The Second Chance Wolf Chapter 03

The Second Chance Wolf Chapter 03

Mom called my name.

For a brief moment, hope flickered inside me.

Maybe they would notice the swollen red hives covering my skin.

Maybe they would finally realize I really was allergic.

But the next second, Mom simply said, “Summer break has started, but don’t just sit around. Find yourself a summer job. You’re an adult now. It’s time you learned some responsibility instead of wandering around the pack all day.”

Anna got to spend her summer vacation in Las Vegas.

If I wanted anything, I had to earn it myself.

I paused for a moment before pushing the door open and walking out.

The truth was, I had always been responsible.

I gave up things I wanted without complaining. I helped Mom with pack affairs and ran errands whenever she asked. I never asked my family for money.

But because they favored Anna, everything I did was somehow wrong.

I took a taxi to the pack hospital by myself.

I picked up my own medication.

Just then, my phone chimed with a notification.

It was a new post from Anna.

[I wanted Dubai chocolate, so Mom and Dad insisted on taking me shopping for it! When you’re loved, you’ll always be their sweetheart!]

The photos showed Mom and Dad surrounding Anna, happily feeding her pieces of Dubai chocolate.

I had wanted to try it too.

The first time I saw it on social media, I had quietly asked Mom if she could buy me one and bring it to the training grounds.

Her answer had been cold.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working toward Royal Fang Academy? Chocolate will make you gain weight. If you don’t even have that much self-control, how do you expect to become a warrior?”

After examining me, the pack doctor said gently, “This was an acute allergic reaction. If you’d arrived any later, we would have had to send you straight to the ER.”

His words landed softly. But they weighed heavily on my heart.

“Hope,” he asked, “didn’t the Alpha and Luna know you’re allergic to seafood?”

How could they not? They simply didn’t care.

I endured the pain alone as the IV slowly dripped into my arm.

If it had been Anna who hadn’t come home all night, Mom and Dad would have searched the entire pack in panic.

Instead, I stared at my phone. Not a single message asked where I was.

My fingers tightened around it until my knuckles turned white.

Another notification appeared. This time, it was Mom’s post.

[My precious daughter graduated! Next stop, Royal Fang Academy!]

The post was filled with nine photos. Every single one featured Anna.

I kept scrolling through Mom’s profile.

It was page after page of Anna’s smiling face.

There was only one photo of me.

And even then… it was only because I happened to be standing beside Anna.

By then, I was used to it.

Ever since we were children, every camera had been pointed at Anna.

Even Mom’s friends, the other Lunas, thought she only had one daughter. They believed our pack had only one heir.

The first time they met me, one of them stared in shock.

“Twins? I never would have guessed. The older one doesn’t look anything like her sister, or either of you.”

Mom and Dad simply smiled. Dad held Anna’s hand a little tighter.

“Yeah. They came from the same mother. If only Hope were even half as outstanding as her sister.”

In their eyes… I had never been their daughter. I was only an accessory that came with their perfect child.

By the time my IV treatment ended, it was already the next day.

When I pushed open the door to the packhouse, Mom and Dad were in the living room helping Anna pack her luggage.

Seeing me standing at the entrance, Mom casually asked, “Hope, where have you been?”

I looked at them quietly, “Does it matter? You wouldn’t have cared anyway.”

The room fell silent.

Dad’s expression immediately darkened.

“So you think you’re grown up now? You think that gives you the right to talk back to your parents? To your Alpha and Luna?”

“You disappeared all night, and you actually have the nerve to blame us?”

The hives covering my hands had not faded yet.

They saw them. They simply pretended they didn’t.

I clenched the hem of my dress until my palm stung, “It won’t happen again.”

Dad’s harsh scolding echoed behind me.

I turned and walked back to my room. Only then did I realize all of my belongings had been thrown into the hallway.

Anna had dumped everything outside.

My eyes landed on a dirty stuffed wolf lying inside the trash can.

I had won second place in a training competition when I was nine years old.

Mom and Dad had taken me to make that stuffed wolf as my reward.

It had been the first time I ever stood proudly beside Anna.

She had taken first place. I had taken second.

But halfway through making mine, Mom and Dad had left me behind to take Anna to a movie instead.

Anna stuck out her tongue playfully.

“Sis, you’re going away to college anyway. You won’t be coming back to the packhouse very often.”

“So… can I have your room from now on?”