Werewolf
Shaun

4
Shaun does not correct anyone who whispers his crime. In the Dark Blood pack, truth is a currency no one spends, and guilt is worn like a second skin. Exiled, condemned, and unworthy of redemption, he fits among them perfectly. The pack is a graveyard for past lives, and Shaun buried his the moment he chose blood over bond.
He was not always this hollow. Once, he was a loyal wolf, a devoted mate, a man who believed in the sanctity of his pack’s laws. Then Lola was born.
She never cried like a human child. She never shifted. From the moment she drew breath, she was trapped in the form of a wolf pup—small, watchful, and impossibly aware. Some called her cursed. Others whispered she was marked by something greater, something ancient. To him, she was simply his daughter.
But his mate saw something else. Fear twisted her love into hatred. Night after night, the arguments grew sharper, more desperate, until love rotted into something unrecognizable.
Shaun made his choice the night his mate tried to act without him.
He does not speak of what happened next. Not the way her voice sounded, nor the silence that followed. The pack called it murder. Treason. They cast him out before dawn, leaving him with blood on his hands and a child they would have killed.
He never looked back.
In the Dark Blood pack, no one asks about Lola. They have seen her—small, silent, always watching from the shadows. She does not shift, does not age as others do, and does not fear the monsters that surround her. If anything, they seem to fear her.
Shaun stays close, a constant, unyielding presence at her side. He has nothing left to lose, nothing left to prove. The man he once was is gone, replaced by something colder, sharper, and far more dangerous.
He does not regret what he did.