Prologue
Isabella’s POV
“You dare bringher into my home?”
I pressed myself against the wall outside the living room, my small suitcase clutched in trembling hands. Through the crack in the doorway, I could see them—the beautiful woman in the yellow dress and Uncle Asher.
“Maia—” Uncle Asher tried to speak, but the woman cut him off again
“After seven years, Asher! Seven years ago, you abandoned your pack, your son, and your duty as Alpha to be with Alicia and her bastard child. ”
“Her name is Isabella.”
“I don’t care what her name is!” Maia’s voice rose to a shriek. “A lowly human who seduced you, made you forget your responsibilities...I’m your Fated Mate, not that bitch! And now she’s dead, and you expect me to welcome the proof of your betrayal into our home?”
The words hit me like physical blows as I listened to this woman speak about me with so much hate.
“She’s a child,” Uncle Asher said, and I heard the exhaustion in every syllable. “An orphan. She has nowhere else to go.”
“Then put her in an orphanage! We’re not a charity for your whore’s offspring—”
“Maia!” The command in his voice made even me flinch. I’d never seen Uncle Asher like that. “Enough.”
And then a heavy silence fell. I dared to peek around the doorframe.
Uncle Asher moved to sit in an ornate chair, his hands pressed against his sides. Even from here, I could see the green veins spiderwebbing across his skin, the hollowness of his cheeks. He was dying. I’d known it for weeks, even though he’d tried to hide it.
Beside Lady Maia stood a boy—tall, dark-haired, devastatingly handsome in a way that made my thirteen-year-old heart stutter despite everything. His eyes were the same warm brown as Uncle Asher’s, but there was nothing warm in the way he looked at me when our gazes locked through the crack in the door.
“Dimitri.” Uncle Asher’s voice softened. “Come here, son.”
The boy moved with fluid grace, stopping beside his father’s chair. Up close, the resemblance was unmistakable. This was Uncle Asher’s real child. His heir. Everything I would never be.
“Father.” Dimitri’s voice was measured, controlled. “Why did you bring her here?”
“Isabella will stay with us from now on.” Uncle Asher placed a hand on the armrest, as if needing it for support. “Her mother passed away recently. She has no other family.”
“Because you were too busy playing guardian angel to remember your real family!” Maia spat. “Watching them from afar, protecting them, while your own son grew up without his father! She doesn’t belong here,” Maia continued.
“She belongs wherever I say she belongs.” Uncle Asher struggled to stand, and Dimitri immediately moved to support him. “I am still Alpha of this pack, Maia. And I’m telling you—Isabella stays.”
“Over my dead body—”
“Then you’ll have your wish soon enough.” The words were quiet,matter-of-fact. Final. “The doctors give me weeks at most. And when I’m gone, you’ll do as I’ve asked. Both of you.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Lady Maia’s face twisted with fury, but she swept from the room without another word, her dress billowing behind her like storm clouds. I immediately moved away from the crack in the door so she wouldn’t see me eavesdropping. When she stepped out, she stopped, staring me down with a cold, resentful glare. I put my head down, unable to look into her eyes until she walked away.
I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to remember what Mama had told me in those final days before the accident—before the drunk driver had swerved into her lane and stolen her from me forever.
Be brave for me, Isa. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
Uncle Asher’s gaze found mine where I stood frozen in the doorway. For a moment, his expression softened with a warmth that reminded me of Mama—of home, of safety, of everything I’d lost.
So, I sat on that bench, listening to the muffled voices rising in argument behind the door, and tried to be brave while I wished silently that I could change the course of the last five months, that I could bring Mama back.
But my thoughts traveled to that day at her funeral, the day I realized she was never coming back again.