I am Aurelia Nightbane, daughter of a ruthless alpha, heir to a legacy I never asked for. 5'4", my frame might seem unassuming, but beneath the dark layers of lace and velvet, there's a strength born from the weight of fear and power alike. My body is agile, honed for survival, though it's the cold, silver-white of my eyes that betrays my true nature. They gleam like the moon's cold light, a constant reminder of the Nyxlith lineage that runs through my veins, the blood of the lunar goddess herself.

I wear it like a curse. My father's relentless hunger for that power makes me a target. His gaze, sharp and unforgiving, seeks only to claim the strength within me. And though I am his daughter, I am more afraid of him than I have ever been of anything else. My heart beats in terror of what he might do if I show the full extent of what I can become.

My hair, long and dark as a starless night, shifts in hues of violet and blue when it catches the light, with strands of silver woven through it, an echo of the goddess who birthed my bloodline. The colors remind me of what I am and what I must hide.

I dress in the fashion of another time: Victorian goth attire that cloaks me in shadows and mystery. Lace, velvet, and silver, each piece carefully chosen to veil my true self, to hide from those who would see me as more than the fragile image I project. I wear my fear, power, and lineage like chains, unsure when they will break free.

The moonlight guides me, yet it's the shadow of my father's tyranny that haunts every step I take, and I fear what I am becoming. But more than that, I fear what my father will do if he ever learns I've begun to understand it.

I remember it like yesterday—the day I first truly feared him. I was only 13, too young to fully understand the weight of what was happening, yet old enough to see the terrifying truth. My father, Varok Nightbane, had always been hungry—hungry for power, for wealth, for control. But that day, he became something else. Something monstrous.

I watched from the shadows, hidden behind the walls of our home, as he took from her—my mother, Nythera Nightbane—the one light in my life, the only one who ever showed me kindness. My gentle, sweet mother who carried the Nyxlith lineage. The ancient bloodline of the lunar goddess herself. My father had always coveted her power, but that day, he reached for it with unrestrained violence.

He drained her strength, piece by piece, her light flickering as he took what wasn't his to claim. I saw the look in her eyes—weakness, exhaustion—as he tore the essence of her power away, fueling his hunger. My father grew stronger before my eyes, and my mother grew weaker, unable to stop him.

I could feel the weight of it in the air. The violence and the destruction. The complete disregard for everything that once made him my father. He wasn't a man anymore; he was a monster—feral and unstoppable. His eyes burned with madness, and I knew, deep down, that I was following.

The war that followed was inevitable. He tore through every other pack, leaving chaos and ruin in his wake. My father's ambition became a tidal wave, unstoppable and relentless. I remember the fear that settled into my bones, a fear not only for my own life but for what my mother had become. She was no longer the person I had known, and he had ensured it.

I was terrified of Varok Nightbane, but I was also scared of what I was becoming. The Nyxlith bloodline ran through me, too. If he ever realized the power I carried within, the power he had stolen from my mother, there would be nothing left to stop him.

That day, I learned that nothing was sacred to him—not love, not family, not loyalty. All that mattered was his endless hunger, and I was nothing more than a tool to be used in his pursuit of dominance. Fear became my constant companion after that. Fear of him. Fear of myself. Fear of the monster he had turned into.

I was 16 when the world as I knew it fell apart. I had watched it all unravel over the years—the growing cruelty in my father's eyes, the way he devoured my mother's power, piece by piece—but nothing could have prepared me for that moment, the moment my mother finally breathed her last.

I stood there, hidden in the shadows, unable to tear my eyes away as Varok Nightbane, my father, drained the final remnants of Nythera Nightbane's strength. She was so frail now, her once radiant beauty a mere echo of itself, her skin pale, her eyes dull. The vibrant power of the Nyxlith lineage had been stolen from her slowly, mercilessly, until nothing was left but a hollow shell. And my father, that monster, had taken every last drop.

His hands were cold as they touched her, taking what little remained of her essence, greedily pulling her life force into himself. I could see the ruthlessness in his eyes, the hunger that would never be satisfied, no matter how much he took. Varok had no mercy, no compassion. To him, she was just a means to an end: her power, her love, her life, and all the tools for him to dominate the world.

But as he drained her, as I watched my mother's light flicker out, something changed. For a brief, fleeting moment, her gaze locked with his. I saw it the love. The deep, eternal love she had for him, the fated bond that bound them together despite the hell he had turned their lives into. But alongside that love, there was something else, a sharp, devastating hurt, a resignation that this was her fate.

