Jasmine sat quietly on the edge of a neatly made bed, her eyes hollow as they fixed on a faraway point. In the silence of the room, her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to a memory etched in the core of her soul, a moment that still burned with the clarity of fresh pain.
"Father, I don’t want you to go," little Jasmine had pleaded, her tiny fingers grasping desperately at the hem of his warrior cloak. Her eyes shimmered with innocent dread.
Carlos, her father, had crouched down and gathered her into his arms with a gentle strength only he possessed. His smile was soft but resolute. "My sweet Jasmine, I must. I’m a Pack warrior, one of the strongest. I have to protect our people."
He ruffled her hair, coaxing a small giggle out of her, but the heaviness in his gaze betrayed the unspoken danger that loomed beyond their doorstep.
Back in the present, Jasmine exhaled shakily, her body tense. Something felt off, as if the past had returned to haunt the air she breathed.
Moments later, chaos exploded.
Smoke blanketed the sky. Screams echoed across the town. Jasmine’s stepmother and half-sister had already fled toward the safety of the Pack House on the outskirts. But Jasmine didn’t run. She bolted into the heart of destruction.
"Father!" she screamed into the thick, choking smoke, her lungs burning. People tried to stop her, hands tugged, voices cried out, but she broke free, driven by a primal fear.
Then she saw it.
A severed head, one she knew too well. Carlos’s lifeless eyes stared at nothing, his warrior’s pride extinguished. She stumbled, collapsing in front of the gruesome sight, her scream piercing the smoke like a blade.
"No!"
The moment shattered her.
Then, out of the smoke, a sword slashed across her back. A foreign warrior from the invading Pack stood over her, ready to strike again. But before his blade met flesh, an arrow whistled through the air and embedded in his skull. He dropped instantly. Silent. Dead.
Darkness claimed her.
Jasmine’s memory faded as reality yanked her back—along with the sting of a harsh slap across her face. She shot to her feet, her body stiffening in instinctive fear.
"You sit there daydreaming while my daughter and I starve?" her stepmother sneered. "I’m not the one who killed your father. Stop acting like I am!"
With a vicious yank of Jasmine’s hair, she shoved her from the room.
"Get into the kitchen and make something worth eating, you useless brat!"
Jasmine blinked back tears and obeyed, heart bruised and throat tight. As she reached the kitchen door, muffled sounds from Gianna’s bedroom made her pause, moans, breathless gasps. Then, a name.
"Kelvin."
Jasmine froze.
Her hands trembled as she flung the bedroom door open.
There, tangled in sweat-slicked sheets, was her stepsister Gianna, and her boyfriend. Jasmine’s boyfriend.
"Kelvin!" she gasped, her voice breaking under the weight of betrayal. Her heart plummeted.
Gianna sat up, unfazed, her eyes narrowing in venom. "What the hell’s your problem? Are you blind? Can’t you see what’s happening?"
"You—" Jasmine’s voice quivered. "You’re a—"
The slap came fast, knocking her off her feet.
"I won’t let you insult my love!" Kelvin barked. "I don’t love you. I never did."
His voice sliced through her.
"I’ve found someone better. More beautiful. More worthy. If you can’t handle that, get out—and die."
They resumed their act as if she were invisible.
Jasmine ran, faster than she ever had, until her lungs screamed and her tears blurred the world. Her legs didn’t stop until a strange, alluring scent pulled her toward the Alpha’s estate.
It was warm. Comforting. Familiar.
"Mate," her wolf whispered within her.
Then Hardin, Alpha Crest’s son—emerged. Their eyes locked. She felt the pull of fate. But his expression twisted in disgust.
"What are you doing here?" he said coldly. "Who are you?"
"M-Mate," she and her wolf said in unison.
Hardin scowled. "You can’t be serious. You? An Omega? You expect me to accept you?"
Her heart cracked.
"Why not?" she asked softly, desperately. "Even if we aren’t the same class—"
"Exactly." He cut her off with ice in his voice. "Let’s not drag this out. I’ll reject you now. Quietly. Consider it mercy."
And then came the words that broke her: "I, Hardin Crest of Jade’s Pack, reject you as my mate."
A girl stepped out of the house behind him, glowing in luxury and beauty—Gianna’s friend. Jasmine’s humiliation was now complete.
She swallowed her pain.
"I, Jasmine Wert, accept the rejection."
She walked away, breath ragged, her soul gutted. Her heart no longer beat—it ached.
The river called to her.
She stood on its bank, the current reflecting the sky, uncaring and endless. She stepped in, inch by inch, until the water claimed her.
As her lungs filled and her body began to fade, she welcomed the silence.
No more pain.
No more sorrow.
Just the embrace of the deep.
She coughed violently. Her eyes fluttered open. The world was blurred and unfamiliar.
Am I in heaven? she wondered, her voice barely a whisper.
A shadow loomed over her.
Then—
"You damned bitch!"
Her stepmother stormed into the room like a raging inferno, yanking Jasmine up and hurling her against the wall.
"You tried to kill yourself? So now people will gossip that I abused you, is that it?!" Spit flew from her mouth as she screamed.
Another slap. Harder. More vicious.
"You can’t treat her like this!" A man burst into the room—the same man who had pulled her from the river. His voice was a lifeline in the storm.
Her stepmother’s eyes narrowed, and hated curling in her sneer.
"You were paid to stay quiet. But now? Maybe it’s time I did what I should’ve done long ago."
The room crackled with unspoken danger.
And Jasmine, bruised and broken, realized this was only the beginning of the battle for her life.