Marked From Birth

"Oh, you worthless, pathetic girl!" The words struck Audrey before the physical blow did. Samantha's hand shoved Audrey's shoulder with the force of a girl who knew she had a wolf's strength brewing in her veins. Audrey stumbled, her knees hitting the cold, polished tile of the main hallway with a sickening thud. Audrey winced, her skin stinging, but she didn't look up immediately. She knew what she would see: Samantha standing tall in a designer silk dress, her glossy dark hair shimmering under the chandelier-a perfect image of a princess, if not for the ugly sneer twisting her lips. "Samantha..." Audrey's voice was a fragile whisper, trembling with twenty-one years of accumulated hurt. "What have I ever done to make you hate me this much?" Samantha scoffed, a sharp, metallic sound that echoed off the high ceilings. She leaned down, her expensive perfume-scented like lilies and cold rain-cloying in Audrey's lungs. "Just your existence is enough," she hissed. "You're a stain on this pack. A good-for-nothing human breathing our air." With a triumphant click of her heels, Samantha turned and walked away, leaving Audrey alone on the floor. Audrey slowly picked herself up, brushing the dust from her simple, faded cotton dress. It was a stark contrast to the opulence of the Moon Shadow Manor. As the firstborn daughter of Alpha Terren, she should have been draped in jewels. Instead, she was the shadow in the corner, the ghost behind the throne. She hurried toward her room, keeping her head down. She didn't want to run into her father. In this house, Alpha Terren was not a protector; he was a storm. Once inside her room-a cramped, bare space tucked into the far corner of the servants' wing-she leaned against the door and let the first tear fall. Her room held nothing but a narrow bed and a single, cracked mirror. It was the only place she felt safe, though "safe" was a generous word for a prison. Audrey's life had been a series of tragedies starting the very second she was born. Her mother, the beautiful Luna Elena, had bled out while holding Audrey for the first and last time. Her father hadn't seen a miracle in his daughter's eyes; he had only seen the reason his world had ended. Grief had festered into a cold, hard hatred that turned his heart to stone. Then came Luna Selene. Selene was a woman of sharp angles and even sharper ambitions. She had married Terren and birthed Samantha, but she lived in the constant shadow of a dead woman. No matter how much she tried to rule the pack, she knew Terren still kept Elena's memory locked in a secret part of his soul. Selene took that insecurity out on Audrey, and she had raised Samantha to do the same. They had tried to "get rid" of Audrey several times-"accidents" in the woods, "forgotten" meals-but somehow, she always survived. It was as if a guardian angel was holding her hand