The wolf within her
Born into a werewolf family but believing she was ordinary-until her father is framed and exiled for a crime he didn't commit and she is forced to step into the limelight as an alpha for her pack. What ivy doesn't know is that her entire life has been built on lies , from an ancient prophesy tied to her birth to the closest people hiding truths sharp enough to shatter her . Would she be able to fulfil destiny or fall prey to the forces determined to break her?
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Chapter 2
IVY
It was still standing where I had been moments before. My heartbeat lurched as if it had missed a step. I waved at the mirror, and it didn't follow my movement. The first thought that came to my mind was that it resembled one of those mirrors in hotels with people watching behind them, but my mirror wasn't even attached to the wall. So unless there was a spirit lurking beneath the cracks of the glass, I was losing my mind.
I was afraid to look away so I could catch it changing, but apparently it couldn't care less whether I saw it or not because in a split second, it changed back to normal.
It was so subtle that it was as if there was never anything wrong with it. I backed away slowly, scared my reflection might jump at me. Maybe the universe was glitching, or it could be because I woke up early for the first time in years. I always tried to tell Mum that waking up before six was breaking an ancient law, and now she wasn't here for me to gloat.
"Damn it, where's my charger?"
I rummaged under the bed and on my nightstand where I usually kept it, but it wasn't there. Flipping the sheets off my bed, I darted my eyes around for the cord. There was zero chance that Talia would lend me hers- her phone was always dead- and Mum would kill me if mine died on this trip.
"Mum," I slapped my forehead.
It's probably in their room.
Picking up my luggage from the bed, I ran down the stairs to their room. I opened the door slowly, already annoyed that I had to come in here at all. I didn't like being in their space when they weren't home. It felt like I was invading their privacy, even though they'd told me countless times before that it wasn't like that.
The room always felt wrong to me. Ironically, it wasn't because anything in particular was off about it, but because it was too perfect. Everything seemed placed with intention. Even the things that were casually set had a reason for being there. The bed was made, the curtains drawn just enough to let a pale glow seep in. The air smelled faintly of cedar, and golden accents adorned the room-not surprising, seeing as my parents were wolves. They took the technicality of the ancient laws too seriously. Silver was deadly to them, so they believed that putting gold everywhere would be their salvation.
I crossed over to their nightstand, hoping that the charger would be where it usually was when Mum "borrowed" it from my room.
I really needed to buy that woman a new charger.
I sighed in relief when I found it there, plugged into her power bank. Not that she ever really used it. I wasn't even sure if she knew what it did.
As I made to unplug the charger from its socket, my eyes drifted around the room, landing on a section of the wall where my parents displayed their most prized possessions from their wolf pack. In the corner was a mural depicting the fall of other supernatural beings against the wolves in an old battle.
At the bottom of the mural was an ancient inscription in a language that I had never really understood, even as a kid. The symbols had never made sense to me. Not letters. Not numbers. Just shapes. Lines that curved too deliberately to be random.
I straightened, squinting at it.
For some reason, today, it didn't look like shapes.
It looked like words.
Basking under the night's shine, the words rearranged themselves in my head without actually moving, almost as if the code were unlocking itself.
It read:
"Beware.
Should shadows falter and silence reign, the tides shall turn and-"
Just as suddenly as it had formed, the shapes blurred.
They went back to being nothing, leaving me staring at the wall, blinking and unsure if I had seen anything at all.
I stood stunned, wondering if I was hallucinating or if this was another side effect of waking up early.
Halfway between awe and confusion, my stomach growled in protest.
"Fantastic," I held my abdomen.
Nothing like terrifying dreams and cryptic prophecies to remind me that I hadn't eaten since dinner.
My phone buzzed with Talia's text and I knew she was rounding the corner to my house.
I snagged the charger from the wall and ran through the door to get to the living room.
I did not notice, as I closed the door, that my reflection in the window glass lingered half a second longer than it should have.
I skidded to a halt as I reached the living room. Shoving a piece of chocolate in my mouth, I scooped my remaining stuff from the table while I chewed.
