The Polite Father Voice

POV: Marcella

I drag my battered body up from the floorboards, forcing my uninjured hand to bear my weight. The adrenaline from the confrontation drains away, leaving a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. Every movement sends a flare of agony up my spine. My feet drag against the floor as I navigate the short distance to my small bathroom. I grip the edge of the cold porcelain sink, knuckles turning white, and force myself to look in the mirror.

My face is pale, smeared with dirt and tear tracks. Taking a shaky breath, I turn my attention to the stinging sensations scattered across my skin. Most of the cuts from the shattered window are shallow. They weep thin lines of red but carry no embedded glass. I run a damp cloth over my arms and shoulders, wincing as the cold water bites into the raw skin.

Then, I look down at my palm.

A jagged, thick shard of glass sits wedged deep in the fleshy center of my hand. Dark blood pools around the entry point, dripping steadily onto the bathroom tiles. I bite down hard on my bottom lip, grab the slick edge of the glass with my other hand, and pull. A sharp, blinding pain shoots up my arm. I let out a choked gasp, dropping the bloody shard into the sink with a sharp clatter. Grabbing a clean towel, I wrap it tight around my palm, applying heavy pressure to slow the bleeding.

*I am so sorry I cannot heal you, Marcy.*

Vespera’s voice echoes through my mind, heavy with a profound, crushing sadness. Her phantom presence curls inward, projecting an image of a defeated, exhausted wolf dropping her head between her paws.

I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. *It is not your fault, Vespi. You know that.*

She whines, a pathetic sound that pulls at my chest. A healthy wolf would heal a deep puncture wound in minutes. A healthy wolf would mend the bruises blooming across my spine before the sun went down. But Vespera is running on fumes. The endless daily beatings from my father and brother take a massive physical toll, forcing her to expend whatever meager energy she has just to keep my organs functioning. Factor in the deliberate starvation diets they keep me on, and there is nothing left. She is too weak to shift, too drained to mend my deeper wounds.

*You do enough,* I reassure her, pushing a wave of warmth through our mental bond. *You heal the little scratches. You keep me breathing. That is all I need from you right now. Just stay with me.*

Vespera goes quiet, retreating to the back of my mind to rest, though her comforting mental weight remains anchored to my soul.

With my hand securely wrapped, I strip off my ruined, bloody shirt and pull a clean, oversized sweater over my head to hide the fresh bruises. Turning away from the bathroom, I step out into the hallway. My stomach instantly ties itself into a painful knot. The dread settles heavy in my chest. My father rarely initiates a mind-link with me unless he intends to inflict pain, and his sudden summons downstairs makes my heart hammer against my ribs.

I force my feet to move, approaching the top of the staircase. I pause at the bottom landing, my gaze drifting to the wall.

A framed photograph hangs there, catching the dim hallway light. It is a picture of my mother. I stop, leaning forward to press a tender kiss to the edge of the wooden frame. Of all the pictures in the house, this one is my favorite. She looks so young, carefree, and radiant. Her smile reaches her eyes. I never met her, but the endless stories whispered around the pack over the years helped me piece together the ghost of the woman she used to be. Every time I look at this picture, I feel a phantom connection to the mother I was robbed of.

Her story is a tragedy that haunts my every waking moment.

She and my father met right after turning eighteen. They recognized each other as mates, married within two months, and welcomed my older brother, Vance, less than a year later. They were the picture-perfect pack family. Two years later, she fell pregnant again, this time with twin girls. From what the pack elders used to say, my father was overjoyed. Two daughters to complete their family.

But my mother fell ill during the pregnancy. Unbeknownst to anyone, she suffered from a severe brain bleed. When she went into labor a month before her due date, the sheer physical trauma of a natural birth proved too much for her compromised body.

She pushed my twin sister, Jade, into the world, took one final shuddering breath, and died on the delivery table.

