A White Wolf Called Worthless

I was the useless Omega of the pack, the ultimate disgrace of our family.

My mother, the pack's Chief Healer, treated my sister Ivy like a precious jewel, but threw me into the Sunless Forest to rot.

I died in that freezing mud, but during a continent-wide Tribunal, a captured Rogue revealed the horrific truth of my death.

Ivy didn't just want me exiled; she wanted me to suffer. She paid the Rogue to watch as she beat me with a silver whip, then she drugged our mother with a heavy dose of Dreamweed.

Under the drug's mind-control, Ivy pointed at my bleeding body and told our mother I was an infected beast.

My own mother, a master of anatomy, used her silver surgical knife to chop me into pieces while I was still breathing.

As a spirit, I watched my mother angrily dig up my grave, desperate to prove I was faking my death to ruin them.

But when they pulled my skull from the dirt, a blinding magic revealed the ultimate irony.

I was never a useless Omega. I was a legendary White Wolf, the most sacred bloodline in existence.

My mother had personally butchered the very miracle she obsessed over.

Watching her go completely insane from the horrific guilt, and seeing my sister dragged to the agonizing Silver Abyss, I felt absolutely nothing.

"I reject you as my mother, and I reject this bloodline."

I turned my back on their screams, stepped into the Moon Goddess's light, and opened my eyes as a newborn in a family that actually loved me.

Chapter 1

Wynter POV:

*A chill not born of winter clung to the Great Hall of the Tribunal.*

*It was a place carved from the mountain's black heart, a Gothic immensity where, high in the vaulted darkness, candles guttered in their iron chandeliers.*

I stood in the center of the room.

No one looked at me. No one could see me.

*I was but a soul, a drift of cold air, a weightless and invisible thing among the living wolves.*

In front of me was the Moon Goddess's Mirror. It was a giant, glowing crystal surface that floated in the air, *casting a restless, milky light upon the damp flagstones.*

*Through this artifact, the whispers and judgments of the assembly would be etched into the memory of the ages, a record for all to see.*

An old Alpha sat on the highest stone chair. He was the Chief Judge of the Tribunal, the highest council of Alphas that ruled our world.

*His voice, when it came, was not merely sound but a physical pressure that settled in the lungs of all lesser wolves, a power that compelled obedience.*

"Kael, leader of the Rogues," the old Alpha spoke, his voice echoing against the stone walls. "You are charged with the brutal murder of one hundred and nineteen werewolves."

A Rogue was a wolf without a pack. They were wild, dangerous, and lived outside our sacred laws.

Kael stood in the center of the hall, wrapped in heavy iron chains. His clothes were torn, and he smelled like dried blood and wet dirt.

*Instead of showing fear, a low rumble rolled in his throat. The vibration in his chest made the raw iron chains at his collarbone clatter, sending flakes of rust pattering onto the flagstones.*

*The sound, less a laugh than a growl, disturbed the hall's oppressive stillness.*

"Your guards are useless," Kael mocked, his eyes flashing with a dangerous yellow light. "And your math is wrong, old man. I did not kill one hundred and nineteen."

The old Alpha frowned. "Are you confessing to more?"

"I have one hundred and twenty victims," Kael smiled, showing his sharp teeth. "And the last one was a very famous female wolf. A complete disgrace to your kind."

My soul shivered. I knew exactly who he was talking about.

"She did not even Shift into her wolf form," Kael continued, his voice dropping to a dark whisper. "She was chopped into pieces, alive, with *a surgical silver knife, wielded by a steady hand.*"

Silver was the only thing that could truly hurt us. It burned our skin and stopped our fast healing.

When Kael said those words, a terrible memory flashed in my mind.

I remembered the cold silver cutting into my flesh. I remembered the blinding pain.

*A silent scream tore through the fabric of my spirit, but there was no sound, only the phantom sensation of a red-hot silver needle being driven down my spine, vertebra by vertebra, the edges of my soul curling and blackening from the heat.*

"Lies!" the Chief Judge shouted, hitting his wooden hammer on the table. "A Rogue does not use a silver knife. You animals bite throats. You do not have the patience to cut someone apart."

Kael shrugged his heavy shoulders. The chains rattled.

"You are right," Kael said lazily. "I am too lazy for that kind of work. I did not hold the knife."

He turned his body slowly. His yellow eyes scanned the jury seats.

He lifted his chained hands and pointed a dirty finger at a woman sitting in the front row.

"She did it," Kael announced. "She cut the victim apart, piece by piece."

*The shuffling of feet ceased; the rustle of robes went still. Every small sound in the great hall was abruptly extinguished.*

*My incorporeal form drifted closer* to the woman Kael was pointing at.

It was Elara. The Chief Healer of our pack.

She was a master of herbs and anatomy. She was highly respected.

And she was my mother.

Elara stood up quickly. Her elegant silk dress rustled. Her face was pale with anger, but she kept her chin high.

"How dare you?" Elara sneered, her voice full of disgust. "I am a Chief Healer. I save lives. I do not take them."

"You took this one," Kael laughed.

"You are a dirty liar," Elara said coldly. "If you are trying to say I killed my own daughter, you are a fool. My daughter, Ivy, is the pride of our pack. She is alive and perfect."

The noble wolves sitting around Elara nodded in agreement.

"Ivy is a perfect female wolf," a Beta from a neighboring pack said loudly. "She is kind and beautiful."

"This Rogue is just trying to delay his death," another Alpha added. "Throw him into the Silver Abyss!"

I floated right next to Elara. I reached out to touch her cheek, but my hand went right through her.

*A cold moisture I could not truly feel gathered at the edges of my sight.*

She only mentioned Ivy. She only had one daughter in her mind.

I had been missing for three years, and my own mother had completely erased me from our family tree.

Kael looked at the glowing crystal mirror. He could hear the voices of the packs praising Ivy.

He spat on the stone floor.

"Perfect Ivy?" Kael mocked. "Your perfect Ivy paid me ten chests of rare magic crystals to make sure her sister never came back."

Elara froze. The nobles stopped talking.

"The one hundred and twentieth victim," Kael said slowly, *making sure his words struck the stone arches and returned to every ear in that hall.* "Was Wynter."