Chapter 2

2.

When I woke up again, I was back in the high halls of the Moon-Crest Pack.

The sound of drums and trumpets echoed from outside, and the servants passing by were whispering with excitement.

"The Alpha and the eldest daughter have been waiting for four hundred years. They're finally making it official!"

"I know, right? I heard the Alpha even brought back a Lunar Herb from the Shadowlands as a wedding gift. The young heirs, Kaelen and Lyra, have prepared huge gifts for her too!"

Kaelen and Lyra. The twins I had sacrificed everything to bring into this world.

They were so weak when they were born that I stayed by their beds day and night, pouring my own life force into them just to keep them alive.

And yet, they were the ones who looked at me with disgust and said a low-life like me didn't deserve to be their mother.

While I was lost in my thoughts, a servant pushed me out the door.

"If the Alpha didn't need you to sign the severance papers, I don't know why he'd bother bringing a useless person like you back."

I smiled at her. "If I'm just a useless person being thrown away, why does that bother you so much? It's not like you're getting the job."

Her face turned red, clearly shocked that the woman who used to be as soft as cotton suddenly had teeth.

A moment later, someone slammed into me with a lot of force.

It had been a hundred years, and Kaelen had grown into a handsome young warrior.

He looked exactly like a younger version of Silas.

Even the look of hatred in his eyes was a perfect copy.

"Today is my mother's wedding day. Why did a failure like you come back? Are you still obsessed with my father?"

He scoffed, looking at my rough, dirt-stained clothes.

"You should look in a mirror. You look like trash compared to the elegant and kind Aunt Elowen."

Obsessed? Abandoning them?

I looked at him with an amused expression until his confident smirk started to waver.

So, you haven't forgotten either, Kaelen. You were one of the people who chased me away.

As I stood my ground against Kaelen, a crowd of guests began to gather, pointing and whispering at me.

"Is that the woman who stole her sister's fiancé? The one who forced Lady Elowen to live in the shadows for three hundred years?"

Elowen walked toward us, draped in a magnificent white silk gown.

When she saw me surrounded by the mocking crowd, a glint of triumph flashed in her eyes.

Without hesitation, Kaelen threw himself into her arms. "Mother! You're finally here!"

He looked at me and tilted his head up proudly.

"Seraphina, you should open your eyes and see the gift I gave my mother. It's a Midnight Blossom, the rarest flower in the world."

Elowen took the glowing flower with a graceful, fake humble gesture.

"The Midnight Blossom has incredible healing and beauty powers. Seraphina, you've probably never even seen something this beautiful in that dump where you live."