ily

cker, a quiet man who had been with my family for years, occasionally glanced at

body still aching from the crash, and looked at the house I had once thought was my home. It looked the

hick with a cloying vanilla and jasmine scent-Seraphina's perfume. It had seeped into the

avorite Italian leather sofa, a minimalist masterpiece of clean lines and comfort, was gone. In its p

Caden and me, taken on our wedding day, had been removed. It was replaced by a

d the Sterling pack for thirty years, hurried to g

"Welcome home. Miss Seraphina... she tho

t was a host

od, my expression u

t past her, my steps echoing in the cavernous hall, and went

, her makeup was scattered across the vanity. And my things? My clothes, my books, my personal effects-they had been uncere

was the one space in this house that was truly mine, bequeathed to me by Caden's mother, w

en the door

r chubby little hands were reaching for a dark velvet

cascade of sapphires and diamonds, the

w, but it cut through the s

her fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor.

manufactured panic. She saw her crying daughter, the necklace o

her arms. She glared at me, her eyes blazing with righte

phires sparkling on the floor. "Your da

onster who frightened her!" Seraphi

he saw was what Seraphina wanted him to see: his precious daughter in tears, his beloved

ce boomed, filled with an authority he

. "Caden, I only wanted to make the house feel more like a home fo

e fueled by her lies and his own guilt. He saw

to them," h

ock of ice in my chest. "I will say it on

e humiliation at the hospital, my refusal to be the meek, br

, to assert his dominan

as sharp and loud in th

ac

de. A fiery, stinging pai

y sound was Ava's muffled sobs

I saw a flash of pure

band. The last vestiges of the mate bond, the final, fraye

erated. It t

ng new and terrible a