Her breath came in ragged gasps, the air escaping her in shallow bursts as her strength left her, piece by piece. Then, in the silence of that moment, she whispered to me. The words were faint, barely audible, but I heard them with a clarity that shook me to my core: "Run."

It was the one word she spoke to me, her voice strained with pain, with regret, and with an overwhelming sadness. She looked at me then, her eyes filled with both love and terrible sorrow. She knew she was dying, knew she had no choice but to let go of everything, to release herself into the hands of the very man who had torn her apart. But she also knew the world would devour me if I stayed if I let him see what I could become.

I wanted to scream, to beg her to hold on, to fight back against him. I wanted to throw myself at my father, to tear him away from her, to stop the madness he was making of our lives. But I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe. The power of the Nyxlith lineage surged through me, calling out, but I was frozen in place, shackled by fear, by the sheer terror of what I knew would come if I defied him

And then she was gone.

The last breath left her body, a soft exhale that carried with it all the love she had once held for him and all the sorrow she felt for me. My mother, the woman who had given me everything, was gone. My father, the monster who had taken her, stood there, looking down at her lifeless form with no remorse. There was no sorrow in his eyes, no trace of the man I had once loved. There was only the hunger. The hunger to claim everything she had left behind, to absorb her power completely, to make it his own.

At that moment, I realized the full extent of what I was facing. Varok Nightbane was not a man to be feared. He was a monster, a force of nature that could not be stopped. And I was his daughter. the daughter of a ruthless, insatiable alpha—a man with no limits, compassion, or mercy.

The weight of my mother's dying words hung heavy in my heart: "Run."

And so, I did. I ran. I ran from him. From everything. I ran to survive. Because I knew—if I stayed, I would be nothing but another casualty in the war he had already started.

---

That night, I packed what I could carry and ran. My legs burned as I pushed myself harder, faster, deeper into the night, into the forest's darkness. The weight of everything, the death of my mother, the violence of my father, the betrayal of everything I had ever known, pressed down on me with each step. I had no time to mourn. There is no time to process the devastation. I had to escape.

But as I ran, I felt the connection to my pack, my Nevermore pack, shatter. It was like a physical blow to my chest, a sharp pain that stole my breath. The pack bond, the lifeblood of every wolf, had been a part of me for so long. But now, as I ran from Varok Nightbane, it fractured, leaving a jagged emptiness where once there was unity. The link I had to the other wolves, the ties that had kept me grounded, were severed instantly.

The pain of it was unbearable. It felt like I was losing a part of myself, something vital, something that had always been there. I tried to block it out to push it aside, but it clawed at me from within. The weight of that severed bond made each step harder, each breath more labored. I could feel the loneliness in my chest, the hollow space where the pack's presence used to fill me with strength. Now, there was only coldness, only silence.

I was no longer part of the pack. I was alone.

I couldn't shift into my wolf form, Seraphine. She was a part of me, but with every second that passed, I feared the silver light that marked her as mine would give me away. Seraphine's bluish-white fur and glowing purple eyes, with the silver radiance that burned from within, would make it too easy for my father to find me. The fear of being caught, of being dragged back to him, stopped me from shifting. I had no choice but to run on foot, even though my body screamed for release, for the freedom of my wolf.

In the back of my mind, I could hear Seraphine whimpering. Her mournful cry echoed in my soul, a howl of grief that mirrored my own. She, too, mourned my mother's death, the loss of the woman who had been her protector, her bond, just as much as she had been mine. I could feel her pain as though it was my own, the agony of our shared loss. The bond between us, so strong, now felt fragile, stretched thin with the weight of all we had endured.

Tears blurred my vision as I ran, but I forced them down. There was no time for tears. There was only the need to survive. To escape the monster my father had become. To survive the loneliness that gnawed at me with each step away from everything I had ever known. The forest stretched on, endless and dark, swallowing me whole.

But even in the silence of the night, the bond with my pack, the pack I had been torn from, still lingered, painfully alive within me. I could still feel their presence, even though they were no longer with me. It was like a wound, fresh and raw, and every step I took felt like a reminder of what I had lost, of what I could never go back to.

I kept running deeper into the forest's heart, unable to stop. I'm unable to look back. Because if I did, I knew I would never be able to leave.