Chasing Emory: The Hidden Princess

GELLER'S POV I’ll never forget the day my world was completely flipped upside down. It was the day my father, Alpha Avery St. James, returned home with his new wife and fated mate, Olivia Bennett, and her spoiled six-year-old daughter, Emory. I knew my parents' divorce was final, though I couldn’t recall when things had begun to fall apart. What I understood was simple: things hadn’t worked out between my dad and my mom, Sylvie. I was eleven when she left. But even before that, there had been constant fighting, Mom’s frequent trips “to clear her mind,” and then, eventually, silence. She sent postcards and made occasional calls, but it was clear she wasn’t coming back. It wasn’t until later that I learned she and my dad were never meant to be. With my father never finding his destined mate, my grandfather had forced him to take a "suitable" Luna. I watched my mother hurriedly pack her bags. I wanted to go with her, but she insisted I stay with my dad. 'You're the future Alpha,' she said, 'and I can't take you with me.' So, I stayed with my dad. I still remember how relieved Dad was when I chose to stay with him. He promised it would always be just the two of us. A team. And for a while, it was. Then Olivia and her bratty daughter came into the picture. I was only thirteen at the time. I was still trying to figure a lot of things out. And suddenly, they added a whole new level of confusion to my life. I didn’t understand. My dad, who’d promised it would always be me and him, was suddenly married to a stranger. He had been away for a week at some Alpha convention in a neighboring kingdom. When he returned, he brought with him a new wife and a daughter who looked like she’d stepped out of a fairytale, draped in pink frills and neatly tied bows. "Geller, son, I want you to meet Olivia, my new wife," Dad announced, beaming as if it were no big deal. "She and her daughter will be living with us from now on." "No! I don't want them here," I shouted, storming into my room and slamming the door so hard it felt like the whole house trembled. For nearly an hour, Dad and Olivia knocked, their voices muffled but persistent. I ignored them. Whatever they had to say, I wasn’t interested. If not for Dad’s threat to break the door down, a threat I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to carry out, I wouldn’t have opened it. Reluctantly, I let them in. They talked me down, though I still wasn’t on board with their plan. Not that I really had a choice. The first time I saw Olivia, I didn’t like her, naturally. Why would I? She was here to take my mother’s place in Dad’s heart, and in the pack as Luna. But eventually, I found her tolerable. She seemed gentle. A little too smiley for my taste, but not unbearable. It was the girl, Emory, I couldn’t stand. I remembered that first day. That brat followed Olivia right into my room, uninvited. She marched in with her arms crossed, her sharp eyes scanning the space like she owned it. “This room is huge,” she said, her voice sharp and demanding. “I want this one.” I blinked, stunned. What? The audacity of this girl to walk into my space and act like she had any claim over it was unreal. “No freaking way. This is my room,” I snarled. “Scram!” Before I could chase her out, Dad jumped to her defense. “Geller! That is no way to talk to your sister,” he scolded. “She’s not my sister,” I shot back. “She doesn't belong here.” And then the meltdown started. It wasn’t just crying, it was a full-on tantrum. She screamed, wailed, and stomped, her high-pitched shrieks echoing through the house like a banshee. Olivia rushed to calm her, apologizing again and again, but Emory was relentless. She made it very clear she wasn’t going anywhere. “Geller, sweetheart,” Olivia pleaded softly, “can she stay here at least until she stops crying?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was my room! And yet, somehow, I was the one being asked to accommodate. But Emory was clearly the kind of kid who didn’t take no for an answer. And Olivia? She let her get away with it. No wonder the girl was so rotten. At the time, with Olivia’s pleading, my father’s chiding, and that pesky girl’s relentless wailing, I had no choice but to give in. My 13-year-old heart burned with rebellion at the sudden invasion of my space, but I reluctantly agreed. I spent the next few hours sitting on the floor of my room, my head pounding from the endless sobbing. It wasn’t until Emory finally fell asleep in my bed that Olivia was able to carry her out of the room. That night, I resolved to avoid them both, especially the brat. But avoiding her proved impossible. The very next day, I discovered that Emory had decided my socks were her personal art supplies. She had cut them up, turning them into puppets. “They have big personalities,” she explained with a grin, as if that justified her actions. My socks became puppets for her impromptu plays. I couldn’t believe her audacity. Where did she get the idea that she could just waltz into my room and mess with my stuff? It was just one of the many things she did that drove me insane. Day after day, I’d come home from school to find my room ransacked. Crayon scribbles covered my walls, and the sharp, chemical scent of cheap markers lingered in the air. One afternoon, after a grueling day of training with my father, I walked into my room hoping to relax—only to find Emory sitting in the middle of the chaos, cutting up my comic books. Not just any comics—my Marvel Comics, the ones I had been collecting for years. That was it. I snapped. My hands trembled with anger as I surveyed the damage she’d done. She just stood there, grinning, a pair of scissors clutched in her hand as if daring me to react. And I did. In a blinding flash of rage, I grabbed the scissors from her hand and cut off a large chunk of her wild, auburn curls. It was stupid, I know that now. But in that moment, it felt like the only thing I could do to keep from completely losing it. Of course, my father came to her rescue, he always did. He grounded me, which I could handle. But then he handed down the most ridiculous punishment imaginable: I had to babysit Emory. For an entire week. Every day after school, I was tasked with keeping the brat entertained. And the worst part? If I did anything to upset her, Dad would tack on another day of punishment. It felt like cruel and unusual punishment, but there was no getting out of it. That whole week was pure hell for me. Emory shadowed me everywhere I went, constantly invading my room and messing with my stuff. She knew full well that I’d get in trouble with Dad if I lost my temper, and she used that to her advantage, pushing my buttons every chance she got. She was relentless—chatting non-stop, jumping on my bed, and doing every little thing she could think of to annoy me. By the third day, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Can you stop being your annoying self for just five minutes?” I snapped. But she didn’t flinch. Instead, she crossed her arms and stared at me, her expression smug. “I’m telling Dad you’re being mean to me,” she said, her voice sing-song. "You're going to be in trouble again." I gritted my teeth, my patience snapping. “Just shut up! Stop acting stupid!” I shot back. That was all it took. She bolted out of my room, crying loudly enough to wake the entire neighborhood. “Geller called me stupid!” I heard her wail to Dad. As expected, Dad took her side. Her crocodile tears worked their magic once again. Just like that, another day was added to my babysitting sentence. And that was when my hatred for her truly began to solidify. It wasn’t just the bratty things she did. No, it was how my father treated her, like she was some kind of princess. Heck, he even called her that. I have always been the center of my father’s world. His focus had been on me—on training me to be the next Alpha, the one who would lead the pack. But then Olivia and Emory came into our lives, and everything turned upside down. My father wasn’t the same with me anymore. He wasn’t as attentive, didn’t spend as much time training me, or talking about what it meant to be Alpha. That attention—the attention I had once taken for granted—was suddenly stolen by Emory. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. So I started to hate her. Not just for the annoying things she did, but for the way she changed everything. For the way she changed my father. For the way she and her mother changed my home. My world will never be the same again.