“Your cooking is so bad!” I shrieked when Jack, the boy I'd raised for ten years, splashed the smoking hot soup on my face. Jumping up from my seat, I tried my best to soothe the burn. The skin on my neck and chest instantly turned red and became terribly painful.
“Jack!” his father, Alpha Zachary Grimm, shouted. He instantly rushed to my side, carefully holding my elbow as he checked my injury. “Apologize to your mother! Now!”
“She is not my mother!” the child exclaimed, slamming his fists on the table, sending the plates and utensils crashing to the floor. “That woman killed my real mother! She's a monster!”
My eyes instantly burned with impending tears, but I held them back as Lyla, his grandmother, stood up and scolded me for being too ‘sensitive’ and dramatic.
“It's not even a severe burn! You're overreacting, Madeline,” she said, cradling her grandchild in an attempt to comfort him as he started sobbing, as if he were the one who had been poured with boiling soup.
I bowed my head, too afraid to say a word because I knew that once I did, I would be blamed even more.
I've been married to Alpha Zachary Grimm for eleven years now— I mean, my twin sister, Magnolia, was. She was truly his mate, but she committed suicide months just after she gave birth, and I was forced to take her place because the public must not know that the Princess was dead.
We were terrifyingly identical to each other, making it easy to fool our people into believing that I was her, especially since they didn’t know she had a twin sister. I had been hidden since birth because the Royal family was forbidden to have twins, and they chose Magnolia to be the only Princess because they said she was better than me.
They said she was prettier and smarter, when in fact I was the one who used to do her homework because she was too lazy. But I loved her so much and was never mad at her because she was very kind to me. She was my only best friend— which was why I agreed to take her place and take care of her child, who is just ungrateful and spoiled.
“This is not right. Jack, apologize to Madeline,” Alpha Zach commanded again, but his child firmly shook his head.
He has been nice to me, making me realize why Magnolia fell in love with him, even though their wedding had been arranged solely to secure power and influence among our kind, the werewolves. But his kind gestures were replaced by coldness and disgust a year after I took my sister’s place. It turned out that he had found a new Luna, and this marriage fell into ruins—just as it was always meant to, because it was never out of love.
He would often scorn and sneer at me, insulting me from time to time—probably the reason his son adopted the same attitude and began to disrespect me. However, on rare occasions, like this one, he would defend me—perhaps because he wanted something in return, like taking me to bed later that night.
“I said apologize to your mother!” he shouted at his son, making him cry even harder.
“She will never replace my mother, and I will never apologize to her!” Jack shouted back, breaking free from his grandmother’s arms before running out of the mansion.
“Jack!” Alpha Zach roared, his voice filled with frustration and rage at his son’s disrespectful attitude—an attitude he had inherited from him.
We immediately ran after the child, shouting his name as worry began to envelop us. Despite his small legs, he was fast, quickly vanishing from our sight. The sun was slowly giving way to the moon, an element our kind revered and devoted our lives to, making it harder to spot him in the growing darkness.
“You shouldn’t have scolded your son!” Lyla exclaimed, her sharp gaze fixed on me. “You should be reprimanding Madeline instead for her theatrics! You’ve upset Jack terribly—he’s just a child!”
Lowering my head once more, I felt the familiar weight of shame pressing down on me. No matter how much I wished otherwise, it was an emotion I struggled to suppress, turning me into a relentless people pleaser—one too often taken advantage of.
“Aren’t you going to apologize, you ungrateful, wretched woman?” Lyla demanded, her patience hanging by a thread. “There are wild beasts in the woods, and if anything happens to my grandchild, I will personally see to it that you’re fed to the wolves.”
Clenching my fists tighter, I swallowed my resentment and forced myself to comply.
I was exhausted—worn down by their relentless mistreatment—but I knew I had to bide my time. Escape was my only way out, and I had already failed once. They had caught me before I even reached the mansion’s gate. So this time, I had to be a hundred times more careful because I couldn’t afford another failure.
For now, I will play my part. I would obey, act meek, and please them like a loyal dog—anything to keep their suspicions at bay until the perfect moment arrived.
“I apologize,” I whispered under my breath. “I am very sorry–”
My apology was abruptly cut off when Alpha Zach suddenly shouted his son’s name.
“Jack!”
The child appeared suddenly, dashing right before our eyes. His small figure seemed to glow under the harsh glare of the approaching car’s headlights. Time slowed as the vehicle sped toward him, its beaming brightness swallowing him whole.
Then, in the blink of an eye, a sickening impact shattered the silence. A collective scream tore through the air as his fragile body was hurled like a ragdoll, the car striking him with ruthless force.
