Chapter 3

3.

I hurried upstairs. The voices behind me didn't stop.

"I say we just give the name Aurora to Vanessa. That wild girl raised in the slums deserves the name Dad gave her?"

"No. She's used it too long. I'm afraid Vanessa would catch the bad luck. Sol is perfect. Our family's only treasure."

"Mom loves me the most."

"Oh? And what about me, your brother? I don't love you?"

I closed the door and leaned my back against it. I slid down slowly until I was sitting on the carpet.

Aurora. The northern lights. The light that can pierce through darkness.

When Dad gave me that name, he said he wanted me to illuminate the entire wolf clan like the aurora.

Now, in Mom and Caleb's eyes, the name itself was the source of misfortune.

My wolf rested her chin on her front paws. She said nothing.

I got lost in a human town when I was three. My parents searched for nearly a year and couldn't find me. They couldn't bear the emptiness, so they eventually adopted a three-year-old girl from an orphanage, born the same month and day as me. They named her Vanessa. They used her to fill the gap of those missing years.

What they never expected was that I would come back.

Even growing up in the human world, without a pack, without anyone to teach me what I was, my wolf nature still bled through. Combat talent. Tracking instinct. A speed that made human coaches uneasy. At fifteen, I tested into the Werewolf Preparatory Academy on my own merits. I walked into a classroom where my father was teaching.

He dropped his thermos on the spot.

Later, he said it was the scent. A wolf's sense of smell is more honest than any language. He had recognized me before his conscious mind caught up.

He pulled me to an underground clinic for an emergency blood test. He didn't stop pacing the entire time we waited. Back and forth in the hallway, like a wolf who had found a trail but didn't dare confirm it yet.

I stood there watching him. That thought I had never dared to touch broke through the soil. What if it was real? What if this time, it was real?

Twelve years in orphanages. I had been through too many cycles of being adopted and returned. I knew better than anyone not to let hope grow too big.

When the results came back, my father held me and wept.

That was the first time I ever learned what it felt like to be recognized by someone.

On the drive back to the community, he told me everything about those fourteen years I had missed. Piece by piece. Including the adoption. He watched my expression carefully and made a solemn promise. He would not favor either child. Both daughters would be equally important.

His heartbeat was steady. He meant it.

I followed him home carrying hope.

I didn't know that would be the only complete night our family would ever have.