Chapter 16
The first day Monica moved in, she made it very
clear: I was out, and she was in.
She stood in the center of my living room, her hands clasped behind her back, surveying
it like she was about to renovate a territory
instead of a house. Her manicured fingers
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>
brushed over the dark leather sofa I’d
picked out six months ago–rich mahogany, hand–stitched, Alpha–grade. “This feels too. dull,” she said lightly, her voice delicate, but loud enough to carry. “Floyd, wouldn’t a cream–colored one be more… inviting?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Do as Monica says.”
I watched from the staircase landing.
The workers came in like a tide, sweeping away my choices, my memories. That sofa had taken me weeks to find. It was firm enough to support Floyd’s bad back, wide enough for the kids to nap on after school. Now it was hauled out like
junk.
Leon and Yolanda trailed behind Monica like
wolf pups in training. “Aunt Monica, we should throw out these ugly pillows too! Mom’s taste is
so lame!”
Monica giggled, brushing their heads. “Alright, let’s change them all.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t shift. But my claws.
itched beneath my skin.
Those pillows–they weren’t just décor. I
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hand–stitched them when I was pregnant, stuffing each one with hypoallergenic down because the pups had sensitive skin. And now? Thrown out like trash. Like me.
The days that followed were… strange. Like waking up in a dream where someone else was living your life.
At the table where I used to sit, Monica now served the children sweet porridge and peeled their fruit with dainty hands. Floyd, that cold, perfect Alpha, poured her coffee with an unfamiliar tenderness I’d never been on the
receiving end of
At night, they’d huddle together in the den. Dimmed lights, warm blankets, movie nights on the new sofa. Yolanda nestled in Monica’s lap. Leon curled against Floyd’s shoulder. And me? I’d walk past, ghostlike, and not one of them even flinched.
And the hypocrisy? It reeked worse than rotting meat during summer.
Floyd, who once snarled at me for putting his watch too close to the stove, now smiled. as Monica tossed his million–dollar Patek
Philippe face–down on the table. The pups, who
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used to retuse wearing anything that wasn’t hand–pressed and magically wrinkle–free, now wore uniforms stained with last night’s sauce. and didn’t bat an eye.
Monica would pour cheap takeout into my ceramic dishes and say, “Dinner’s ready.” No
one corrected her. No one cared.
She became the goddess of the house.
overnight.
“Don’t bother with chores,” Floyd murmured one evening, his fingers brushing Monica’s wrist like she might shatter. “Your hands are made for piano, not dishes.”
Leon practically tripped over himself to carry her handbag. “Let me, Aunt Monica! I got it!”
Even the butler, who had once bowed stiffly to me, offered her handmade Italian slippers like she was royalty reborn. “Miss Monica, please.
Allow us.”
Six years I played the part of the good Luna. Six years I nursed pups, brewed teas, hosted gatherings, handled pack workers.
And yet, the moment she crossed the threshold,
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The whispers from the servants didn’t even bother hiding anymore.
“Alpha Floyd’s so gentle with Monica. I’ve never seen him treat Luna Jillian like that.”
“With the kids clinging to her like that? It won’t be long before she’s mistress of this house.”
They weren’t wrong.
My heart? Already ash. My wolf? Silent, curled up in the corner of my soul.
I just kept packing.
And then, that call came.
My phone buzzed so violently it nearly jumped
off the table.
“Luna Jillian! It’s the school! Master Leon and Miss Yolanda are having an allergic reaction! The ambulance just arrived!”
The hospital lights were blinding when I got there. The pups were already being wheeled into the ER–pale, groggy, mouths slightly
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swollen. I nearly shifted from the panic alone.
Then I saw him.
Floyd.
He stood in the hallway like a fallen statue–tie loosened, jacket draped over his arm, his face. carved with fury. Not fear. Fury.
“Jillian.” His voice was low, sharp as a claw to the gut. “What the hell happened?”
I blinked. “What?”
“They’re allergic to mangoes. Didn’t you know that?” He stepped closer, looming. His scent- cedar, frost, old power–washed over me like a slap. “Why did you let them drink mango juice?”
“It wasn’t me!” I shot back, stunned. “I never buy mangoes. You know that!”
Ever since that first reaction, when they broke out in hives so severe I had to rush them to the healer’s den myself, I’d made sure it never happened again. I warned the servants. Checked every school lunch menu. Carried an EpiPen in my purse just in case.
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“You expect me to believe that?” Floyd sneered. “So what then? The servants conspired?
Or maybe the kids just decided to poison
themselves for fun?”
Before I could claw out a response, the nurse came out. “The children are awake.”
We stepped into the sterile room. They looked tiny on the hospital beds, faces pale, arms hooked up to IVs. My heart twisted.
Floyd stepped forward. “What happened?”
Leon and Yolanda exchanged a glance. Then- without even blinking–they pointed straight at
- me.
“It was Mom,” Yolanda said, her voice small but sure. “She gave us snacks with mango.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“What are you saying?” I whispered.