Chapter 31

Nicole As I walked through the upscale neighborhood park trying to clear my head after the confrontation with Tiana, memories of my childhood flooded back unbidden. When my grandparents were alive, life had been different. I was their only granddaughter, and they had doted on me endlessly. My father Alpha Timothy had once groomed me to be the perfect Alpha's daughter—a lady of high standing within werewolf society. Every day had been filled with dance classes, cello lessons, piano practice, and various other appropriate skills for a future Luna. The schedule had been so rigorous that my grandparents eventually intervened, insisting that a child deserved to grow up happy and carefree. But I had persisted with the training anyway, desperate for any scrap of Alpha Timothy's approval. Those rare moments of fatherly love had been like oxygen to me then. I had once believed I would grow up surrounded by my grandparents' unconditional love, my father's occasional praise, and my mother's unwav