Chapter 1 - Echo
I stared blankly at the computer screen still open to the email I received from my father, Alpha Andrew Ransom. My brain couldn’t quite process the cruelty of the words he had typed out.
I do not have a daughter named Echo; she is dead to her alpha, her family, and her pack. That wolf-less, worthless whore has been stripped of her Red Cliff Pack membership. No more contact is to be initiated. Contact me again, and I will have you hunted and brought back in chains.
It was direct, cold, and final with no salutation or signature. Just the cold, hard truth that he believed I had gotten pregnant and given birth to the two pups who call me Mommy. They became my world when their biological mother abandoned them.
I would not have abandoned them for anything: two defenseless pups left behind by their selfish biological mother, despised by their biological father, and hated by Alpha Andrew.
Always being the disappointing one because my wolf did not appear when I was thirteen, my parents had not wanted to pay for me to go to college. I was worthless to them. In a pack where strength is everything, I was weak. I was barely one step up from being human.
I scrimped and saved, waiting tables and doing odd jobs from the time I was fourteen. When I auditioned for the fine arts program at a college across the country, I prayed I would be accepted. My dream was to be a concert pianist, not really practical in the werewolf community, but it was ingrained into my soul – my passion.
I was over the moon when I was accepted and even offered a scholarship. Finally, someone saw my worth and offered me a way to reach for my dreams. College was difficult, classes and rehearsals consuming most of my time. My family hadn’t reached out since I packed my bags and disappeared through the border gate with the help of a young warrior.
That’s why I was so surprised when my youngest sister, Wren, asked to visit me six years later. Thinking she was reaching out because she missed me and really did love me, I welcomed her with open arms. Then, she dropped a bomb in my lap and expected me to clean it up just like always.
She was three months pregnant and hid it from our parents. The best part, she was knocked up by my fated mate. The same one who rejected me. The Beta’s perfect son, Gage Gates. The perfect asshole in my opinion. He told me we were fated mates on our eighteenth birthday; we were born the same day, six hours apart – I was older.
I had loved Gage for as long as I could remember; he had been my everything. He even told me it was okay that I was wolf-less; I was perfect just the way I was. Then, on our eighteenth birthday, he had laughed in my face in front of the entire pack and told me that, as the future beta of the pack, there were certain expectations surrounding his mate, and I failed to make the grade.
Heartbroken, rejected, and mocked by my pack for thinking I just might be good enough, I was shackled by my father and handed to the warriors to be their plaything. A young warrior helped me escape the pack. As I got into my car and drove away, I knew I would never return. I never wanted to step foot in another pack again after all the way I had been treated growing up.
Fate had plans for me, though. She can be a cruel and heartless bitch. My sister showing up pregnant with Gage’s pups was the beginning of the end of all my hopes and dreams. Wren shattered my peaceful bubble and wasn’t the least bit sorry about it. She expected me to pick up the pieces so she didn't have to.
Wren delivered a set of perfect twins, alpha and beta blood coursing through their veins. It took her one week to recover, and while I was at rehearsal, she disappeared, leaving the one-week-old pups alone. She left me a note. She didn’t want the pups and was going home to the Red Cliff Pack. I could keep them or give them away – like they were a couple of toys she lost interest in.
I called Wren and begged her not to abandon her pups. Then, I heard from my father. He called me a whore and told me Wren had broken the news to them that I was the one who had given birth to twins and didn’t even know who their father was. I tried to tell him they were not mine, but he hung up on me and then blocked my number.
Devastated that my sister had lied, I looked at the two innocent pups asleep in the second-hand crib I had bought for Wren to use while here. The girl was a perfect replica of her mother, delicate and beautiful. The boy, of course, was all Gage, dark and handsome – although beautiful was the better word for him, too.
I knew I couldn’t abandon them, as their mother had done. Wren hadn’t told me what she named them; she had said she was still trying to decide. But when I opened the folder from the hospital, my mouth dropped open. Damn her!
Wren had given my name instead of hers. Right there on the paperwork was my name, Echo Ransom, staring back at me, listed as their mother. Their father’s name was also a punch to the gut: Gage Gates. She couldn’t have done that to me. That would mean she planned to leave all along.
The name on the first birth certificate from the hospital – the boy – Gabriel Ransom. The girl was named Elena Ransom. The two names I had said I would name my own pups one day. Wren remembered those names and used them to complete her deception.
