Chapter 5: The Cruel Truth

Five-year-old Avery sat on the plush sofa in her father's office, tears streaming down her round cheeks as her parents' voices grew louder and angrier. Her tiny hands covered her ears, but it didn't block out the shouting.

"We need this alliance, Marcus!" her mother yelled, slamming her palm against the desk. "Blood Moon is vulnerable. The Crescere Pack would give us protection!"

"I will not bend the knee to another Alpha!" her father roared back. "Blood Moon has survived for generations without becoming someone else's lapdog!"

"Your fucking pride will be the death of us all!" Her mother grabbed a crystal paperweight from the desk and hurled it against the wall, where it shattered. "You think you're so powerful, but you're just a stubborn fool!"

Avery sobbed louder, terrified by the violence and anger filling the room. Neither parent seemed to notice her distress, too consumed by their argument.

Suddenly, screams erupted from outside the office. Not angry shouts like her parents', but sounds of terror and pain.

A guard burst through the door, blood streaming from a gash across his forehead. "Alpha! We're under attack! Rogues—at least thirty of them—they've breached the south entrance!"

Her mother whirled on her father. "You see? This is exactly what I warned you about! We could have had allies to call on!"

"Shut the fuck up, Eliza!" he snarled, then turned to the guard. "Mobilize everyone who can fight. Protect the core buildings."

As the guard rushed out, more screams and the sounds of fighting grew louder. Avery's father cursed viciously, then looked at his daughter as if just remembering she was there.

Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway toward the office. Multiple sets, moving with purpose.

"Shit!" Her father grabbed Avery, lifting her small body effortlessly. He rushed to his massive wooden desk and yanked open the bottom drawer, removing the contents with one sweep of his arm.

"Listen to me, sweetheart," he whispered urgently, lowering her into the empty space. "You need to stay here. Don't make a sound, no matter what you hear. Do you understand? Not a single sound."

Avery nodded, her green eyes wide with terror. Her father pressed a kiss to her forehead before closing the drawer, not completely, but enough that she was hidden from view.

Through the small gap, Avery watched as the office door burst open. Three men with wild eyes and blood-covered clothes stormed in. They didn't look like the wolves from her pack. They looked... wrong. Feral.

"Well, well," the largest one said, grinning to reveal bloodstained teeth. "The mighty Alpha of Blood Moon, cornered in his own office."

What happened next burned itself into Avery's memory forever. The rogues fell upon her parents like animals. Her mother fought fiercely, clawing one rogue's face to ribbons before another drove a knife into her back. Her father managed to shift partially, his claws tearing through one attacker's throat before the others overwhelmed him.

Avery bit her own arm to keep from screaming as she watched her parents die. Blood pooled across the floor, inching toward the desk where she hid. The metallic smell filled her nostrils, making her gag.

After what seemed like hours, the rogues left, laughing and congratulating themselves on killing an Alpha pair. Silence fell over the office, broken only by the distant sounds of fighting elsewhere in the compound.

Shaking uncontrollably, Avery pushed the drawer open and crawled out. Her small feet left bloody footprints as she approached her parents' bodies.

"Mommy?" she whispered, touching her mother's cooling hand. "Daddy?"

Neither answered. Neither would ever answer again.

Avery's gaze fell on the machete one of the rogues had left behind, its blade coated with her parents' blood. In her grief-stricken mind, a terrible thought formed. If her parents were gone, she wanted to be with them.

Her tiny fingers wrapped around the handle, lifting it with difficulty. She sat on the floor beside her parents, the weapon across her lap, trying to find the courage to use it on herself.

As rain began to pound against the windows, Avery wept, unaware that her eyes had begun to glow a brilliant, unnatural red.

Hours later, Trevor returned from a diplomatic mission to find Blood Moon in ruins. Half the pack dead or injured, the Alpha pair murdered. Following the trail of carnage, he arrived at the office with several pack members.

What they found was little Avery sitting in a pool of blood, clutching a machete, her parents' mutilated bodies beside her. When she looked up at their entrance, Trevor's face twisted in horror.

"Her eyes!" gasped one of the wolves behind him. "Red eyes! The mark of the Demon Wolf! The legends say a wolf with red eyes brings nothing but death!"

Trevor stared at his sister, as everyone believed—with a mixture of fear and revulsion. The little girl dropped the machete with a clatter, her bloody hands trembling.

"Lock her in the dungeon," Trevor ordered, his voice shaking. "Now!"

For the next two years, Avery lived in darkness, feared and isolated. Until Trevor met a witch who offered a solution—a ritual that would bind Avery's wolf and suppress her memories.

At seven years old, Avery was released from the dungeon, with no memory of her parents or how they died. But the pack made sure she knew one thing: she had killed them with her own hands.

And so began years of abuse at the hands of Trevor, Kevin, and later Eva—punishment for a crime she couldn't remember committing, trauma layered upon trauma until she became the broken, fearful creature she was today.