Chapter 6: The Gamma’s Indifference

RAVEN

The hallway outside Victor Nightshade’s study is cold, the stone walls swallowing every sound except the faint crackle of firelight from within. I stand just beyond the heavy wooden door, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

My heart pounds, each beat a bitter mix of hope and dread.

Hope is a fool’s poison, and I’ve swallowed enough of it in my lifetime.

But tonight… tonight, I am desperate.

Two nights without food. My stomach twists in on itself, gnawing at nothing, surviving on scraps Elara managed to slip me while Seraphina sat across the room, watching with smug satisfaction.

Hours spent scrubbing the training grounds alone, washing the dirt and sweat from the wooden dummies, wiping away the dried blood in the fighting pits. The warriors who mocked me walked past without a second glance.

I endured it. I always endure it.

But I can’t keep living like this.

I can’t keep waiting, hoping that something will change when every sign points to the fact that it never will.

Not unless I do something about it.

I swallow the lump in my throat, force myself to take a deep breath. Maybe even a second deep breath.

Then I knock.

A pause.

Then—

“Enter.”

His voice is deep. Impassive.

I push the door open and step inside.

Victor sits behind his massive wooden desk, papers spread before him, a glass of whiskey in one hand. The firelight flickers over his face, casting long shadows over the sharp angles of his jaw, the streaks of silver in his dark hair.

He looks so tired.

So worn out.

For a moment, I hesitate.

This is my father.

The man who once held my hand when I was small, who lifted me onto his shoulders and told me stories of warriors and glory.

The man who once loved my mother.

But that was a long, long time ago.

Victor doesn’t even look up as I step forward. His focus stays on his papers, like I’m not worth acknowledging.

“What do you want?”

The words cut.

Not because they surprise me—but because they don’t.

No warmth. No greeting.

Just four words, laced with indifference.

I straighten my spine. “I need your help.”

Finally, he lifts his gaze.

Dark eyes pierce through me, unreadable, unmoved.

“Help?” he repeats, as if the concept itself is foreign to him.

I force my voice to stay steady.

“I know you have a lot to handle,” I say carefully. “With the pack, with the war brewing. But—” I inhale slowly, willing my hands not to shake. “—Lilliana and Seraphina have gone too far. You know they have.”

Victor leans back in his chair, exhaling through his nose.

“They accused me of stealing. You know I wouldn’t. You know—”

“Do I?”

The words hit harder than any slap.

I still.

He meets my gaze, unflinching.

“You’ve always been… difficult, Raven.”

The room feels too small. The fire, too hot.

I swallow hard. “Difficult?”

Victor sighs, rubbing his temple. “You don’t listen. You push back. You refuse to understand your place.”

My pulse roars in my ears.

My place?

I repeat it back to him, the words barely above a whisper.

Victor’s lips press into a thin line.

“You are lucky,” he says flatly, “to even still be here.”

Lucky.

To be in a pack where I am treated like filth.

Where I am starved, beaten, humiliated for sport.

Lucky.

I clench my fists so tight my nails dig into my palms.

“I’m your daughter.”

Victor doesn’t blink. “And that has bought you far more mercy than you deserve.”

I stagger back a step.

As if he has physically hit me.

Mercy?

Mercy?!

Fifteen years under the heel of his new wife and her wretched daughter, fifteen years of scrubbing floors while Seraphina preened in silks, of enduring punishment after punishment for nothing more than existing. Fifteen years of his indifference and verbal abuse.

And he calls that mercy?

A sharp, bitter laugh spills from my lips before I can stop it.

Victor’s brow furrows, displeased. “You think this is funny?”

I shake my head, not in amusement, but in something twisted and broken and raw.

“No,” I whisper. “I think you’re pathetic.”

Victor stills.

For the first time, something flickers in his expression.

I’m not finished.

“You let Lilliana turn you into a shadow of the man you were. You let Seraphina walk around like she’s the Moon Goddess’s gift to this pack. And you let them—” my voice breaks, but I force myself to continue, “—you let them do this to me.”

Victor’s jaw tightens. “Watch your tongue, Raven.”

“Why?” I snap. “Are you finally listening?”

Silence.

I exhale, shaking my head.

“Forget it,” I mutter. “I should have known. I should have known years ago that I don’t have a father.”

I turn on my heel, storming toward the door.

"Raven."

I stop.

My hand rests on the handle.

His voice is calm. Even.

"You will never be more than what you are," he says quietly. "And if you continue down this path, you will not survive."

I squeeze the handle until my knuckles go white. His words finalize everything for me.

I turn my head just enough to meet his gaze.

“And if you continue down your path,” I murmur, voice like steel, “then neither will you.”

I leave.

I do not cry.

I do not stop walking.

I do not look back.

Because there is nothing left for me in that room.

There is nothing left for me in this house.

Victor Nightshade has never been my father.

I will never come to him for help again.

Next time I stand before him?

It won’t be to ask for protection.

It will be to prove him wrong.

To show him—to show all of them—that the girl they cast aside, the girl they beat down, has not been destroyed.

She has been reforged.

And when the time comes, they will not ignore me.

They will fear me.