Chapter 3
My parents and Aldric rushed to her side, panicked when they saw the hives covering her skin.
“Allergic reaction! How?!”
My mother’s
s eyes flicked to me, then narrowed in on me with a sudden fury.
In the next moment, she slapped me with all her strength.
1 didn’t even have time to stand properly before I fell to
to the ground, my head buzzing
“Luciana, what did you put in the food? Don’t you remember your sister’s allergies?”
Aldric looked at me with deep disappointment.
“So this is how you repay us, by trying to harm Vivienne? Luciana, how could you be so malicious?“”
“Enough! Go get the pack doctor, NOW My father slammed his hand on the table, and only then did my mother and Aldric stop glaring at me.
They rushed out in a hurry, leaving me sitting there, still on the floor, holding my swollen face in a daze,
I didn’t do it.
I wanted to shout, but I knew better. They would never believe me.
Fine. Let it be.
The maid heard the commotion and tried to help me up. When she saw my swollen hands, she gasped.
“Luciana, your hands–what happened?”
“I’m fine.”
I rejected her help and stood up on my own, heading upstairs to my room.
I picked up the journal on my desk, and countless memories flooded back.
When I was right, before the park had grown larger, our family of five had lived in a small, run–down packhouse.
My parents, busy with pack affairs and the need to expand, decided to send one of us to live with my grandparents deep in the swamp
But since Aldric was about to enter high school and Vivienne was too young and frail, they couldn’t bear to send them.
So, I volunteered
I was sent to the swamp.
Before I left, niy mom patted my head and praised me for being the most understanding.
But no one told me that the cost of being “understanding” was spending eight years with my grandparents.
Elight y
years, with only the Christmas holidays to see my parents and brother.
I watched as their clothes grow finer and the pack expanded, while I stayed there, waiting for them to bring the back.
Finally, when I had grown from a schoolgirl into a high schooler, and after my grandparents had passed away, I returned to the pack.
The line, dilapidated house from my memories was go
gone, replaced by a three–story mansion.
The room they left for me was at the farthest corner of the first floor. It had none of the books and gadgets that filled Aldric’s room, and none of the girlish decorations that fillud Vivienne’s.
Just like my place in this family–unimportant and always overlooked.
