THE LYCAN QUEEN REVENGE

"Your parents are dead... Ava."

The words felt so foreign to hear.

"My parents are what?"

My breath caught, my vision blurred, and the world tilted under me. My body sagged forward against the table, knocking into a bowl. Food spilled, rolling across the wood, but all I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears.

Brian lunged to catch me, his arms steadying me before I collapsed to the floor. I clutched at my head, my nails digging into my scalp as if the pressure might squeeze sense into what I had just heard. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"What... what do you mean?" My voice trembled like a child’s. I looked up at him with wet eyes, desperation clinging to every word. "What do you mean?"

Brian’s jaw tightened, his grip gentle but firm as he steadied me.

"Ava..."

He lowered me back into the chair, his hand still on my shoulder. His gaze softened, grief heavy in his eyes.

"Ava," he said again. "Your father..."

Whatever he said failed to register. The words were there. The sound was audible... but I just couldn’t understand anything Brian said.

"...as for your mother... She passed months before from her illness. I thought you knew."

The words sank like stones into my chest. My father. My mother. Both gone, while I had been wasting myself on Lucas’s lies.

Not just that, I didn’t even bother to check up on them. I felt it, the nagging knowledge that someone must’ve tried to inform me of all this, but I was too trapped in my love blind reality to care.

A scream built in my throat but never made it past my lips. Instead, the tears surged again, hot and endless, running faster than I could wipe them away.

’How do I even have tears left to cry?’ I cursed internally. Trying to hide from reality and failing each time.

"No... No, this can’t be true. They can’t be gone. They can’t."

Brian’s eyes shone with pain, but he said nothing more. He simply stayed beside me, letting me grieve. The silence wrapped around me, until I felt myself drift. The room blurred into darkness, the sounds dulled, and the world itself seemed to fade.

Days passed in that void. I could not tell when it was morning or night. I remembered Brian checking on me, remembered trays of food left by my side that went untouched. I remembered the weight of his presence nearby, silent and steady, but nothing else pierced the fog.

And before long, it was the day of the funeral.

▪︎▪︎▪︎

"Are you sure you’ll be fine here?" Brian asked, concerned.

"That doesn’t matter. I just need to be here."

The pack’s land felt foreign beneath my feet. The familiar scents and sights that had once been my birthright now met me with suspicion and contempt. Eyes followed me as I walked toward the funeral grounds, whispers rippling through the crowd. I saw the sneers, the curled lips, the disdain that no one dared to voice while Brian walked at my side.

He moved close enough that his presence warned them to hold their tongues, but their eyes said enough. To them, I was no longer a princess. I was a fool who had abandoned her people for a man who destroyed her. Bad news always spread fastest after all.

The processions passed in a blur. My father’s body laid to rest with honor, the air heavy with incense and grief. I stood silent, numb, as words were spoken over him. My heart cried, but my face stayed blank.

I didn’t have a single word to say to the man who raised me. Cared for me. Protected me... before I knew what any of it was.

I would never be able to repay his unconditional love.

’I’m sorry dad... please, forgive me.’

When it ended, before Brian and I could even get our bearings the elders gathered. Their stares bore holes into me as they approached, they looked amused for a while before staring at one another. Finally, one of them stepped forward, his tone thick with false courtesy.

"As tradition dictates, the Alpha’s mantle must pass. With King Blackhawk gone, leadership falls to his brother."

My uncle stepped forward, his hand placed on my shoulder with a condescending smile. "You’ve been through much, Ava. Leave the burden of the pack to those who understand the weight. You are still a child in many ways. I will protect you, as family should."

I said nothing. I had said nothing since arriving, not to them, not to anyone but Brian.

Another elder added with a scoff, "It is for the best. A weak female who cannot even shift could never hope to bear the Alpha’s crown. Your father’s one failing was in leaving us without a true heir."

The words burned through the fog of my grief. They struck deeper than Lucas’s insults, sharper than the whispers of the pack. They insulted my father. They spat on his memory.

My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. My chest heaved as if something inside me had torn loose. A growl rumbled deep in my throat, strange and raw, shaking the air around me.

The elders froze, their smug expressions faltering. Brian stepped back, his eyes widening as he watched.

Something within me surged to life. Fueled by all the betrayal, the insults, the pain... even my own mistakes. My vision sharpened, colors growing brighter, more vivid. Every detail stood out with startling clarity, from the fear widening the elders’ eyes to the subtle tremor of leaves in the breeze.

My skin prickled, heat flooding through me as if my body itself had been set ablaze. I felt my bones shift, muscles stretching, something inside tearing free. My nails lengthened, my breath deepened, and the growl that had started low in my throat burst into a roar that silenced the crowd.

The grief, the humiliation, the shame that had weighed me down snapped like chains. What replaced it was power.

I felt my wolf rise for the first time.

The naive princess who had bowed her head, who had endured in silence, was gone. In her place stood something fiercer, something ready to face reality. My wolf’s eyes stared back at them through mine, glowing bright with the fire of a true heir.

The elders stumbled backward. The crowd was still so silent one could hear a pin drop from miles away. Even my uncle’s smug smile had drained from his face, replaced with wide eyed shock.

For the first time in my life, they did not see a weak girl. They saw a Queen.

"What did you just say about my father?" I asked abgryily ready to tear anyone that insults my late father into pieces.