Chapter 1 Chapter 1

AMELIA

“Wait… you got married? Seriously?”

My mouth stays slightly parted as I pull the phone away from my ear, checking the screen like maybe I dialed the wrong number.

Skylar.

My mother.

“Yes, I did,” she says, her voice calm. That familiar nonchalance slips through, the same one she uses when she’s already decided something and my feelings are an afterthought.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.”

I let out a small laugh, sharp and disbelieving.

“Coming?” I repeat. “No. I didn’t see my own mother getting married without telling me, coming.”

There’s a pause on the line and it’s not the guilty kind but the irritated kind.

“Well, I didn’t think it was necessary to inform you of every decision I make,” she replies. “Especially when I knew you’d react like this. You always do—just like your father.”

There it is.

My jaw tightens.

She always finds a way to drag him into it. The man who’s been dead for years and still somehow manages to ruin her day simply by existing in memory.

“You mean the father who actually wanted me?” I ask quietly, staring at the ceiling.

“That’s not what I said, Amelia,” she snaps. “Don’t twist my words. Your father was reckless and selfish. He ruined my life before he ran off and left me to deal with the consequences.”

The consequences.

Me.

I swallow, my throat suddenly tight.

And for a brief, stupid second, I remember waking up this morning and wondering if she’d call. Wondering if—just once—she’d remember what today was.

“Mom,” I say, and the word tastes bitter on my tongue. “It’s my birthday.”

Another pause. Shorter this time.

“And because it’s your birthday, I shouldn’t be happy?” she asks. “I shouldn’t get to choose something good for myself? Or should I drop everything I’m doing and center my life around you again?”

I close my eyes.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” she says, something rustling from the other side. “Look, the wedding already happened. It was private and small. I didn’t want unnecessary drama.”

Unnecessary.

“So you waited until after,” I whisper. “Until it was done.”

“Yes,” she says simply. “The reception is starting now. You should come.”

I blink, brows lifting.

“Come… where?”

“I’ll send you the address,” she continues, already moving on. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing and come over. It’s time you met him.”

I sit up on my bed, heart thudding painfully in my chest.

“You couldn’t even tell me before?” I ask. “You couldn’t let me process this?”

“Amelia,” she sighs, like I’m exhausting her, “you’re eighteen now. You’re grown. You’ll understand one day that life doesn’t pause just because you’re emotional.”

The line goes dead. 

My hand drops from my ear as I sit motionless on the bed, lips wobbling despite my effort to keep them still. 

I hate that reaction. Hate that she still has this kind of access to me. Hate that I still expect anything else.

A second later, my phone buzzes with a message.

An address.

No explanation. No late happy birthday wishes or an apology. Only coordinates to a life she built without me.

I stare at the screen, my chest aching in a way that feels like something I learned to live with a long time ago.

Thanksgiving was always my father’s. Loud and warm in his small cottage at the outskirts. He’d let me lick the spoon and pretend I was helping while he cooked too much food for just the two of us. 

Christmas, on the other hand, belonged to my mother. Cold mornings and forced smiles, a reminder  that I was never what she planned for. That her biggest mistake as an Alpha heir was getting knocked up by their cook's son at 17 and having me, a splitting image of him.

And now my father is gone.

Which means Christmas didn’t just win.

It swallowed everything else.

I sink back onto the mattress, eyes burning as I stare at the ceiling. Eighteen. Apparently old enough to be informed about the fact. Old enough to at least be invited instead of summoned.

My phone buzzes again.

Are you on your way?

I exhale slowly, fingers curling around the device as I sit up, ready to go get ready.

I grab my bag, forcing myself to move.

Whoever she married…

I just hope he’s nothing like the men she used to bring around.