Headphones, plastic cups, and perfumes; I picked them up from the dining table and stuffed them into my handbag. I was about to dash out the door, when that compelling force came again pushing me to look downwards.
It was then that I noticed the golden platter my Mum typically kept on the table; it gleamed under the silver-blue light, its rays giving the plate an unearthly glow.
Instantly, I started seeing the plate more clearly. It's not like I wasn't seeing it before.
I was.
But now I was seeing microscopic fissures in the metal; marks and scratches that I would have needed a magnifying glass to see clearly. I focused on my reflection in the plate and dropped it to the ground instantly. What I saw was enough to have me screaming bloody hell.
I ran up the stairs.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I shouted. The bathroom door swung open and I approached the sink and doused my face in water. Raising my head slowly, I got a glimpse of my now wet face.
Or more specifically, my eyes.
I didn't think they were mine anymore.
My pupils were slit and they no longer had their usual green hue, but were now entirely a bronze-like shade. My legs almost gave out. I ran my hands down my face.
"This is just a phase. It'll go away soon." I repeated the mantra over and over.
Maybe I could wear a pair of sunglasses, although Talia would never let me walk next to her if I were wearing sunglasses before dawn.
Even Mum wouldn't let me, and she has made some questionable fashion choices.
A car horn sounded outside. Talia was here.
"Please, please just go away," I begged, my head down in the sink. I peeked at the mirror again and it was gone. My eyes were back to normal.
"What the f-"
Talia honked three times. She wasn't the most patient person.
I thanked the gods of wolves everywhere as I rushed downstairs to grab my bags.
"Talia, I'm coming!" I shouted from the living room. I could see her already getting out the car to tear my head off.
Snatching the keys from where they hung, I ran out the entrance door and slammed it shut. Something fell to the floor beside me, a round glowing orb had smashed. I began to look closely at it.
"Get your ass over here!" Talia shouted.
"Jeez, I'm coming." I kicked the thing under the bushes and plopped into her car seat.
"Took you long enough," she said, rolling her eyes as she turned on the ignition.
Talia drove the latest Bentley one could get in the US. She probably got it for free as well, because if she had bought it herself, she would have never driven it out in the dead of night. She was vain, not foolish.
I peeked at the rearview mirror at the top center. My eyes were normal. "I'm a lady, you know we need time." I responded. She snorted with derision and drove us off.
It wouldn't be until my return that I would learn what had fallen beside me.
The charm over my house was broken.
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8.1
Rhea Hale, a young art restorer at the old Elaria gallery, lives a life of near-perfect calm-canvases, colors, and classical symphonies that fill her every day. But when she touches a mysterious painting titled The Moon Painting, something inside her begins to shift. Strange visions, eyes watching from the fog, and wild emotions she can't explain slowly start to unravel her peaceful world.
Across the city, Kaelan Viero-the national hockey team's captain-carries the charm and composure of a champion. But beneath the arena lights and public spotlight, there's a side of him he never shows... until his eyes lock with a stranger's in the stands.
That brief moment sparks something long buried.
And from then on, neither of their lives remains the same.
"One glance started it all. And after that... there was no turning back."
7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
8.3
I was the "crazy girl" my family sent to a survivalist commune in Utah to rot. Four years later, I returned to Manhattan with a titanium USB drive and a heart full of ice, ready to blackmail the one man who could burn my family to the ground.
But I underestimated how much they hated me. My fiancé, Preston, was already laundering money through my inheritance and sleeping with my replacement. He didn't even flinch when I showed him the evidence of his crimes.
Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, smashed my phone, and shoved me out of his moving Lincoln into a midnight storm. I hit the wet pavement hard, my knees scraping against the asphalt as I watched him drive away, laughing about how I was a "dirt-poor exile" that nobody wanted.
Within minutes, my credit cards were flagged as stolen and my father’s lawyers were drafting a statement calling me mentally unstable. I was left shivering in a puddle of oily sludge, wearing a ruined Chanel suit, with no money, no home, and no one to hear me scream.
I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel. I was their flesh and blood, yet they treated me like a broken toy to be discarded in the trash. I was a "distressed asset" in a city that only valued gold.
