These voices didn't sound like the whispers I used to hear in the cold corridors of the orphanage.They weren't the voices of the wolf-children who mocked me just for fun.
This was an agony that poured fistfuls of salt onto the wound bleeding in the deepest part of my soul.
It hurt.
"Vespera..." the voices called. Like a choir, both miles away and right inside my skull. "Have you never wondered why there is such silence inside you?"
They whispered into my mind, slamming my brain against the walls of my skull.
When the Vampire Lady raised her hand, the river water began to boil like black ink. My mother, standing beside her, looked into my eyes and screamed the horrific truth.
"They told you your wolf was 'dead,' didn't they, Vespera? They told you she never woke up, that you were a freak! But they were wrong. That wolf didn't die... I personally put her to sleep. To make you a lock, I strangled the Omega inside you with my own hands!"
My world shattered like a glass jar. Varg's hand grew rigid on my waist. The elders of the Wolf Council recoiled in horror at this "sacred violation."
"Do you hear it?" my mother shouted, reaching toward the river. "That Omega inside you isn't dead, Vespera—she's in a prison! And the key to that prison belongs to us, not you. Now come here, or your soul will scream in the darkness forever!"
Varg lunged forward in fury. "Her soul will not be a toy for any parasite!" he roared. "If you put that wolf to sleep, I will wake her with blood!"
At that moment, an indescribable pain exploded in my chest. For the first time in years, that "dead" part of me responded to my mother's voice, squirming under my belly like a living creature.
"No living thing will ever dwell in your womb, little one. You will never be a mother." the Vampire Lady said with a graceful smile.
"I found you when you were about to die in your mother's womb. My venom is the only master of the Omega wolf inside you. You will be my Duchess. You will marry my crown prince, my precious son. A dead wolf can only mother dead babies. This is your future—you will be a home for the dead..."
I wept. I had never been one of those Omegas who burned with the desire for an Alpha. That fire, that heat-madness, had never existed in my loins. I only had the simple desires of an ordinary girl. But the realization that I could never be a mother sat on my shoulders like a mountain.
Neither wolf nor human. Just... dead. A soul trapped in limbo, whose heart didn't beat.
"I saw it in your future, Vespera." the Lady said softly. "A dead baby will call you 'mother.' Fate cannot be changed. Don't be a toy for Alphas. Live your own destiny. I heard it when the dead baby called for you, prophecies do not lie."
"They will rot your beauty and youth like spoiled milk." she bellowed with a voice like steel. "Your soul will spend its days as a tearful widow within their pack house walls. Your youth and beauty will rot in the shadow of other women because you cannot provide a pup. You will grace the beds of Alphas first..."
The word "Alphas" caused Varg to lose control, his eyes bleeding into a deep crimson.
"Then you will beg for love from low-ranking Betas, becoming their toy, Vespera. My lucky Duchess. Even a male Omega will mock you for being lower than them." she whispered. "And when you are nothing but a forgotten ornament, I will be the one to embrace you again."
The valley shook with the Vampire Lady's threatening silence, but then the bushes on the west side of the manor burst open. It wasn't a wolf's howl, nor the flap of a wing... it was pure human audacity and rage.
"You low-life, pale-faced, tacky b-tch! You buck-toothed piece of trash!"
This wasn't a furred roar or a hissing vampire's pride. This was them.
Humans, created from earth and water, with hearts woven of flesh. They couldn't whisper spells they were born, they grew, and when the time came, they returned to the earth as if they had never existed. But they had hearts that burned like coals and a sense of showmanship that ignored "ancient seals" and protocols!
Chloe, still in her hiking boots and ripped jeans, stormed onto Varg's priceless land as if she were raiding a bar. Behind her, Melanie and Dominic appeared—without any superpowers, carrying only a massive "I don't give a damn if the world burns" attitude.
Their only weapons were sharpened sticks. They had pockets full of stones and knives tucked into their belts. Since there was only one steak knife, Dominic had given it to the girls; he was holding a simple fruit knife and... a pair of scissors!
As the Vampire Queen spoke of her "Duchess" with thousand-year-old elegance, Chloe swung her high-end designer bag and—CRACK!—it slammed into the Queen's flawless, pale forehead.
