CHAPTER4
1220 Words
Meanwhile, at the Ironveil Pack a few hours earlier
The moon hung high above the treeline, its pale glow casting sharp shadows through the pack's settlement. Bryan and Ryan moved with the careful quiet of men who knew their business was best done in the dark. The two slipped toward the healer's hut, eyes darting over their shoulders as though even the wind might overhear.
Inside, the air reeked of dried herbs, burning sage, and something darker something that didn't belong in a healer's place unless the intent was far from healing.
"We need it strong," Bryan murmured, his voice low, urgent. "Fast. Before they even know they've been touched."
The healer, an older she-wolf with more wrinkles than mercy, squinted at them. "You know what you're asking for."
Ryan's lip curled. "We wouldn't be here if we didn't."
Her gnarled fingers plucked jars from high shelves, crushed nightshade, powdered belladonna before reaching for the deadliest jar of all. Wolfbane. Not the watered-down stuff used to weaken shifting. No, this was the real thing. Lethal. Unforgiving. A werewolf's natural enemy.
By the time they left, Bryan carried a small corked vial of death in his pocket, as casually as someone might carry loose change.
But unknown to them, the plan was already sliding toward disaster.
Nyx wasn't in her room. She hadn't been for hours. And the person under her blankets wasn't her at all it was Neah.
Neah had been restless that night. Maybe it was the guilt, maybe it was the obsessive tug of her thoughts always circling back to Nyx, like a hunter pacing outside the same cage. Either way, she'd found herself slipping into her sister's room when she realized it was empty.
Her fingers grazed over the boring, plain clothes Nyx always wore so unlike Neah's own dramatic flair. Out of some twisted urge, she decided to put them on. Even Nyx's favorite hoodie, the one that smelled faintly of forest and pine ended up pulled over her head.
And because old habits die hard, Neah decided to step into Nyx's life just long enough to ruin it again. She padded into the kitchen and knocked over the spice rack, leaving trails of flour across the counter. In the living room, she tipped over a vase, on purpose left the glass shards scattered for someone else to find. It was petty, childish, and oh so familiar. And the CCTV would be there watching.
By morning, the luna would storm into Nyx's room, see the mess, and let loose her fury. It was an old game Neah never seemed to tire of.
But fate and a glass of milk had other plans.
When Neah returned to Nyx's room, there it was on the nightstand: a plain glass of milk. She eyed it, smirking. "Really, Nyx? Milk before bed? What are you, eight?"
If she'd known it was laced with the very poison Bryan and Ryan had just gotten, maybe she'd have stopped. But she didn't. She grabbed it, tipped her head back, and drained it in a few gulps.
The effect was swift.
Her smirk faltered. Her chest tightened. The glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the
wooden floor. She gasped, clawing at her throat, eyes wide with shock before she collapsed, her body limp, her last breath gone before the surprise could even register.
Minutes later, Bryan and Ryan returned. They shared a glance a mixture of satisfaction and grim purpose—before lifting the body between them. She was lighter than they expected.
No one saw them vanish into the woods, the scent of fresh-turned earth following their trail. They buried her in silence, the night swallowing the sound of the last shovelful of dirt falling over her.
They thought they'd killed Nyx.
They thought they'd won.
But the forest and fate knew better.
Nyx POV
Now the dawn crept in with that gray. My eyelids felt like bricks, but there was something else something heavier pressing down on me.
It started hours ago. A sudden pang in my chest, sharp and strange. At first, I thought it was just
tiredness. But no… it wasn't that. It was… familiar. Too familiar.
I'd never felt anything like it before, at least not since Neah cut off our twin bond. Years ago, she'd made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me beyond using my name to dodge punishments or stir trouble. The link between us was like a door she'd slammed in my face, padlocked, and nailed shut. But now… now I could feel something tugging at me from the other side.
So, I did the one thing I'd never done in years. I tried to peek.
The moment I reached for the bond, my stomach dropped.
Nothing.
Not just blocked. Not just walled off.
Empty.
Gone.
I frowned, a slow dread creeping up my spine. "What the hell happened to my sister?" I asked, turning to Alpha Magnus.
His gaze sharpened, that scarily calm voice of his cutting through the morning air. "It's confirmed. Via the alpha link Nyx was killed.
Buried in the woodland just behind Thornwood Villa. Bryan and Ryan poisoned her milk."
I blinked, my mind catching on the words like a fishhook. "Wait what?"
"They put wolfsbane in her drink." His tone didn't even waver. "Then buried her before sunrise."
My brain tripped over itself. "But—"
Oh. My. God.
"Oh no! It was not Nyx. It was Neah."
My voice came out half-horrified, half-stunned.
"It wasn't?" He grumbled.
"It wasn't!" I slapped my forehead, suddenly remembering every stupid, petty thing Neah had done over the years. The way she loved to sneak into my room, steal my hoodies, trash the kitchen, wreck the living room, just so I'd get blamed.
Only this time… she'd played dress-up as me in the worst possible moment.
I breathed out sharply, my emotions tangling into something I couldn't even name.
She was my twin. My bully. My shadow. My worst critic and my cruelest tormentor. She never gave
me a drop of sisterly love… and now she was gone.
And yet
And yet I felt… lighter. Like someone had just taken a weight off my chest I didn't realize I'd been carrying.
Freedom.
That's what it felt like.
Freedom with a dash of shock and maybe, just maybe a pinch of guilt.
The rumble of the bike slowed to a stop, gravel crunching under the thick tires.
The alpha turned his head towards me. I stared at him. Blinked once. Twice. Then my voice came out sharper than I expected.
He frowned at me and said, "What the hell did you say again?"
"That's not Nyx who died. That was Neah. I am Nyx."
He stilled. For a man as massive as Magnus, it was unsettling how still he could get like a wolf about to spring.
And me? I didn't know whether to laugh, scream,
or throw up. Neah my bully of a sister who'd never shown me anything but cruelty was dead. The woman who'd spent years making sure I knew I was unwanted… was gone.
And instead of grief, I felt… free. Unchained.
Alpha Magnus's growl shook through my bones.
"What do you mean" his voice was sharp, deadly, "the girl the king wanted wasn't you?"
- Writer
