Chapter 1
A CURSED BEGINNING
On the day of her birth, the full moon hung in the night sky, casting an unearthly glow over the forest. In the midst of the ancient thickets was a small hut nestled in tall trees. In this hut, Alpha Dwight and his Luna Odette and the healer anxiously await the arrival of their firstborn. There was a strong directing wind, and a sense of dread fell over the group.
Her birth was supposed to be a happy celebration, but her birth had caused some unexpected chaos. As the labour pains intensified, Luna Odette's face contorted in pain, and Alpha Dwight paced nervously, his werewolf instincts clashing with his human emotions
The hours went on forever, and finally, there was a scream in the hut. Odette gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, which was her, Maeve, her parents’ first child. But when her father, Dwight, held her, his joy quickly turned to anger.
“She’s a female,” he cried, his voice shaking with frustration and disappointment. In the Werewolf world, women were considered less valuable than men and incapable of leading the pack as alphas. But her father, bound by his love for her mother, had allowed her to conceive Maeve, despite the odds.
“What a waste of childbirth!” he said. He kept cheering.
Luna Odette, weak from childbirth, tried to calm her angry husband. “Dwight, please, she is our daughter. She’s perfect.”
“I wanted a son, an heir to the throne.” He snapped, clenching his fists as he glared at the baby.
“Don’t say that, Dwight. We are going to have more babies, an heir that you seek,” Luna Odette said, her voice quivering.
But Alpha Dwight’s anger boiled over. He could not reconcile his love for his Luna with a deep-seated prejudice against his own nature. In a fit of irrational anger, he blamed the child for being a woman, as if she had any control over her gender.
The news of Maeve’s birth reached the ears of everyone in the pack, and they began to celebrate. But Alpha Dwight warned against it and threatened to punish anyone who celebrated her birth.
Alpha Dwight Valko was the meanest alpha in the history of the Black Alders pack. He was known for his brutality and was feared by everyone. But one thing was his weakness, his dear wife, Odette. He loved her too much and would do anything to put a smile on her face.
This time, it was different. The birth of Maeve had changed him from the loving man he used to be and wouldn’t listen to anything his wife said. This brought sorrow to the Luna. Nothing she said would make him change his mind. He refused to hold the baby in his arms and avoided her like a plague.
Weeks passed, and the mother's health began to deteriorate. The stress of childbirth had taken its toll, and she was getting weaker by the day. Alpha Dwight's anger toward the child grew, believing that her birth was a curse to his family.
One dreadful night, as the moon shone brightly over the pack’s territory, Luna Odette breathed her last. Before she died, she placed the baby in his arms, her voice weakened from her ill-health. “Take care of our baby, Dwight. You are all she has now.”
She died with those words. Alpha Dwight stood beside her crying, but there was no one to blame but himself. He allowed his emotions to come between him and the love of his life, and now she was gone. His anger at the child was out of bitterness and self-loathing. He thought the little child had stolen his Luna. He thought she was cursed and was a herald of misfortune.
It was tradition that every child would have their destiny checked by the mages to know what they would become. So out of despearation, he took little Maeve to the mage to know what her future held and the news he got wasn’t pleasant to his hearing.
In his twisted way, he decided to curse the child again, ensuring that she would never be able to transform into a wolf like the rest of her peers. He summoned the power of the full moon and cast a dark and irrevocable spell on her. It bound her to her humanity and kept her from turning into a wolf. He believed that this curse would not only separate me from her peers but would also prevent her from ever meeting her mate and fulfilling her destiny.