The medical staff panicked. With my mother’s heart stopped, I was suffocating inside her. The doctors moved with brutal efficiency, taking a scalpel to her stomach and cutting me out of her lifeless body just in time to save my life. A few more minutes, and I would have died alongside her.

The doctors sat my devastated father down and explained the grim medical reality. They told him the brain bleed was a ticking time bomb. They swore up and down that even if she had never gone into labor, she would have died anyway.

My father refused to listen.

When a werewolf loses their fated mate, the grief is cataclysmic. Some wolves go raving mad, turning feral and attacking everyone in sight. Others drown in the sorrow and take their own lives to escape the hollow agony.

My father did neither. His grief did not make him a raving lunatic. Instead, it manifested into a chillingly controlled, calculated, obsessive hatred. And he directed every single drop of that venom at me. He needed a scapegoat. He needed someone to blame for the loss of his world, and he chose the infant covered in his dead mate's blood.

Because of that twisted logic, my siblings and I grew up in two different realities. Vance and Jade are the golden children. They are treated like absolute royalty, showered with affection, new clothes, training, and praise. They are the beloved offspring of his lost mate.

I, however, am the leftover trash. The parasite who killed his wife. I have been treated as less than dirt since my very first breath.

A sudden sound snaps me out of my memories.

"Marcella, come along."

My father’s voice drifts from the living area down the hall. I freeze. It is his polite father voice. Sickeningly sweet, smooth, and laced with a fake warmth that makes my skin crawl. That specific tone means only one thing: an important guest is inside our home.

A twisted wave of relief washes over me. It is a rare, messed-up reprieve. When guests are present, he maintains the illusion of a perfect Beta family. For the next hour or so, I am guaranteed a ceasefire. I can exist in the same room as him without the threat of a fist connecting with my jaw. When you spend your life as a punching bag, you learn to savor these quiet moments of peace, no matter how fake they are.

I quicken my pace, stepping out of the hallway and into the sprawling living area.

I stop dead in my tracks. My father sits on the plush leather couch, flanked by Vance and Jade. Sitting directly across from them on the matching loveseat is Alpha Arthur, alongside an older man wearing the traditional garb of a pack Elder.

"Hello, Marcella," Alpha Arthur says, turning his head.

He offers me a warm, genuine smile. The kindness radiating from his eyes is so sudden and unexpected that my throat tightens. I swallow hard, fighting back a sudden surge of overwhelmed tears. It takes so little kindness to shatter my composure.

Alpha Arthur is a deeply good man. He has led the Emerald Ridge pack with fairness, love, and compassion for twenty-five years. He knows the name of every pup, checks on the elders, and treats his wolves like extended family. He radiates safety. I know, with absolute certainty, that if I opened my mouth right now and told him the truth—if I showed him the bruises under this sweater, the cuts on my back, the starvation—he would unleash his fury. He would rip my father from his Beta position and protect me.

The urge to speak is a physical ache. The words sit heavy on my tongue. *Help me. Please, he is going to kill me.* I stand there, staring at the man who holds the power to end my nightmare with a single command.

But I swallow the words back down into the dark. I remain silent.

My father’s standing threat echoes paralyzingly in my mind, locking my jaw shut. His voice, cold and detached, promising me a consequence worse than my own death.

*If you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, I will hunt down June and slit her throat.*

June is my grandmother. My mother’s mother. I love her deeply. After my mother died, the grief changed her. Ten years ago, she packed her belongings, abandoned pack life, and retreated to a solitary cabin deep in the forest, living alone with her pet dog. She knows nothing of the abuse. My father was always a master at hiding my bruises when we visited, and he cut off all contact the moment she moved away.

She is defenseless out there in the woods. My father is the Beta. He is strong, ruthless, and true to his word. If I break my silence and seek salvation from the Alpha, my father will ensure my grandmother bleeds for it before anyone can stop him.

The sheer terror of her murder chains me to this hell.

I stand frozen in the middle of the living room. The silence stretches. My mind spirals into a dark void, consumed by the agonizing suppression of the truth, staring blankly at the Alpha who could save me.