The first time Sebastian Sax put gum in my hair, I was eight years old, and I decided right then that I would spend the rest of my life making his existence a living nightmare. We weren’t supposed to be friends. Our packs had been one clan once, until two wolves who both wanted to be alpha fought over the same mate. The pack split in two, and the two halves had been blaming each other for their misery ever since.
But kids don’t care about old grudges. We played in the woods together, and I actually liked Sebastian. He taught me how to skip stones and built the best huts I’d ever seen. Then my parents told me to stay away from him.
So I found a new reason to keep seeing him: I had to beat him. Our innocent games turned into a fierce, escalating rivalry. We formed teams, planned strategies, and trained for victory like it was war. On the day he ruined everything, we were having a tree-climbing competition.
My team and his were tied, and it all came down to Sebastian and me. I climbed faster than anyone, but he was faster still. So I did what any wolf would do: I threw a pebble at his back. He fell, I won, and my packmates screamed with triumph.
I knelt beside him, waiting for my crown of twigs and flowers. Instead, he spat his gum right on top of my head. “Sorry, it slipped,” he smirked. I screamed, trying to get it out of my long, golden curls, but I only made it worse.
He laughed, that stupid brown mop of his bouncing as he found the whole thing hilarious. Then I burst into tears, and for a second he looked sorry. Until I threw myself at him and punched his jaw. All hell broke loose.
A month later, I found the magician’s shop. It was a small, dark place people avoided looking at too directly. But I pushed the door open anyway, because I had a plan. Adrien crouched down over the counter and frowned at me.
“Are you the magician that grants wishes? ” I asked, unimpressed. “Who’s asking? ”
“I’m Cassandra Harrow of the Black Thorn Pack,” I proclaimed.
“And I’m here to make a wish. ”
He tried to scare me off, but it didn’t work. I was a wolf shifter, and like most of my kind, I was overly confident and astoundingly stupid. “You know it will cost you, right?
”
I nodded solemnly and placed my pink piggy bank on the counter. “This should cover it. All of my savings. ”
“At least thirty bucks,” I added proudly.
“It’s not money I want,” he said. “What are you hoping to wish for so urgently? ”
“I need you to make someone bald,” I said, my eyes shining with righteous indignation. “Can you make it happen?
”
He raised an eyebrow. “I think so, yes. ”
I squealed with excitement. “Though,” he continued, “as I’d be taking what matters to you the most in exchange for your wish, I urge you to consider using a razor instead.
”
“What do you mean? What matters most to me? ”
“It depends on the person. It could range from your PlayStation to one of your parents.
”
My eyes widened. “Or a sibling,” he added, with a hunch. “I have a twin brother,” I whispered. “Well, there you go.
Do you really want to risk losing your brother just so some guy might lose his hair? ”
“He isn’t just some guy,” I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust. “He’s the lowest, most awful person who’s ever walked this earth. ”
“That bad?
”
“The worst! A real nuisance. A life-ruiner. ”
He nodded, pretending to understand.
“I’m sure he is. But maybe you don’t have to wish for his demise. You could make it happen yourself. You seem like quite a capable kid to me.
”
I thought about it. “Yeah, I guess I don’t really need you,” I said, shrugging. “You do seem rather useless. ”
He handed me my piggy bank back.
“Good luck with ruining the nuisance’s life, little Cassandra. ”
“I’m not little. You’re the one who’s a giraffe. ”
I stormed out with my nose in the air, already planning my revenge.
For two years, we went back and forth. I’d come up with a plan, and Sebastian would retaliate with something better. When I hid my own hedgehog and sent a fake kidnapping note signed by Sebastian, he wrote a fake apology letter from me, confessing to crimes I’d never committed, and his parents believed every word. We went to war over everything.
Neither of us ever backed down. It didn’t end until my eleventh birthday, which marked Sebastian’s thirteenth. That was the year he had to compete in the hunt, a rite of passage for every young wolf his age. Whoever brought back the biggest bounty would win and bring honor to their pack.
