Refuse to Be Your Luna’s Shadow Novel – Ever since I came back to Nightshade Pack, it had been seven years, but I had never really been part of this family. In my birth parents’ eyes, and in my brother’s, I was still a stranger. A gold-diger who had stolen their precious adopted daughter’s place. Their foster daughter Pearl lost the title of Alpha’s daughter overnight.
She chose to leave the pack house on her own, chose to go back to her poor birth parents. To earn money, she took a job at a strip club, then started hanging around greedy rogues. As a result, she was drugged and beaten her half to death. Outside the emergency room, my mother collapsed into my father’s arms, bursting into tears. And somehow, all of it was my fault. They blamed me for everything. “If I could do it over, I wish we had never found you,” she told me once, her voice raw. “Then Pearl would still be our only daughter.” “If you had not come back,” my father added coldly, “Pearl would never have blamed herself enough to leave.” That same night, a guy whose face was blurred in my sight dragged me into a filthy den, a lair belonging to the street’s most vile rogue pack.
“Every bit of pain Pearl has suffered is because of you,” a familiar voice snarled in the darkness. “You drugged her and ruined her life! Tonight, you belong to them.” I fell to my knees and crawled, grabbing his leg like a drowning wolf clinging to driftwood, begging him to help me. He jerked away from my touch as if I were something diseased, then kicked me aside. No one came for me that night. No one even noticed I was gone. In that moment, I finally understood.
I didn’t belong to this family. I didn’t belong to this pack either. So I left. But why, in the end, did they weep and beg me to come back? … The night finally bled into morning. When the first faint light cut through the polluted city air, the fierce rogues lost interest in me and scattered. I dragged my broken body back through the streets, stinking of rogues’ scent and my own blood. Under the scrutinizing gazes of early risers, I returned to the imposing pack house.
In the spacious living room, the pack’s Luna, Lena, also my mom, sat on the couch, gently feeding Pearl spoonfuls of steaming broth. The moment Pearl saw me, she flinched in a perfect imitation of fear and burrowed deeper into my mother’s arms. “Freya… I will move out soon… Please don’t be mad at me…” My mother’s eyes were swollen from crying. She stared at me with fresh hurt and accusation. “Freya,” she choked, “why do you always treat Pearl like an enemy? Has she not suffered enough already?!” Alpha Ben, my father, turned his head toward me.
His expression darkened, and his Alpha aura hit me like a wave. “Pearl almost died last night, and you were nowhere to be found. You reek of filth and rogue stench. Look at yourself!” His lip curled in disgust. “You look like a street whore, not the daughter of an Alpha! I should never have dragged you out of that filthy district!” I froze where I stood. Tears blurred my vision. Not one of them asked where I had been. Not one of them saw the bruises or the deep purple marks under my clothes.
I opened my mouth to speak, but my older brother Bryce cut me off. He slammed a stack of photos onto the marble coffee table. They scattered across the surface with a sharp crack. “Curious where my dear little sister has been?” he asked with a cold, vicious smile. “Take a look.” The photos slid toward the edge, each one like a scene from hell. In the pictures, I was lying naked on filthy pavement, surrounded by a motley crew of grinning, lowest rogues. Each photograph was an image of ultimate shame.
Mom gasped, covering her mouth, staring at me as if I were a monster. Dad glared at me, his eyes burning with fury. He then grabbed the heavy crystal vase from the side table and hurled it at me with all his strength. “You disgusting slut!” he roared. “You have disgraced our pack’s centuries of honor! If the media ever gets hold of this, Nightshade’s name will be ruined. Burn in hell, you little bitch!” The vase hit my forehead with a brutal crack.
I felt glass shatter, felt warm blood blur my eyes and run down my face. Shards bit into my skin, but the pain was distant, swallowed by a deeper, older numbness. I wiped the blood away with and said quietly, my voice sounded hollow to my own ears. “Fine, as you wish.” Dad’s roaring came to an abrupt halt. “What did you say?” “I said,” I repeated, staring at the blood smears, “I will go to hell as you wish, then your favorite daughter can come back.” Mom stared at me, horrified. “Freya, how can you say something like that? Taking your own life is a sin!” Dad’s chest heaved. “You dare to talk back to me?” he shouted. “Don’t believe her,” Bryce sneered. “She just wants attention. As if she actually has the guts to do it. It is just another pathetic performanc