Alpha Chose My Half-Sister, I Left

I didn't look at him. I pushed back from the table and walked out of the estate on legs I had to force steady.

My heart felt like it was about to explode.

Margaret called after me from behind. I didn't answer — just quickened my pace toward the deep woods along the territory's edge.

"No she-wolf compares to her." Kieran's words played back like a blade, over and over.

I stopped walking, tilted my head back, and looked at the moon.

Then I shifted into my white wolf.

I ran. I ran as hard as I could, trying to fling that sentence out of my head, trying to outrun the pain in my chest.

"Running away, Seraphina? You were so talkative at the dinner table." Melody's voice came from behind me.

I stopped and turned. She had shifted too — smaller than me, her coat dull and mottled with brownish-grey patches. Not pure Alpha bloodline, and it showed.

I laughed coldly. "You chased me out here to brag about whatever sweet nothing Kieran said to you?"

"Jealous, Seraphina? Makes sense — Kieran only has eyes for me now." Melody suddenly lunged.

I stepped back on instinct. In the same moment, urgent footsteps sounded from the distance — Kieran was coming.

I caught the flash of calculation in Melody's eyes.

She spun abruptly, bolted toward the cliff nearby, and threw herself over the edge with a scream.

"Melody!" Kieran leaped after her almost before she'd finished falling.

I stood frozen.

I knew that cliff. It was barely three meters high. Below was soft earth and shrubs — nothing that could seriously hurt a werewolf.

But Kieran clearly didn't know that. He jumped without hesitation. Not even a half-second of doubt.

When he went over the edge, his eyes held only Melody.

I looked down from the clifftop. Kieran was holding her — careful, impossibly gentle, like something precious in his hands.

He climbed back up carrying her, Melody curled against his chest, trembling.

Melody looked up at me with tear-filled eyes, her voice soft and fragile. "Seraphina... why did you push me?"

I laughed.

This performance was so pathetic it made me sick.

Footsteps came from behind. Marcus had arrived with several Ashford elders.

Vivian shrieked. "My daughter! You vicious creature! You pushed her off that cliff!"

"You actually believe her?" I ignored everyone else and looked only at Kieran.

I looked at the suspicion and revulsion in his eyes, and suddenly felt cold — a chill that went all the way to the bone.

Marcus stared at me, his eyes full of disappointment. "Seraphina. How could you do this? She's your sister."

Kieran said nothing. But his expression said everything I needed to know.

Everyone gathered around Melody, fussing, asking after her.

No one asked me a single thing.

"You said I pushed you?" I walked toward Melody, and let myself smile.

In full view of everyone, I raised my front paw and brought it down hard on the back of Melody's leg, enough to come close to the bone.

"Remember this. This is what it looks like when I actually attack you. If I'd really wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have just pushed you off a three-meter drop." My laugh was cold.

Melody screamed.

Kieran shoved me back. The full force of his Alpha dominance hit me like a wall, nearly driving me to my knees.

But I stayed upright. Head high. I looked him in the eye without flinching.

Kieran turned to the Ashford elders, his voice cold enough to frost the air. "Your pack has no discipline. In Frost Pack, a she-wolf who attacks another pack member like this would be put in the silver dungeon."

Then he picked up Melody and walked away without a backward glance.

I stood there, barely believing what I'd heard.

The silver dungeon was one of the harshest punishments a pack could impose — reserved for the most violent rogues.

When I was three years old, I'd wandered in by accident and seen a rogue being tortured inside, barely recognizable through the blood. It gave me nightmares for three days.

Once, after we'd been together in bed, I told Kieran that memory. He rubbed my back gently and promised me I would never see the inside of that dungeon again.

And now — over Melody's injury that would heal in less than a day — he was having Marcus put me in there.