"My mother was worried about her cursed impact on us! Haa—"
"Of course, my mate. How can I say no to you? Uhmmm, right there, j-just right ther—Haa.."
"Asking her to sit out? That was genius, my little deviless." Adele heard both of them groaning simultaneously, and then the noises stopped, only their heavy breathing remained.
She could feel every word spoken in her bones, and she pressed one cool hand against the stone wall to steady herself. Adele felt really small now.
"Like I want that pale ghost ruining my special day. Did you see her dress? She looked like she was going to a funeral, not a mating ceremony. Just imagine, how humiliating it would have been for me! My mating ceremony, the biggest day of my life, and there's my mateless older sister lurking in the background of every picture like some kind of omen. A dud."
Castor laughed. "Your sister has zero sense of how to present herself, one look at her can dull any wolf's raging loins."
"Because she's pathetic, and a wolfless burden, always walking and acting around like some tragic figure. 'Oh, poor me, I don't have a mate. Oh, poor me, I'm so sick all the time. I believe she wants attention, Daddy's attention especially." Lyra's voice was laced with mockery. "But Daddy doesn't care about defective beasts."
Adele couldn't believe her ears. Their sound snapping through Adele, each chuckle deeper than the last.
"But you, you were perfect tonight. Every single moment."
"I was, wasn't I?" Lyra's voice was smug now, pleased. "Did you see everyone watching us? The cameras couldn't get enough. I wonder which page Lupine Vouge will put our photo on."
"Speaking of Lupine Vogue, I remember seeing your photo once, and I think she was in the backgrounds. I assumed you sisters were… close." He chuckled. "Don't you still take her along in your events?"
"Naturally. She increases my credibility and is a good PR. Her sympathetic figure is perfect for charity galas and emotional campaigns." That very same bell-like sound that had charmed the cameras, now sounded too cruel for Adele's ears.
"And yours is a very s*xy figure."
"Haa—, Castor!"
Adele's chest tightened painfully, and she felt the sting of hot tears. She wanted to run, she wanted to disappear, but her body wouldn't move.
"What does .....Hmmmm, baby! W-what does, Alpha Magnus plan to do with that wolfless freak?"
"Daddy will probably ship her off to some remote pack eventually. Marry her to whoever's desperate enough to take damaged goods. Or maybe she'll just waste away in that sad little room of hers. Oh god! Castor!! Harder please,....I-its not like there is any wolfless male out there. She isn't even socially astute enough to find a mate the way ordinary she-wolves do. And no affluent house would ever take her in."
Their noise differed as the pair grew busy. Adele wasn't able to hear anymore as the loud pumping sound of her own blood filled her ears and her vision started to blurr. The air turned suffocating.
She turned and ran away, unaware of when her feet carried her back to her room. The door shut behind her, and she threw herself onto the bed, burying her face into the pillows to smother the sound of her breaking heart.
Fate is never kind to her, but poor Adele didn't expect this. The entire Frostfang pack calls her names, yet just when she thinks the humiliation and disgrace cannot grow any worse, her sweet Lyra seaks the words that shatter her.
Adele presses her forehead against the pillow and finally allows herself to cry. Her emotions are a mess.
The continous sobs wrack her body to exhaustion and she drifts into sleep with tear-dampened sheets and cheeks.
---
Adele sat curled on her bed, with knees drawn up to her chest, head resting against her hand over her knees in the darkness. Outside her window, the day had turned into another dark night.
No one had turned to knock her door. The employees in the castle long reflected what the employer displayed, and her father had made his position clear years ago: Adele de Frostfang was not worth the effort. She is a forgotten princess in her forgotten wing of the castle.
Click. Light. Click. Dark. Her one hand was playing with the light switch of the lamp, thumb pressing it rhythmically. Click. Light flooded on her sad face. Click. Darkness swallowed her again.
Her eyes were burning, swollen and raw from all that crying. But her tears had stopped hours ago, yet the pain remained.
Click. Light.
"Pathetic," she whispered to the empty room. "Burden."
Click. Dark.
"But she is right. Twenty-two years old and what do I have to show for it?"
Click. Light.
"A pale ghost. Yeah, even I will believe that." Just how she described her.
Click. Dark.
"Something shameful to hide? A disgrace. Maybe I am disgraceful. The Moon Goddess looked at me and said 'no.' She rejected me. What does that make me? What kind of wolf is rejected by the Goddess herself?"
Click. Light.
Her reflection caught in the darkened window, her silver hair was disheveled, covering her slightly blotchy and red face.
"Defective?"
Click. Dark.
"Not even a wolf—a beast. A defective beast. Father might agree with her, otherwise why else he stopped sending me to the galas? Because I embarrass him. Because e-every time someone sees me, they remember that the great Alpha Magnus produced a f-failure." Her voice broke in the dark.
Click. Light. This time her eyes saw her open dairy on the table.
"'Why doesn't Father love me?'" she mimicked her own past writing, with cruel tone. "'Why am I different? Why won't the Moon Goddess answer my prayers?' Pathetic questions from a pathetic wolf. No wonder she laughed."
Click. Dark.
"Maybe I should just disappear. Would anyone even notice I am gone?"
Click. Light.
"No!! Caspian would notice!" Her voice hitched up and eyes grew wide at her own thinking.
Suddenly, her hand stilled on the switch as her gaze fell on something else on the desk. It was a small photoframe on her desk, half-hidden behind the stacked books.
Slowly, she uncurled from her position and picked up the frame with trembling hands. The picture was old, taken when she must have been five, maybe six. In it, a woman with face identical to Adele's own held a small child in a hospital bed. The child's face was flushed with fever, but she was smiling. And the child's mother—her mother was smiling too, one hand pressed to the child's forehead, the other holding her tiny hand.
Adele traced her finger over her mother's face. "Mama," she whispered.
The memories came flooding back, despite the years.
"It hurts, Mama." Five-year-old Adele whimpered, her small body burning with fever. The hospital room was too bright, too cold, and she wanted to go home.
"I know, my darling." Her mother's cool hand pressed against her forehead, "But I know you're so strong. Do you know how strong you are?"
"I'm not strong. I'm always sick." little Adele cried through her fever.
"Being sick doesn't mean you're not strong." Her mother leaned closer, her hair falling like a curtain around them both. "Strength isn't about never falling down, Ele. It's about getting back up every time you do."
"But I fall down a lot."
"Then you get up a lot. That's what makes you strong." Her mother kissed her forehead. "You're a fighter, my little one. I see it in you, your fierce heart that won't give up no matter how hard things get." She had placed her hand over little Adele's heart.
"What if I want to give up?"
"Then you rest. You cry if you need to. You let yourself feel the pain." Her mother's blue eyes, the same eyes Adele saw in her own reflection were warm and steady. "But then you fight again. Because you, Adele de Frostfang, are not someone who stays down. And everything will be fine."
"Really?"
"Really. You have a warrior's spirit, my darling. Don't ever forget that."
Adele clutched the photoframe to her chest, fresh tears threatening despite her earlier conviction that she had none left.
"A warrior's spirit," she whispered. "You said I had a warrior's spirit, Mama." But where was that spirit now? Where was the fighter her mother had seen?
Adele set the frame back on the desk, but kept her eyes on her mother's face.
"You told me to get back up," she said quietly. "Every time I fall, get back up. That's what you said." Her jaw tightened. " I-I'll get up. I don't know how, but I'll get up."
She straightened her shoulders, "I'll fight," she said, with resolve now. "I don't know what I'm fighting for yet, but I'll fight. Because you said I could. Because you believed I could."