Isabella
Is it easy for a father to hurt his daughter? Not just through physical blows or scathing words, but the kind of pain that rips out your soul, leaving you hollow, stumbling through life like a zombie? That's how I've been living for the past 17 years. My name is Isabella Morgan, and in a few days, I'll turn 18. Birthdays are supposed to be joyous, a celebration of life. But for me, they've always been shrouded in sorrow, a grim reminder of the darkness that has haunted me since childhood.
My father, Lucian Morgan, is a man feared across the northern region. They call him Alpha Spietato—the merciless alpha, the ruthless leader. His name alone strikes terror, but to me, he is something far worse. He is the man who fathered me, yet three days before my fifth birthday, he had my mother brutally murdered.
The pack called her death "a perfect crime." No traces, no evidence, no culprits to bring to justice. The elders whispered about betrayal from within—an accomplice in our midst. But while I grieved, broken and lost without my mother, my father showed no such anguish. At her funeral, surrounded by allies from across the land, he didn't even feign sorrow. Instead, he looked bored, disgusted, as though the death of his mate was nothing but an inconvenience.
I remember crying, my small shoulders shaking under the weight of grief, but he hated me for it. He called me weak. He denied I could ever be his blood. And for the longest time, I believed him. How could someone so cruel, so detached, be my father?
Three years later, he brought home Maria and Sofia—my new stepmother and stepsister. By then, I was eight and had already learned how cruel the world could be, especially to someone like me: an omega. In the wolf hierarchy, there are three ranks: alphas, betas, and omegas. Omegas are at the bottom, the weakest among the pack. My mother was an omega, and so was I.
From what I've been told, my parents were fated mates. But my father, so consumed by his thirst for power, overcame the mate bond. He didn't care about love or destiny. To him, my mother was nothing more than a means to an end. A prophecy from the oracle had convinced him to keep her, claiming their union would produce an offspring powerful enough to make him the supreme alpha—untouchable, unrivaled.
You can imagine his disappointment when I was born, a mere omega, a rank far below his grandiose expectations. His hatred for my mother only grew, festering like a disease until, one day, she was gone.
No one dared to question her death. No one was brave enough to challenge the alpha. Even neighboring regions—western, southern, and eastern—feared him too much to intervene. And when he didn't fly into a vengeful rampage, as everyone expected, it became clear: her death was sanctioned.
At her funeral, he sneered, calling her weak for allowing herself to be killed so easily. That day, I lost my mother and whatever hope I had left for a father.
For the past decade, I've lived as a ghost in my own home. My father moved on with Maria and Sofia, parading them as his perfect family while erasing every trace of my mother from the Lucian Pack. Her name became a taboo, her memory forbidden. Anyone caught mourning her was punished severely—tortured with wolfsbane, electrocuted, or worse.
But I remember. I remember her smile, her warmth, her voice. And every year, on the anniversary of her death, I honor her in secret.
Today, like every year, I walk this familiar path deep into the woods. The leaves crunch beneath my boots as the cold autumn wind bites at my skin. It's here, far from the watchful eyes of my father, that I allow myself to grieve.
For a few hours, I can be the little girl who lost her mother, the girl who never truly got over it.