1. Cassie

Four years isn’t enough time to get used to being hated. 

Eventually, an opportunity will come along to put things right. I still believe in that. Otherwise, what’s the point?

During any rare opportunity to stand at the top of my cliff-top packhouse I inhale the fresh sea air and wonder how it went so wrong. I’ve stopped dreaming about leaping off the steep white ledge at least. 

Not that my bodyguard would give me the chance anyway.

Even now, all it takes is someone to rush past wearing our royal colors of burnt orange and gold for me to be taken right back to four years ago. The night everything changed.

My father, Alpha Kallio doted on me and my baby sister Elle. He tried to hide the weight of leadership behind his huge brown beard and soft, kindly eyes. 

He was everything. My world revolved around his guidance. I was so desperately ready to prove to the world, to him, that I could be the Kallio Pack’s Luna.

Elle had it a lot easier. She mainly spent it talking to our mother, keeping her up to date with the gossip. Creating rumors for their own amusement. With her lilting amber eyes Elle never missed a thing. 

Perhaps I was too confident back then. Believing myself above the gossip and rumor. 

I laughed loudly, sprinted up steps and talked excitedly about the future to anyone who would listen. Dismissing my baby sister's grip on the rumor mill as childish games.

The impressive Kallio packhouse is carved into a towering white cliff stack. Defended by a wide moat that is filled by the tides, all the people who live in its carved shelter are safe.

More huge white rocks sprouting like needles dot the horizon, each one housing hundreds of families.From our cliffs sprawled farmland, forests and deep, neverending mineshafts leading towards the wild, lethal river that divides us from the other shifter packs.

Too many to count, all as bloodthirsty and tricky as each other. Avoiding them kept us safe. The river saves us from war, over on the other side it’s a battle for every inch of territory.

My father trusted me. We rode our  jet black horses together, fast and wild across the land making sure I recognised every acre of my future kingdom. But, he could never educate the risk-taker out of me. 

Sneaking out at night I would find Beta Dominic. My first ever boyfriend. His olive-skinned glow and dark eyes made my stomach flutter with naive desire.

Sparring in training, had led me straight to his bed for more lessons in how to be gripped and maneuvered.

Some nights I’d just jump on the back of his horse and we’d fly off into the night somewhere. My wolf would purr, my amber eyes shining as I clung on tight to his waist over the jumps, teasing him I could ride better. My long brown curls danced on the wind, whipping around us when he stopped to kiss me.

Goddess, it was so much fun. Dominic wasn’t my mate but his touch left me breathless all the same. I still have the ring he gave me. I sometimes roll it around in my hand and remember his dark eyes swirling with color when he first gave it to me. 

Dotted with sapphires and diamonds. His promise to protect me. No matter what. 

I remember his brand too. I would trace my fingers over the inky purple pattern on his lower back. We cannot talk to our wolves but each ancient spirit leaves a unique, permanent scar on our bodies the night we first shift.

Dominics resembled two twisting ropes. Soft, plum-coloured cables winding in and out of each other's path.

The Elders claim part of their gift is being able to read these markings. Sniff out those with rebellious, untrustworthy wolves. I remember the gasp Elder Brent made when mine appeared. 

“A dagger! Alpha look!” but my father had simply squinted and declared it was lightning. He didn’t pay much attention to the legends associated to the different marks, insisting they should be private to each shifter.

Dominic gave my brand a very thorough inspection anyway a few nights later. Kissing up my spine, along the jagged silver lines he declared Elder Brent a useless old bastard and that it was definitely lightning.

Neither image made me feel confident. Most leaders have a softer, moon-shaped brand. Often in blue or blood-red. Mine is silver. 

But after a few weeks I shook off the annoyance. Dominic took my mind off a lot of things. Well, his muscular body did anyway.

Today Alpha Ayr comes to try and arrange a marriage to my sister. I find myself waiting, stuck helplessly in the past. Starved of any other information I keep replaying that night in my head, like it could ever change the outcome.

Today my black jacket tugs down at my shoulders, swamping me with it’s miserable, masculine weight. That night, four years ago, I wore a plunging black silk gown and a thigh-high split. I smiled, I oozed confidence and excitement.

I was grinning away absentmindedly to myself, looking up at the moon, wondering how quickly I could get Dominic to fold this time. Perhaps the silk would make me harder to pin down. If the split would allow me to kick a leg over his shoulders and guide him right where I needed.

So it's fair to say I was distracted that night.

But back then, I was only nineteen. You can study plots and betrayals forever, but until one plays out in front of you, it's all theory. 

It's a fucking painful lesson to learn. Hate takes many shapes too.

In the first few days my pet cats Otto and Dotto went missing. Until chunks of their beautiful golden-furred limbs started reappearing in my food. The months that followed were the worst for random attacks, slashed clothes, spitting and veiled threats. 

On the first anniversary of my father's death, the people burned an effigy of me.  

I’ve not stepped over the drawbridge into our packlands for four years. I want to be forgotten, become a ghost. Lurking eight floors up at the top of the cliffs, peeking through a curtain that's exactly what I’ve become.

It’s all because four years ago, I woke up in a stinking, dank cave, alongside my confused father and an angry, vein-pulsing Dominic. His charcoal eyes had blazed with fury in the dark space.

Hired thugs were guarding the entrance, the heavy wooden doors bolted shut. 

