"Nadia! Happy Birthday!" an elder exclaimed in passing. I nodded, offering a polite smile, but his eyes quickly darted back to Gloria, who was laughing at some joke. His excitement for me was only an afterthought. I knew I should be happy for my sister. After all; she was my other half. But today, all I could feel was the emptiness, the weight of expectation crushing down on me. I was the Alpha's daughter without a wolf. Weak. An embarrassment to the Ambersy name.
Then it happened. The moment that shattered everything.
The first howl split the air like a knife through flesh. Then came the screams, the roaring of men and wolves. Chaos erupted around me as the world turned crimson with the blood of my packmates. I saw a flash of fur and fangs—a rogue wolf, its eyes wild with a hunger for violence, lunged at a young warrior, tearing into his flesh.