That’s when a black armored SUV pulled to the curb. King Wagner—the ruthless shark of Wall Street and Preston’s own uncle—looked at my muddy face with cold, calculating eyes. He didn't offer me pity; he offered me a leash.
"You belong to me now," he whispered, pulling me into the dry warmth of his car. By the next morning, he had announced our engagement to the world, turning me into the very weapon that would slit my family's throat.
8.8
Serena, six months pregnant, continued to save lives on the battlefield, despite her severe illness.
Her husband, Logan, who had once chosen her over his family, gave her life-saving medicine and prenatal care items to his lover, Amy.
When the artillery struck, he let go of Serena's hand without hesitation to protect another woman, leaving Serena to collapse on the battlefield.
Later, Serena earned the respect of everyone in the midst of conflict with her medical skills.
Her ex-husband, eyes filled with remorse, knelt before her, saying, "I married her out of gratitude, I won't divorce..."
Before Serena could respond, a gun was already aimed at Logan's forehead by the undisputed leader of the safe area. "Sign the divorce papers. She's with me now."
8.7
I stood as a ghost, watching the rhythmic thud of dirt hitting my own casket. My father, Senator Ellwood, dabbed his eyes for the cameras while my stepmother, Carroll, played the grieving mother perfectly, even though they were the ones who had paved the way for my murder.
The vision shifted to a high-rise office where Isadore Walker, the terrifying "Shadow Regent," was methodically bankrupting every elite family that had betrayed me. He pressed a silver koi fish necklace to his lips and triggered a massive explosion, choosing to burn the entire world down just to join me in death.
"Little Fish," he whispered.
In my first life, I was a naive pawn who believed my best friend, Catarina, when she claimed I simply slipped into the pool at my Debutante Ball. I let the opportunistic Cody Stevens play the hero who "saved" me, leading to a hollow engagement that ended in my ruin. I never knew that my stepmother had conspired with our housekeeper to hide my true identity and keep me from my biological family.
I died without ever understanding why Isadore, a man who treated me with cold indifference, would sacrifice everything for my sake. I didn't know that my entire life was a web of kidnappings and bribes designed to keep me as a political pawn.
Suddenly, the heat of the explosion warped into the agonizing burn of icy water. I broke the surface, gasping for air, back at the very party where my downfall began three years ago.
As I climbed out, I didn't look for Cody’s help. I wrapped myself in Isadore’s sandalwood-scented jacket and felt the cold steel of the tactical knife he had left in the pocket. This time, I wasn't the victim; I was the one who would light the fuse.
7.7
Waking up in silk sheets should have felt like a dream, but the smell of expensive whiskey and masculine musk triggered a warning siren in my skull. I was in Dorian McClain’s bed—the man who could crush my entire existence with a single signature.
I fled his hotel suite like a ghost, but in my hungover panic, I snatched the wrong phone. By the time I reached my crumbling apartment in Queens, that one mistake had already set my life on fire.
My uncle Silas had trashed my home, demanding money for my grandfather’s nursing home bill. When he saw Dorian’s encrypted phone, he didn't see a mistake; he saw a ransom. He sold me out to debt collectors who held a switchblade to my throat, forcing me to call the billionaire I had just abandoned. Dorian didn't save me out of mercy; he came to reclaim a security breach.
He treated my rescue like a cold business transaction. He had me fired from my job and forced me into a marriage contract just to secure his family trust. He even made me beg for my grandfather’s life, demanding a humiliating act of submission for a medical bill that was mere pocket change to him. To him, I was just a mute, broken girl—the perfect silent accessory for his public image.
"Welcome to hell, Mrs. McClain," he murmured, his voice a low rumble as he slid a massive diamond onto my finger.
He thinks my silence is a trauma-induced weakness. He thinks he bought a submissive pawn who will stay in her gilded cage. But as I sat in his penthouse and bypassed his "unbreakable" firewalls in seconds, I realized he had made a fatal mistake. Dorian McClain didn't just buy a wife; he invited the CIA’s most dangerous ghost into his private mainframe.
Echo is back online, and I’m going to burn his empire to the ground.