Everyone knew Sebastian would win. But I was determined to beat him. I went back to Adrien’s shop, asking for magic to make me strong enough to win. He taunted me instead, pointing out that if I couldn’t do it myself, beating Sebastian wouldn’t really count.
So I trained. I studied the hunting plans, memorized every detail, and scouted the forest, mapping the trails and tracking the game. I followed a massive bear for days, learning its habits. On the day of the hunt, I rose before dawn, went into the woods alone, and fought it with everything I had.
When I dragged its body into the clearing, the crowd fell silent. Then they erupted with applause. The head elder placed the garland meant for Sebastian around my neck. “We crown Cassandra as this year’s victor,” he announced.
I didn’t care about the fame or the glory. I only cared about the pure shock on Sebastian’s face. There was resentment and anger in his wide green eyes, and something else, something dangerously close to admiration. That feeling went straight to my head.
By thirteen, I was an aggressive fighter, a force to be reckoned with. My father started pitting me against my twin brother Ronin, trying to determine which of us would become alpha. I’d fought older wolves and won. But Sebastian was getting taller, broader, stronger.
Our nighttime fights in the woods were becoming harder for me to win. “You’re the one holding back your punches,” I told him one night, when I could feel how hard he was trying not to hurt me. “If anything, at least try to hide it better,” I snarled, swiping his legs out from under him. I rolled on top of him, pinning him to the ground, my thighs tight around his.
He blinked up at me, confused. A faint blush spread across his cheekbones. His gaze turned dark, and his scent spiked. My mouth went dry.
I swayed forward. He flipped us over, pressing me down with his greater weight. “Stop moving,” he groaned against my neck. Then I felt the graze of his teeth against my skin.
“Get off me! ” I screamed, fear clawing at my senses. He pulled away like he’d been burned. “I scared you,” he murmured, looking so regretful you’d think I was fragile.
“Shut up,” I snapped, humiliated, and ran off. He didn’t come back to our meeting spot the next night. We barely spoke for two years after that. I told myself I didn’t care.
But I started dreaming of him at night, dreaming of fighting and winning, of finding that admiration in his gaze again. Then he’d bite my neck, and I’d wake up breathless. I even went to Adrien to ask if he could take my dreams away. But I refused to tell him what they were about, especially when his human friend, Iris, said something that hit too close to home.
“Dreams often reflect unconscious feelings,” she said. I ran out of that shop and buried myself in training. When I finally saw Sebastian again, he was almost eighteen and surrounded by girls. He was taller, broader, charming, with that stupid mess of brown hair and light freckles across his nose.
I hated how easily everyone accepted him. He was going to be alpha, and everyone could feel it. That night, I dreamed I was the one everyone admired, the one holding her head high in dominance, with Sebastian among the crowd, subjected to my authority. I woke up feeling powerful.
A few weeks later, I decided to test him. I put on a dress, did my makeup, and snuck into a club where I knew he’d be. I danced with others, hoping to get his attention. But when he saw me, he barely looked at me before his friend diverted his attention.
So I went after his friend instead. I let Peter kiss me, right in front of Sebastian’s booth. I didn’t care much for it. I was watching the surge of anger cloud Sebastian’s scent.
Suddenly, Sebastian was there, pulling Peter off me so hard he almost fell. “Get off her,” he snarled. “She’s sixteen years old. You think it’s fine taking advantage of a minor?
”
“I didn’t know she was sixteen,” Peter stammered. Sebastian lunged at him. I grabbed his arm. “I wanted him to kiss me.
Leave him alone. ”
His jaw clenched, his gaze dark, his scent intoxicating. “Can’t you smell how much he wanted more than to kiss you? ” he muttered, his fingers encircling my arm.
I smirked cruelly. “I’d be happy to let him fuck me. ”
His grip tightened to the point of pain. He looked at my bare neck with a fixated intent, and for a moment, I thought he was going to bite me.
