"Why did she have to die and not you? We would have been better off without you." My mother muttered. Her vacant eyes stared at me as she cried on Emily's grave.
I take my gaze away from her hunting eyes. I've not had an answer for that question even after the past eleven years.
My mother hates me much more than she ever could. I took everything from her. Her shifter daughter and then her husband.
Blaming myself all these years and wallowing in sorrow has been my everyday lifestyle, even though I can't completely explain how Emily died.
Every year at her memorial, which happens to be the only time I get to see my mother, she repeats those words to me, and honestly, I wish I had died that night instead of Emily.
She was everything I wasn't. And they really would have been better off with her than me.
It was unheard of for a child born of werewolf parents to be human.
Yet I was
Ever since I was born, I have been consistently sick. I was also smaller than every other normal shifter baby. In the first few months of my life, I lost my voice and ability to hear; it was a challenge, especially since I was the first daughter of my Beta parents.
Emily was born perfectly fine and healthy a year later; this made everyone believe I was truly cursed by the moon goddess.
My father doted on me until my seventh birthday, always watching me like a hawk, hoping for an improvement in my health or any sign of being a shifter.
He'd occasionally have my blood drawn out for the shifter test, but the results came out the same every single time.
I was still human.
My mother always treated her two daughters with equal affection and devotion, but late at night, when I cradled the pendant of the necklace on my neck (given to me on my seventh birthday by my mother, who had received it on her seventh birthday from her mother), I liked to think that my relationship with my mother was just a little bit special.
Emily was a stubborn shifter but was that kind of child who was impossible not to love because she was so full of life.
She was constantly causing trouble, but she was smart—she knew how to use me as a shield knowing my parents would never raise their voices near their 'fragile' daughter.
Back then, my weakness was her greatest protection.
"But she'll grow up," my mother would always say, tousling her hair. "Just as you did. And just as you still will."
But then one day, everything changed. Its funny how one's life could alter in an instant...how one minute everything could be a certain way, and the next it's simply… not.
It happened when I was seven, exactly seven days after I turned seven. Emily, as usual, dragged me out of the pack at the full moon's night. We were still kids and had no business with such events.
I told Emily, but she threw a tantrum. I loved my sister.
Hell, I'd bite off my tongue if it meant keeping her safe. So I had to go with her when she insisted on going alone.
Unfortunately there was a rogue attack that night. I hid Emily under an oak tree. The plan was for me to act as bait for the rogues so my sister could escape and run home in the opposite direction.
They chased after me, knowing I was the Beta's daughter and having the Beta's child as a hostage could maybe bring the pack to surrender.
I can't remember what happened after I was caught and tied in a dark house, but when I woke up the next morning in my tiny room, my throat was burning with thirst.
I was going to get water and also check on Emily when I saw my father sitting at the edge of her bed.
"Why did she have to die and not you? My father had said. He wasn't weeping. He was just holding Emily's hand and rocking it back and forth, and Emily… she was still. Still as... death.
"What luck could a mute child bring for them? They merely pitied me, and I took their joy away." My mother's mouth quivered as she cried on the floor.
I was struggling not to cry; I've always been the type to burst into furious tears. But I just couldn't believe Emily is really dead. I was refused entrance to her room, as my mother thought I could even do worse to her dead child.
My condition became so strange afterwards that no healer passed through the pack without being sneaked into the Beta's house for my sake.
Their conclusions were always the same."She should be put to rest before it is too late."
Some even claimed I was the ever-rumoured "Silver Wolf. "And I would stop at nothing until I destroy all shifters.
The alpha got wind of all this, and so I was to be executed for the death of my sister.I was eight at the said time.
My father pleaded that the execution be postponed until I got to the age for the Moon Judgement, although it was mostly because of my grandmother's threat to take her own life should any harm come to me.
The Alpha rejected my father's proposal, but my father still managed to keep me hidden. I was locked away in the attic of the Beta's wing in the pack house, far from curious eyes. I was denied contact with people, but even that felt merciful compared to a public beheading.
Two months later the alpha found out that the eight-year-old cursed shifter wasn't killed but hidden in his pack house. He was furious and had my father resign from his position, banished him and took my mother as his bride.
And that was how my life went from worst to miserable. I'm the daughter that survived the rogue attack.
And I will never stop hating myself for it.
Never.
"I got you water. You will be fine. "Your mother would get over this soon." Leo squeeze the cap off the bottle of water and watch me gulp it down. I blink my eyes to say a thank you since I was mute.
Regardless of everything I'm going through, I feel relieved every time I remember Leo, my mate, is by my side.
At eighteen, when all the she-wolves knew they would meet their mates, I was certain I wouldn't find one.But Leo found me and picked me up from where I was doing the work of several maids that night.
He called me his mate, and ever since then his attitude towards me has changed. He wasn't 'loving', per se, but he began to treat me like a human instead of an animal. He still laughed when his friends insulted me to my face, but the physical torment eased.
It was a pathetic relief, especially considering what he had done to me in the past. Before the festival, Leo used to sneak me out of the attic at night with his college friends for 'experiments'.
They'd seal me in a coffin and bury me beneath the earth, timing how long a human could survive without air. In the dark, without my sight or a voice to scream for help, I was merely just their plaything.
They made fun of my body and sometimes forced me to stay half naked while they took pictures, which they shared among themselves.
Most of these torment ended when he called me his mate, and now that I've hit twenty-one, the bullying has finally stopped for good.
I only have one challenge left. An execution that was postponed years ago is back on the schedule. and it's happening in seven days.
Honestly? I'm freaking out. I'm not ready to die yet.