Chapter 1

My mother had been missing for ten years. For ten years, my Alpha father, Richard, hated me.

He blamed me for her disappearance. He hated looking at my face because I didn't look enough like her.

So, he adopted Sophia, a girl who looked eighty percent like my mother, and spoiled her rotten.

Richard took her on trips, brought her to pack gatherings, and announced to everyone that Sophia was the sole heir of the Sunward Pack.

Meanwhile, I wore oversized hand-me-downs and lived in the drafty servants' quarters of the packhouse.

He let Sophia bully me, frame me, and even push me into the lake when he knew I couldn't swim.

"It’s what you deserve," he would say.

And for a long time, I believed him. I thought it was my fault.

Until my sixteenth birthday, when the true Luna of the Sunward Pack finally returned.

My sixteenth birthday was only three days away.

Every year on this day, Richard threw a massive birthday bash for Sophia.

This year was even more special. Sophia was turning sixteen. Richard was anxiously waiting for her to shift and manifest her wolf, hoping she would be as powerful as my mother was at sixteen.

Every single student in my high school class had received an invitation to Sophia's celebration.

Except me.

"Ella, please don't be upset," Sophia said, standing by my desk with a look of pure pity on her face. "I'm sure Gamma Marcus just miscounted the invitations and missed you by mistake."

I kept my head down, staring blankly at my textbook. I didn't even give her a glance.

I had been dealing with Sophia's petty, fake-innocent tricks for ten years. I was used to it.

"Sophia, why are you even explaining things to her?" one of our classmates snapped, standing up to defend Sophia. "You are way too nice. That’s why she keeps taking advantage of you."

"Exactly! She’s just a demoted Omega," another chimed in. "Alpha Richard was kind enough not to throw her out of the pack territory. He let her stay and work for food, and this is how she acts? She even stole your things! If I were you, I would have asked the Alpha to banish her a long long time ago!"

"She's an ungrateful leech! Always causing trouble."

"Sophia, she's just jealous. She's jealous that Alpha Richard loves you, and jealous that you're going to inherit the Sunward Pack."

"Honestly, she shouldn't even be allowed near the ceremony. Who knows what drama she’ll stir up? We can't let her ruin the Heir Recognition Ceremony."

"Well, she lives in the Blackwood packhouse anyway. Why would she need an invite? During the Alpha's celebration, a low-ranking Omega like her should just stay locked in the servants' quarters. It would be embarrassing if she showed her face."

"Agreed!"

Sophia waited until they finished their rants before she spoke up in her sweet, mock-gentle voice. "Oh, guys, don't say that about Ella. Even if it’s my big day, it’s also Ella's birthday."

She turned to me, her eyes dripping with fake sympathy. "Ella, I'm really sorry. I wanted to invite you to cut the cake with me, but Dad strictly forbade it. You know what you did back then... Dad is already being extremely generous by letting you stay in the pack."

I threw my pen right at her face. "Get lost!"

Ten years ago, on my sixth birthday, my mother went missing while trying to retrieve a special birthday gift she had ordered for me. Her fate remained unknown.

Richard went completely insane searching for her, but he found nothing.

Back then, I cried every day, begging for my mom.

My mother had spoiled me. Whenever I cried, I got whatever I wanted.

One day, the nanny couldn't stop my crying and brought me to Richard.

Richard glared at me with absolute hatred and kicked me away.

"Get out!"

"How dare you cry?!"

"If you hadn't thrown a tantrum for that stupid birthday, Lillian would never have gone missing!"

"Never let me see your face again. Get out!"

From that day on, I fell from being the pack’s pampered princess to an unwanted burden.

Whether I got to eat or not depended entirely on the maids' mood.

Later, Richard found an orphaned girl on one of his trips who looked remarkably like my mother. Her parents were dead, so he adopted her.

He gave her my bedroom. He gave her my dresses. He gave her my birthday. He even gave her my identity.

When he brought six-year-old Sophia to pack gatherings, I was locked at home, abused by the maids and eating rotten leftovers.

The day he announced to the entire Sunward Pack that Sophia was his only daughter, I realized I had completely lost my father.