Chapter 2

Like he's afraid Mom will try to reject him again, Damon snatches the thing she pulled from her pillow — a small carved token marked with the Ashford sigil — and throws it into the fire.

The flames eat it in seconds.

Then he sighs. Soft. Almost tender. He reaches out to brush her hair back, the way he used to.

Mom turns her face away.

His hand freezes mid-air. His jaw locks. The whole room drops ten degrees.

"Tonight Brielle and I are attending the Blood Moon Ball," he says flatly. "Give her your mother's moonstone set. The necklace, the pendant. All of it."

"NO!"

I'm on my feet before Mom can move.

"That belonged to Grandma. It's all Mom has left of the Ashford Pack. Nobody touches it."

Brielle's eyes fill instantly.

"My Alpha, it's my fault. I shouldn't want anything that belongs to the Luna. I wasn't born lucky like Elise. I don't have parents to protect me. Let them all laugh at me tonight then, it's fine. I'm used to it…"

Damon's face goes to stone.

"Maren. Is this how you raise a daughter? Disrespectful. Wild. No discipline at all. Maybe Brielle should raise her from now on. Teach her what obedience looks like."

Mom's face drains white. She drags herself off the bed on shaking legs and shoves me behind her.

"Take all of it. Don't touch Elise."

A flicker of triumph crosses Brielle's eyes before she goes soft again.

"My Alpha, I'm such a simple she-wolf. I'll embarrass myself at the Ball without guidance. Why doesn't Luna Maren come along as my personal maid? She can correct me when I make mistakes."

The Luna of the Thorne Pack. Serving as a maid to her mate's whore.

That's not guidance. That's public execution.

Damon doesn't even pause. "Done."

By sundown, a coarse gray maid's dress lands at our door.

I watch my mother peel her robe off her wrecked back and pull that ugly dress over bruises that haven't even started healing. Tears just keep coming and I can't stop them.

She reaches up and wipes my face. Then she presses something cool into my palm — a moon-bone hairpin, white and smooth as river stone.

"Elise, baby." Her voice is so quiet. "I don't think I have much time left."

"When I'm gone, take this pin. Run for the Northern Territories. Find Alpha Cassian. Your grandfather raised him like a son. He'll keep you safe."

"I just wish… I could've watched you grow up."

I close my fist around the pin so hard the edge cuts me.

I already know. She's been bleeding out for months. Not from the wounds. From her wolf.

She fought, in the beginning. Every time, they shoved her deeper.

When Brielle first arrived, Mom didn't want a rogue she-wolf in our pack around me. She bought a small house at the edge of pack lands and put Brielle there. Reasonable. Generous.

The next morning Damon dragged Mom out and made her crawl on her knees the full length of the pack road, in front of every warrior, to invite Brielle home herself. For being a jealous Luna.

Six moons ago, after the miscarriage, Mom grabbed a silver knife and went straight for Brielle's throat.

Damon caught her at the door. He didn't strike her. He told her, very calmly, that if she stepped one paw across that door again, he would dig up Grandma's bones and scatter them so her wolf could never return to the Moon.

Three nights ago, somebody leaked old filthy pictures of Brielle from her rogue days in the north.

Damon decided Mom did it.

So that night, he drugged her. Then he threw her in a locked shed with a pack of starving rogues. And he stood outside and listened.

That was the night her wolf went silent inside her for good.

I press my face into her chest. She's so thin I can feel every rib.

"Mom…"