Chapter 1 Born to be hated

The first slap came before she could answer.

Mira Thornveil didn't flinch. She had learned long ago not to. Her father, Alpha Horace Thornveil, stood over her, rage dripping from his every word as his hand lowered back to his side.

"You think you're special?" he growled, voice tight with disgust. "You're a curse, Mira. A plague. I should've left you to rot the day your mother died birthing you."

She stared at the floor, jaw clenched so hard her teeth hurt. Her skin stung, her cheek blazing red, but she didn't let him see the pain. She never did.

"Speak!" he roared, grabbing her by the collar of her tattered shirt. "Why were you talking to that Beta boy behind the academy?"

"I wasn't-" she began, but another strike silenced her.

"I told you to stay away from anyone with rank. You bring misfortune to everything you touch!"

At the doorway, Mira's stepsister, Liana, leaned against the frame with a smug smile. Her long blonde hair gleamed in the candlelight, and her manicured nails drummed softly against the wood.

"Daddy, don't waste your energy," Liana said sweetly. "She's just trying to seduce someone again. Maybe she thinks her mate will save her."

Horace barked a bitter laugh. "Mate? This one? No male would be fool enough."

Mira bit her tongue. Hard. Blood pooled at the corner of her lips, but it was better than screaming. Better than giving them the satisfaction.

Ever since her mother's death during childbirth, Mira had been branded cursed. No one spoke her name with affection. Her father had remarried weeks after her mother's funeral - to a powerful she-wolf from another pack. Liana was born two years later, and everything Mira never had was handed to her: love, praise, privilege.

Mira was left with scars and silence.

She was forbidden from training with the others. Forbidden from wearing clothes that weren't ragged. Forbidden from showing her wolf. She didn't even know what her wolf looked like. She had never shifted.

At eighteen, she was already an outcast, a ghost with breath.

⸻

Later that night, Mira sat alone in her room - if the moldy attic above the warrior barracks could be called that. She pressed a cool cloth to her cheek and stared at the torn letter in her lap. It was from the Lycanridge College of Supernatural Studies.

Accepted.

Her fingers trembled as she reread the opening line. You have been selected for the Fall Term Enrollment, specializing in Combat Strategy and Shifter Genetics.

She had applied in secret months ago, trading herbs and healing supplies with a rogue in exchange for a stamp and an owl courier.

She had been chosen. A cursed girl. Chosen.

But her father had torn it apart the moment he found out. She taped it back together.

Now, she folded it slowly and slid it beneath the floorboard she'd loosened years ago.

They could break her bones, but they couldn't touch her dreams.

Not all of them.

⸻

Far away, across pack borders, a different kind of nightmare stirred.

Alpha Kade of the Shadowfang Pack stood shirtless before a mirror, sweat clinging to his chiseled chest as steam rose from the destroyed training arena behind him. His claws were still halfway out.

He had smelled something earlier.

Something... wrong.

Or right.

Fate was moving. And it smelled like blood and ash.