nna

y. Each step sent a jolt of pain through my battered body, but I welcomed it.

wood. To the original Aryanna, this place had been a gilded cage, a place of const

contempt. They had heard what happened. The news would have spread through the pack like

lent, the air thick with unspoken tension. Polished marble floors gleamed und

d the soft r

Cayla and Andrea, desce

coiffed, her blue dress immaculate. She arranged her face into a mask of sweet co

ious sneer. "Worried? I was hoping he'd finished the job," she spat, her voice dripping with venom. "Look at you, you

engaged to you. That's right-he was ashamed. Ashamed he ever touched something as worthless as you. And now Roxanne has everything that was supposed to be yours. The title.

to the other. The old Aryanna would have flinched, would have mum

steps, her hand outstretched. "Come, let's get you cleaned up. You look a fright." Her to

half-st

froze i

d the charade. The air in the foyer crackled. Cayla's mas

e shrieked, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. "We offer you kindness and you

amien from across a ballroom, her eyes filled with a desperate, hungry longing. A memory of her seeth

lace. This wasn't jus

e a low, raspy whisper. "The family's reputati

My words had struck a nerve, a deep, f

re and mock me? You, who had everything handed to you-an engagement to the future Alpha, a c

and her puppet was going off-script. She shot me a look of pure loathing before school

ne. In all the memories, he was a ghost, a figure of cold indifference who ha

way. They whispered behind their hands, their pity laced with morbid curiosity. I ca

y were my only allies in this house, the two servants a

re disciplined for being as useless as their mistress

began to seep

Little Julian fell ill while you were... away. They we

treated me with genuine affection. A small, quiet boy of seven. He

's detachment in me burned away,

ts and Cayla's watchful eyes. I started walking towards the back o

ind me. "She's just a cornered rat. Sh

n't a cor

o hunt. And Andrea, with her petty jealousies and cr