Chapter 1

Layla's POV

"Layla. Put the rose into the casket and bid goodbye to your mother."

I lifted my head and saw the dark, solemn, and motionless face of my father. 

My mother, Luna of the Kingfisher Pack, the only legally wedded wife of my father, Alpha Derek, lay frozen in her gold-plated casket. 

The first drop of rain fell on my mother's pale, lifeless face. 

It stayed there as if it was her tear. 

I wondered why she wouldn't wipe it off her face, as if she would always do it when she was left alone in her tent at night.

The rain poured down relentlessly, each droplet falling heavily from the gray sky. It was as if the heavens themselves were mourning the loss of a cherished soul. 

I stretched out my arm, trying to touch her face, but I was held up by a giant pair of hands. 

It was the hands of my father. He picked me up in his arms. 

"Your mother is dead, Layla," he said in a smokey, distant voice. 

I was only six years old at that time. 

I was too young to conceptualize what death was, but death was quite self-explanatory. 

I watched tall, dark, and sturdy werewolf soldiers putting my mother's casket in the cold, damp ground. 

I looked up hopelessly, trying to meet my father's eyes, but he looked away. 

"I don't want to say goodbye. I want my mother." I wiped the raindrops on my face with the back of my hand. 

"She's no longer your mother, Layla. She's dead. Be a good girl and put the flower in her casket right now." My father stated in his signature monotonic voice.  

"No! She's my mother! She's not dead! I want to be with her!" I struggled, arms in the air, trying to get closer to my mom. But my father's grip was firm, and I couldn't break free. 

"Alpha, it's time." A female's determined voice echoed in my ear. 

I followed the voice and saw a tall woman dressed in black. I recognized her. She was my mother's younger sister Rosalie. 

I didn't like her, because she looked exactly like my mother except for her eyes. 

My mother's eyes were always filled with tenderness and passion, but Rosalie's eyes were always filled with anger and jealousy. 

To my surprise, she was staring at me at that time when she was talking to my father. 

I was horrified, partly because she never recognized my existence, partly because the way she looked at me was so sinister and evil. 

"Alpha, we can't wait," Rosalie said in a pressing voice. "It's time."

However, my father remained still and silent. 

Rosalie couldn't wait. She raised her voice to the werewolf soldiers who were holding shovels on the side, "What are you waiting for?"

The werewolves immediately tried to close my mother's casket in a hurry. 

"Are you kidding me?" Rosalie lowered her voice while narrowing her eyes at the soldiers. "She's a human being. She committed suicide. That's a blasphemy to the Moon Goddess. Cut off her head, so her soul will be permanently cast to the frozen wild." 

The soldiers hesitated and looked at my father. 

To my surprise, he remained silent. 

"Father, say something! Don't let them hurt my mother!" I pleaded, trying to hold him. 

My father turned his head away. 

"She's dead, Layla," he said in a detached voice. "Nobody will be able to hurt her anymore." 

Then, he put me on the ground and walked away.  

Standing alone in the rain, I felt horrified. I wasn't able to comprehend what was going to happen. 

At that time, I was lifted up in the air again. I turned back and saw Rosalie's face.  

"Open your eyes and watch closely, Layla," Rosalie said next to my ear and pinched my chin toward my mother's grave. "Your mother used to be a human being. Like all human beings, she is nothing but a coward! And that's what you've got when you're a coward! From now on, you're no longer qualified to be the daughter of Alpha Derek, you're just a half-blood werewolf and the daughter of a coward!" 

Then, with my innocent eyes wide and filled with a profound sadness that surpassed my tender years, I saw it. 

A soldier waved a giant knife in the air and cut off my mother's head. 

She became a headless, lifeless corpse. 

"No!!!"

I screamed and shouted desperately. There was something pounding in my chest that I couldn't put into words. 

"Let go of me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. 

Rosalie tossed me on the ground. My head banged against the rock, and it started bleeding.

When I lifted my head, blood poured down from my forehead and blurred my view. It was at that time that I saw the menace in Rosalie's eyes. 

At that moment, I realized that she was going to kill me. 

So I ran.

"You can run, but you can't hide, Layla! If you run out of this forest, you'll become a rogue and traitor of our pack!" I heard her chilling howling voice from behind. 

The rain, relentless and unforgiving, cascaded from the heavens, drenching the world in its sorrow. 

Amidst this tempest of despair, I stumbled through the sodden graveyard with my heart pounding with terror. 

My childhood ended on that day, together with my innocence, which had been shattered by the cruel hand of fate. 

A string of pounding questions echoed in my mind-

"Why? Why did my father abandon me? Why wouldn't he protect me from my evil aunt?" 

Clutching my soaked black dress, I darted between the tombstones, the shadows dancing eerily in the flickering light of distant lampposts. 

I didn't know how long I was running, but when I realized what happened, it had already been too late. 

I found myself exhausted and terrified, being all by myself in a dark forest, somewhere that I had never been to before. 

The echoing thunder boomed overhead, heralding an omen that seemed to taunt my fragile existence. 

At that time, on a frantic flight, my trembling hands reached for the relic of a locket that had once belonged to my mother. It was a small turquoise pendant engraved with my mother's initials. 

To my surprise, the leather chain was on my neck, but the pendant was gone! 

As I was looking around in a panic, trying to look for it, I suddenly heard a voice in my head -

"I'm here, Layla. I'm with you."

I looked around, but I couldn't see anyone around. 

Every gust of wind, every rustle of leaves in the forest's ancient trees whispered malevolently in my ears, amplifying my panic.

"Who's there?!" I swung my fists in the air, shouting into the void. "I'm not afraid of you!"

That voice answered in a soothing voice - 

"You don't need to be afraid. I'm your wolf, Layla. I'm awake now, and I'm here with you."

The shamans used to tell me that there was a wolf in every werewolf, but the wolf only awoke when a wolf went through a coming-of-age ritual, which usually took place when they were 16 years old. 

Why did my wolf wake up at such an early age in my life?

"I don't want you! Go away!" I shouted with anguish. "I want my mother back!" 

My wolf said in a calm voice -

"Dead people never come back, Layla. And now it isn't the time for you to grieve over your loss. Your life is in great danger, and you have to run away right now."

"But I can't run anymore. I'm exhausted. I can't feel my legs." I wiped the rain, tears, and blood off my face and sank to my knees on the damp ground.

 My wolf sounded desperate -

"You have to! Before death swallows you!"

At that time, through my blood-streaked view, I saw a silhouette approaching behind the bush. 

I grabbed a twig from the ground and held it tightly against my chest, using it as a sword. 

I saw werewolf soldiers doing it all the time. In fights, they grabbed whatever they could find and used it as a weapon to protect themselves and hurt others. 

A strike of lightning hit a tree, triggering fire amid the rain. 

I had never seen such a spectacular scene before in my life. 

As I was amazed and shocked by the majestic force of nature, I saw him.

He came into my life with fire, smoke, tears, rain, and...

Blood.