"You immortal monument of disgrace!" Chloe screamed, shaking her finger at the army across the river. "Get your Botox refreshed, drink your blood, do whatever you do, but get your skinny hands off my friend! Bitch."
Dominic put his hands on his hips and glared at the massive Wolf Council, the most ancient and dangerous Alphas of Alberta. As the old wolves growled in shock at the sight of a human, Dominic didn't take a step back.
"What are you looking at?" he bellowed. "I'll shoot the lot of you! I've got a silver fruit knife and I'm not afraid to use it! Don't make me turn your wolf pelts into doormats, get the hell back to your dens!"
He looked at Melanie with a panicked whisper. "Hey, Melanie. Does dog sedative and anti-stress syrup work on a whole wolf pack? It's the same thing, right? Hey, Mel! Look at me ! Right?"
The tears streaming down my face weren't from grief. While those grand clans, noble fathers, and dark mothers saw me as a lock, a key, or a project, these three "ordinary" humans had come here to die for me. My true family wasn't in the blood in my veins; it was in the stitching of the bag Chloe had thrown.
The bag she had saved her allowance for, the one she wouldn't even take out on rainy days so it wouldn't get scratched, had become a weapon.
Melanie walked toward the Duchess without a hint of fear. "Get your filthy hands off her, you cheap action-movie extra! Vespera isn't some appetizer for your dark fantasies!"
"Chloe..." I gasped in pain. "Dominic... Melanie..."
Chloe winked at me, picked up another stone, and hurled it at the vampires. "No one is sacrificing my friend to this tacky vampire prom! I didn't track those mud-smelling wolves all night for this! My pedicure is ruined inside these snow boots. My period is late from the stress. I'm hungry and I've been freezing in the woods all night. For what? For an army of skinny-assed, fake runway models? Get out of here!"
The breaking point in my soul turned into a symphony of apocalypse in the snowy valley of Alberta. Chloe's unstoppable, brazen courage had stunned even the vampires, but the shock didn't last long. With a signal from the Vampire Lady, pale shadows glided like mist and seized Chloe, Melanie, and Dominic.
When I saw my friends struggling in those cold, immortal hands, the bars of the "caged" wolf inside me shook for the first time.
"Let them go!" I screamed. My voice was no longer just a girl's cry; it was a deep rumble that vibrated the river waters.
The Vampire Lady tightened her grip on Chloe's throat like a claw and smiled from across the river.
"You see, little Duchess!" the Queen said, her voice as cold as a headstone. "Choices always have a price. Cross the river and join us, claim your ancient blood... or these noisy friends of yours will fall as corpses onto Alberta's soil. Give me what I want, and I will give you what you want."
Despite the icy pressure on her throat, Chloe didn't back down. Her face was bright red, but she still used her famous sharp tongue as a weapon.
"Don't listen to the outdated whore, Vespera!" Chloe shouted, gasping for air. "This hag is just jealous of my feminine energy because she hasn't had an orgasm since the B.C. era! You eternal black widow... Ugh, Vespera, don't you dare come here, they literally smell like insect repellent and mothballs! This place reeks of history! The wheel wasn't even invented the last time she kissed a man!"
The Queen's eyes flashed with rage, her claws drawing a thin line of blood on Chloe's skin. At that moment, I spat out a curse.
"BITCH!"
Varg roared with fury and lunged forward. "If you touch them, I will make Alberta your grave!"
"Release my friends!" I thundered.
Their soulless silhouettes descended over the valley like an absolute curse. The stories told around campfires were mere fairy tales compared to this; they were far more terrifying than the whispers that traveled from tongue to tongue.
But everything happened in a second. The Vampire Lady seized the chaos as an opportunity. "We are leaving,my children!" she commanded.
The vampires pulled Chloe, Melanie, and Dominic into the mists, shaking them like trophies. Only silence remained on the riverbank.
What was left was a mess of devastated wolves, baring their teeth at each other but facing a common enemy. I collapsed to my knees on the riverbank.
My silvery dress was stained with mud, my hands were trembling. Chloe's last insult, "mothball-smelling whore," still hung in the air, but my friends' screams could no longer be heard.
"Prepare." Varg said, his voice commanding the trembling Council members and his scattered pack. "Tonight, not just a wedding, but a genocide was left unfinished. We will tear down the palace of those parasites and uproot those bloodless bastards!"