Then he let go and walked off. I thought I’d lost him again. But he turned back around and barked, “Our place in the woods. Tomorrow night.
”
I was seventeen when our meetings in the woods changed forever. I started it, taunting him into a fight. We clashed, blow for blow, our breaths mingling. “I think we’re finished here,” he said.
Finished. That word filled me with a rage I couldn’t contain. “Finished! ”
I threw myself at him, and we toppled to the ground.
Our eyes met, and then we were kissing, desperate and angry. It was like nothing I’d ever felt. We tore at each other’s clothes without hesitation. I gave myself to him, my body and everything I had.
I knew we shouldn’t. If anyone found out, it would ruin everything. The fragile peace between our packs, my future as alpha, his too. And worse, I knew he’d never respect me as a rival again.
But when he looked at me like that, like I was everything, I couldn’t stop. We were lovers for years after that. We had to keep it secret. We knew the hate between our packs would never allow us to be together.
I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. I loved him. When I was eighteen, Finn, one of my packmates, noticed it in the bar. “He smells like you,” he said, gripping Sebastian by the shirt.
“Why does he smell like you? ”
The world stopped. I lied, telling everyone we’d gotten into a fight behind the bar. Sebastian went along with it, but the damage was done.
He learned his father would make him alpha in a few days, and he couldn’t be seen fighting with a wolf from an enemy pack. “You could have hurt her,” my twin brother Ronin spat at him. “No, he couldn’t,” I said, but Ronin didn’t listen. Later, Sebastian confronted me.
“You’re the one who panicked at the idea of everyone finding out, not me. What am I supposed to think? Especially when you let all these other wolves touch you right in front of me. ”
“There is no us,” I snapped, out of fear.
“You and I aren’t together. ”
He grabbed my jaw. “You’re mine. ”
“I’m not.
”
His forehead fell against mine. “You could be. I want you to be, Cass. I love you.
”
I was terrified. I thought it was a trick. I pushed him away. “We’re nothing.
You’re nothing to me. ”
He paled. Then he turned and walked away. I thought of calling him back, but I didn’t.
The next day, he answered my father’s call, apologized for approaching me, and swore it wouldn’t happen again. It didn’t. I was twenty when my father told me he’d decided to make me alpha. It was everything I’d ever wanted.
But I felt nothing at all. And then I learned Sebastian was getting engaged. He was to be mated to the daughter of a powerful alpha. At the engagement party, I wore my most beautiful dress.
He didn’t look at me once. He danced with her, laughed with her, whispered in her ear. I couldn’t take it. When I finally had to greet them, I gave my congratulations through gritted teeth.
He replied curtly, then moved his fiancée away for a dance. I fled to a nearby library to hide my tears. Then the door opened. It was Sebastian.
Alone. “What are you doing here? ” I asked. “You’re in my house,” he shot back.
We argued. We said terrible things to each other. He told me I had always acted like we were nothing. I told him he never earned my attention.
“You always had it,” he snarled. “I’ve always looked at you. Always. Ever since we were young.
But I’m done now. It’s over. ”
“It’ll never be over,” I told him. “You know it and I know it.
”
And then I kissed him. He kissed me back, hard and desperate. I told him I loved him. He flinched like I had hurt him.
“No. Enough. ” He fled the room without looking back. The next morning, he came to me.
He was drunk, having celebrated his engagement the night before. He crawled into my bed, and I found myself in his arms. “I don’t have a fiancée,” he whispered. “I broke off our engagement.
I couldn’t mate with another when you love me. ”
I told him I loved him again. He begged me to say it again. And then he buried his teeth in my neck.
He bit me. He claimed me. I screamed with pleasure and pain. But then my brother was there, screaming too.
