Rejected by the Pack, Claimed by the Shadow Commander

I was the trueborn daughter of the Bradford Pack Alpha, yet I was labeled a "wolfless" defective and locked in a freezing stone cell.

My father abandoned me for his mistress, Dian, and her illegitimate daughter, who secretly fed me daily meals laced with Corpse-Gorge blood parasites.

The poison was designed to trigger an insatiable hunger, rotting my inner channels while bloating my flesh into a grotesque, obese mass.

While I shivered in the damp dark, my father gave them the run of the castle, and my own brother, the Captain of the Guard, turned a blind eye to my suffering, convinced I was just a stain on our noble bloodline.

"Soon enough, she will be nothing more than a bloated sow fit for the slaughterhouse."

They laughed outside my iron door, waiting for me to become an unrecognizable freak before the entire court.

They truly believed I was an empty vessel, a useless runt destined to die in the dirt without a shred of dignity.

But they had no idea that beneath this ruined flesh slept the dormant blood of the sacred White Wolf, along with centuries of ancient apothecary lore.

I secretly cleansed the poison from my veins, restoring my flawless trueborn features, and on the night of the grand feast, I intentionally threw myself into the deadly, frozen depths of Moonlit Lake.

I was going to play the ultimate victim, and put the most lethal men of this family exactly where they belonged—on my leash.