Chapter 4 CHAPTER 4

Cindy’s cheek still stung from the first slap when Mrs. Hale’s voice rose again, sharp and shaking with fury.

“What was that out there?!” she spat. “Running off without even accepting Sebastian’s rejection. Do you want to drag this humiliation out forever? Do you think keeping the bond alive will somehow make you Luna?”

Cindy’s lips parted, but no words came. Her chest still burned from the tearing pain of rejection, her ribs aching as though invisible claws were raking her from the inside.

Mrs. Hale’s eyes gleamed with disgust. “Look at you. You’re nothing. If we hadn’t dragged you out of the forest, you’d have been bones by now, forgotten under the leaves. And now you dare stand in front of the entire pack, pretending the Goddess chose you? You are rejected even by your own family!”

Anna crossed her arms from the corner, her voice sharp with glee. “She liked the attention, Mother. That’s why she ran away instead of finishing it. She wanted everyone to look at her for once.”

Cindy’s hands curled into fists. Her body trembled, but not just from fear. Something inside her twisted -tight, fierce, uncoiling.

Mrs. Hale jabbed a finger at her chest. “You will march back to that green right now and accept Sebastian’s rejection. Break the bond and free him. Do you hear me?”

Something in Cindy snapped.

Her voice, when it came, shook at first, then steadied. “Why are you really angry, Mother? Because it was me… or because it wasn’t Anna, your real daughter?”

The room froze.

Mrs. Hale’s eyes widened, as though the walls themselves had spoken back to her.

Cindy swallowed, her courage rising like a tide. “You wanted the Goddess to choose Anna. You’ve been pushing her to the front of every gathering, dressing her like a doll for Sebastian to notice. But she wasn’t chosen. I was. And you can’t stand it. Is that it? Are you angry because your dream of having a Luna in this family died the moment the Goddess looked at me, your servant daughter instead?”

Anna growled, color flooding her cheeks. “How dare you…”

But Cindy wasn’t finished. The words poured out, years of silence breaking all at once. “Everyone knows you once wanted to be Luna yourself. You wanted Alpha Richard, and when that didn’t happen, you pushed the dream onto Anna. And now it’s over. Maybe the Goddess didn’t make a mistake. Maybe she just finally looked past you.”

The silence that followed was heavy, dangerous.

Mrs. Hale’s face went white, then red with rage. She lunged forward and struck Cindy again, the slap ringing through the cottage. “You ungrateful brat!” she growled, her voice low and trembling with fury. Another slap followed, harder, until Cindy staggered back against the table.

Breathless, Mrs. Hale pointed toward the door. “You think you’re grown enough to talk back? Then you’re grown enough to fend for yourself. Get out of my house.”

Cedric finally spoke, his voice low and strained. “Hilda….”

“Don’t you ‘Hilda’ me!” she growled. “If she won’t accept the rejection and end this disgrace, then she is no daughter of mine. Let her live with the shame she’s brought on us!”

Cindy’s chest heaved. Tears blurred her vision, but she forced the words past the lump in her throat. “I was never your daughter mother. You have never treated me like one. So your threat doesn’t hold any water to me.”

That sealed it.

Mrs. Hale’s lips curled in disgust. “Then go. Leave. And don’t come back.”

Anna’s voice followed like a knife. “Good riddance.”

Cindy’s knees almost gave out, but she didn’t let them see her fall. She stumbled to the door, the rejection pain and her mother’s words burning through her in equal measure. Then she was outside, the cold night air striking her face like another blow.

She ran.

Her feet pounded the packed earth of the lane, then the forest floor, until the cottages and torches fell away behind her. Branches clawed at her arms, tears streamed hot down her cheeks, and still she ran. The ache inside her chest grew heavier with each breath, twisting deeper, until she thought she might collapse.

“Why me? Why now? Why would the Goddess choose me only to let me be thrown away?”

The festival drums had faded. Only the wind followed her now, rushing through the pines. She didn’t stop until the trees opened to the jagged edge of a cliff, the valley yawning below, black and endless.

She staggered to the edge, chest heaving, her tears mixing with the cold night air. Her whole body trembled as she cried out to the sky. “I didn’t ask for this! I never wanted this!” Her voice cracked, raw. “Why would you choose me? I don’t want to be Luna. I don’t want any of this!”

The pain inside her built and built until it was too much to contain. She clutched her chest, falling to her knees. And then…

Something deep within her roared.

It wasn’t a sound she made with her mouth. It was inside her, powerful and furious, surging like fire through her veins.

“You should have told them, a voice thundered in her head. You should have let me out long ago. You tried to keep us invisible, just because I’m different than the other wolves, but look where that has left us. Humiliated. Beaten. Cast out.”

Cindy gasped, her eyes wide. She clutched her head, shaking, as the presence inside her pressed harder, impossible to ignore.

“I am Lisa," the voice growled, fierce and unyielding. "And I am no ordinary wolf. I am Lycan - more powerful than their alpha, and I am yours.I am defying your orders to keep hidden. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

Cindy’s whole body convulsed. Pain and power tore through her all at once, her skin burning, her bones stretching, reshaping. She staggered back from the cliff’s edge, her scream swallowed by the night, until it was no longer a scream at all, but a howl.

The forest trembled with the sound.

And there she was – Lisa, the lycan.

For the first time in her life, Cindy the invisible girl embraced the power she had been hiding all along, she no longer felt small - she felt vast, terrible and Powerful.