Ten years ago, when she was found after her long disappearance, I thought it was the beginning of healing. I had dreamed we would rebuild, that blood would outweigh distance, that I would finally have a sister again.
But her first words to me had carved open a wound that never closed.
“Sis K-Kaia, what did I do wrong? Wh-why did you let them kidnap me?”
Nyra’s words had turned my entire world upside down.
Those words, deceptively soft and trembling with feigned innocence, had echoed through the pack house like the thunderous snap of a wolf’s neck breaking. The pack’s trust in me crumbled that day, and my family… The very people meant to protect me looked upon me not as daughter or sister but as a curse.
An embarrassment they can never erase.
In their eyes, I was no longer Kaia Blackthorn, their blood and kin, but a villain, the shadow blamed for Nyra’s abduction. My parents’ gazes grew colder than winter steel, full of disgust so heavy it suffocated me, as though they regretted ever bringing me into this world.
Overnight, the warmth of their love was stripped from me, replaced by the bitter frost of indifference that seeped into every corner of my life.