On realizing the situation my father thundered around manically, his huge shape making the space seem even smaller. “Don’t worry I’m linking the guards now Cass we'll be out of here soon!” he insisted, reaching out to grab my hand. 

His fingers didn’t reach mine. He dropped to the floor instead and clutched his chest. 

Still in his gold-trimmed night clothes he sprawled across the yellow gravel floor, tears raining down his bearded cheeks. I screamed. My sister, Elle stood over his body, armed with a long, silver edged blade tightly clenched in her hand.

“He’s had a heart attack! I didn’t do this!” she hissed, my father still writhing in pain.

“What the fuck do you mean! What’s happening!” I screamed back. 

At the time I didn’t get it . Now I understand that he adored us both so much his heart simply broke at the truth. 

“You’ve gone too far Elle!” Dominic yelled, stepping towards her. Then a bugle sounded. Savage howls and the sound of ripping flesh overtook as the Kallio Guards came to our rescue. Elle quickly kicked over one of the weak little candle lamps, sending the small cave into near-darkness. 

On the other side of the door, the feeble collection of hired thugs were quickly mauled to pieces, or shifted and ran away like cowards. 

I cried for help, before realizing Dominic was silent. A clatter from the dark pit at the back of the cave left me reeling. “Dominic no! NO!”

Only a trace of his caramel scent remained.  A sickening thwack left me screaming with hysteria. This wasn’t a cave. It was a mine shaft. The love of my life had plunged into the eternal darkness of the deep pits. Leaving me alone with my sister and the rapidly graying corpse of my father.

“Dominic!” I screamed, before banging on the locked door again. Only silence came from the black hole at the back. No pain, or cries for help. 

The other lamp suddenly extinguished, leaving me pitch black. I pressed against  a wall, willing my body to stop shaking. “Elle! Elle what happened to Dominic?”

When the heroic warriors finally burst in they found a hell of a scene. Their torches left me dazzled, only to see Elle weeping and crying, her head and hands now bleeding heavily. 

She wailed for my mother, rocking my fathers lifeless head in her lap. I stood in shocked silence, mouth hanging open.

Her tears merged with the blood from her freshly cut scalp and hands. Wounds only she could have given herself.

Then she must have thrown the knife at my feet.

Elle was also coated in blood, because my fathers throat had been freshly slit. He hadn’t been cut before the lantern went out. 

Facts hit me like tumbling rocks, crushing me underneath.

“It’s too late, he’s gone. Oh Papa I’m so sorry, I wish I had realized, it’s not right, this should never have happened,” she whispered softly, chocolate curls framing her pale face. Her white silk pajamas were now almost entirely red.  

“What?” I stammered, “Elle, what…”

I stood numb, pressed against the dusty beige walls. The bloodied dagger remained at my feet. I was dressed in a sexy low cut black silk gown for a date that was never to be. 

Only when the sting of handcuffs landed on my wrists did I realize the truth. 

The truth that was being rapidly swallowed down by every man in the cave anyway. 

My sister Elle’s version of events. Painting me as the villain.

“The knife! Stop her quick! Gag her too!” Elle cried, waving a trembling hand. Her long brown curls trailed over my fathers chest, lingering in his blood. Her amber eyes flashed with golden shards, her wolf pumping up her adrenalin whilst my blood ran cold. 

“I said gag her! She will not speak until she is before my mother!”

“No! No you don’t understand, you need to listen to me! Dominic! He fell! Find Dominic he’ll tell you!” I screamed but my mouth was roughly stuffed with fabric.

“He can't help you now! Not now you've killed him you savage!” Elle wailed hysterically as the jade-eyed guard holding my shoulders looked at me with pure disgust.

The mourning bugles cut through the night air, alerting everyone to a disaster in the pack. Forced to walk back with the Kallio Guards, every member of our cliff-dwelling pack witnessed my disgrace. Every rock face glittered with lanterns. 

All watching the Luna Princess implode. Bound in handcuffs, my fathers dead body held aloft in front of me. 

Everyone saw exactly what Elle wanted them to see. 

Me. Gagged, bound and guilty of the most atrocious crime possible. 

Dressed to kill in black silk whilst she shambled along beside my father’s body in blood-stained white pajamas wailing dramatically. Every resistant tug against my handcuffs saw me yanked until my joints screamed. My muffled cries were understood by nobody.

Finally I was flung into the throne room before my mother. I couldn't wait to tell her everything, to scream my innocence from the rooftops. To mourn together.

She needed to know how Dominic hadn’t met me at our usual place. Instead someone else, I guess Elle, had slapped a foul smelling rag over my mouth until I blacked out. 

I must explain how everything happened so quickly that all my training left me. How I will always hate myself for failing my kind, loving father when he needed me most.

But instead I found pure ice waiting for me. Even with the fire roaring and warm orange banners hanging from the ceiling to the ground, my skin chilled. My mother, Luna Sana hair, a mix of grey streaks and chocolate already looked haggard without my father. 

We inherited our amber eyes from her but her thick, wobbling build was her own construction. 

As two of the dark-haired Kallio Guards stood poised to strike, I took in the room. Still shaking, arms and jaw aching I allowed myself to breathe, and assess. 

Just as I had been taught. I remain my fathers daughter. 

Except his throne, a proud creation of orange silk and gold leaf, stood achingly empty. Right then I would have willingly offered my own throat to the Goddess to have spared my father from those final moments of agony.

“Guards leave,” my mother announced sharply. “Stand outside the doors. Nobody is to enter.”