He had stabbed Sebastian in the back with our father’s dagger, the one that can kill any wolf with a single prick. Sebastian collapsed on top of me, bleeding out. “He was going to force himself on you,” Ronin yelled. “I heard you tell him no.
”
“No, he wasn’t. I love him. Sebastian and I have been lovers for years. ”
Ronin’s eyes widened in horror.
He ran to get our father. Our father was furious. He told me to keep it a secret that I had wanted to be claimed. He said he would frame Sebastian as a rapist to protect our pack.
“If you want you and your brother to live, you’ll keep that to yourself,” he commanded. I knelt beside my dying mate and promised him I would fix everything. The next morning, I banged on the magician’s door. Iris let me in.
Adrien came down, and I looked him in the eye. “You’re going to grant me a wish. I don’t care what it costs. ”
He sighed.
He had known this day would come. “What do you wish for? ”
“For my mate to recover. He’s dying.
”
“You know I’ll have to take what matters most to you. ”
“Sebastian is what matters most to me. ”
“Then you’ll probably have to be apart. He’ll be alive, but not with you.
”
I was ready to accept that. But then he looked at me and said, “You’re with child. ”
I froze. He was right.
My wolf could feel it, so small and new. “There’s a chance your child will be a wolf,” Adrien said. “But you probably won’t be able to raise him. ”
He took my hand, closed his eyes, and told me what he was taking: my wolf.
He was going to make me human, so I could never be Sebastian’s mate. I thought about it. Sebastian was dying. My baby was growing inside me.
I put my hand on my stomach and said, “Do it. Grant my wish. ”
I didn’t feel my wolf leave. One moment, it was howling inside me.
The next, it was gone. The silence was devastating. I screamed. It worked.
Sebastian was healed. And I went back to my pack a human. My brother and mother cried. Sebastian saw me, his hopeful smile falling when he met my gaze.
“What’s wrong? ”
“I’m not your mate,” I told him. “I’m human now. ”
He didn’t care.
He insisted on seeing me, bursting into my room despite my brother’s protests. He dropped to his knees beside me and pulled me into his arms. “You’re my mate,” he said. “I’m human.
I can’t be your mate. ”
“So what? ” He shrugged. “I already told my pack I renounced my title because we couldn’t live near yours.
If you’re against being called mates, I hope you’ll at least do me the honor of being my wife. I hear humans are perfectly satisfied being husband and wife instead. ”
I shook my head. “Sebastian, you can’t give up everything for me.
”
“You gave up your wolf for me. You think I wouldn’t make a sacrifice infinitely smaller than that? ”
I had to tell him the truth. “I’m pregnant.
I may not survive the birth. I won’t be able to look after our baby. ”
He didn’t crumble. He looked at me with pure joy.
“Is it mine? ”
“Who else’s would it be, you fool? ”
He smiled. “We’ll be okay.
As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay. ”
The next time I saw Cass, she was twenty-two, holding a four-month-old baby named Harry, short for Harrison, because Sebastian was a big fan of that human film series. I brought her a gift from Adrien: a silver ring. He had poured his own magic into it, sealing something inside.
He told me that if Cass or her descendants ever needed help, they should come to him with the ring. But the thing it contained was her wolf, sealed away. He couldn’t give it back while he was alive. He would have to die for her to reclaim it.
I handed her the box and explained. Sebastian looked like he wanted to rip it out of my hands, but Cass appeased him with a glance. “Could we go now and have him make Cass a wolf again? ” he asked, frustrated.
“We’re days away from giving up our son to her brother for safety, and it’s keeping her awake at night. ”
“Giving her a wolf back is impossible. That would mean canceling her wish, and that can’t be done. ”
“You’ve done enough,” Sebastian snapped, showing me out.
“Thank you,” Cassandra told me over her shoulder. “Tell him thank you. ”
On my way back to the shop, I wondered if I could ever love someone that much. To the point where I’d sacrifice so much for them.
When I got back, I asked Adrien if he’d ever been in love. He didn’t reply.
