Chapter 121. Nightmares of the Past

[Flashback]

Bastard. That was all I was—and all I ever would be. Alpha had spared my life when I was born, still slick with amniotic fluid and just a few breaths old. He held my fate in his hands and, with a single decision, granted me existence. Yet his mercy came with a sting of cruelty attached.

Torment—that was the only word to describe this life of exile for a creature as social as a wolf. Wolves thrived on pack unity, but I knew only isolation. Loneliness gnawed at me like a festering wound, eating away from the inside out. I would forever be paying for the sins of a father I had never met, and my mother refused even to utter his name. Then death of my mother. I was ten years old.

Alpha forbade friendships with me; any wolf foolish enough to try risked his wrath. My social world was reduced to nothing. Worse yet, Alpha declared that the Moon never bestowed