The Beta’s Ugly Daughter

[Gail’s POV]

The fork clattered against my plate as Mother's voice sliced through the morning silence like a whip crack.

"Try not to embarrass us today, would you, Gail?" She didn't even lift her eyes from her correspondence, her perfectly manicured fingers gripping her pen like a weapon. "Sit up straight. Your posture is as revolting as the rest of you."

I jerked upright in my chair at the far end of the dining table, my spine snapping to attention. The movement sent my orange juice sloshing dangerously close to the rim of my glass.

"Careful!" Mother's ice-blue eyes finally found me, narrowing with disgust. "Must you be clumsy on top of everything else?"

My hand trembled as I steadied the glass. Even at forty-five, Vivian Raymond commanded the room with her ethereal beauty—silver-blonde hair swept into an elegant chignon, skin like porcelain, lips painted the color of fresh blood.

She was a perfection incarnate, and I was the living proof that even goddesses could birth monsters.

"The Sullivans are hosting an engagement celebration tonight," she announced, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "Your cousin Mira is marrying the Alpha's heir."

Wyatt Sullivan. The boy whose smile had haunted my dreams for five years, whose very existence made my pathetic heart race every time he passed me in the corridors.

"How... how wonderful for Mira," I managed, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Wonderful indeed." Garrett looked up from his breakfast, his handsome face twisted into a cruel smile. "Though I have to wonder—should we really subject poor Wyatt to the sight of our dear sister tonight?"

Father finally joined the conversation, his deep voice rumbling with amusement. "What do you mean, son?"