all soft agreement, but I see the venom flicker in her eyes. I almost laugh out loud. When did I ever say I was going to the Pack House with them? Just then the carriage lurches to a hard stop. The driver’s voice calls in from outside, careful and low. “Alpha. We’re here. The Rogue village.”
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