Chapter 1

Celeste's POV

They call this place 'Angel Reform Academy'.

But every wolf locked inside knows the truth.

This is no academy-it's hell.

Angel Reform Academy claims to take in the disobedient heirs of every Pack, promising that its cunning two-year "reformation" will return a docile, well-trained successor to their families.  

But the moment you enter, you stop being an heir. You stop being anything. Here, we are stripped of names, titles, futures-reduced to trash. 

Especially wolves like me. For eighteen years I wore the crown of an Alpha's daughter, the heir of Frost Pack. And then, in a single day, they found out I was just a fake.

Now, inside Angel Reform Academy, I'm not just unwanted.

I'm the lowest of the low.

I'm pressed against the cold stone wall of the shower block, teeth chattering not from the water-it's scalding, burning my shoulders red-but from fear. Redmoon Pack's daughter Lyra Thorn's boot grinds into my wrist, cracking bones against the tile. Her laughter slices through the steam like broken glass.

"Look at her," she sneers to the girls behind her. "Still trying to act like the Frost heiress. Remember when she wore silk gowns? Now she's just a rat in rags."

One of her lackeys yanks my hair, jerking my head back. Hot water blasts my face, burning my eyes shut. I taste blood-from where my lip split when they shoved me in here.

"Apologize," Lyra hisses, pressing harder on my wrist. "Apologize for pretending you ever belonged with us."

I don't speak. Not because I'm proud, but because if I open my mouth, the water will flood my lungs. Lyra doesn't like that. She nods, and my head is slammed into the tile. Once. Twice. Stars explode behind my eyelids. Copper floods my mouth.

"Say it!" Lyra screams.

"I'm… sorry," I gasp. The words are a lie-but lies are survival.

They shove me to the floor and I scramble up, catching her eye. I froze. I forgot the rule. Eye contact is a challenge.

She grins, slow and cruel. "Looks like we need to teach you another lesson."

That night, they throw me into the isolation cage. Bare stone walls, barely enough room to curl into a ball. The bars are lined with silver. One graze and my skin screams.

"Three days," the Enforcer snarls. "No food, no water. Maybe that'll knock the defiance out of you, Hallow."

The first day, I writhe in agony, curling into myself. Every movement sends silver biting into my arms, leaving angry streaks across my skin. Hunger claws at me, but it's nothing compared to the fear. I cry until my throat is raw, but no one comes. Only distant howls, the scrape of my own claws against stone-a desperate echo of my uselessness.

By the second day, hallucinations come. I see my little brother Elias, eyes wide, standing outside the cage. "Forgive me," he whispers. "I didn't mean it." I reach for him, hand brushing silver bars, the sting jolting me back to reality.

Outside, I hear Lyra and her pack laughing. "Think she's dead yet?" one asks. "Good riddance. She's not even a real wolf-just an impostor."

I clamp my eyes shut. I am Celeste Hallow, I used to be Celeste Frost,

the cherished heiress of the Frost Family, the jewel of Moonviel City. Parents who adored me, brothers who swore they'd protect me, a betrothal to Dorian Blackfang. For eighteen years, I thought I belonged.

But the truth devoured me on my eighteenth birthday.

Under the full moon, another girl stepped onto our pack grounds. Her scent-sharp, pure, undeniable-belonged to the Frost bloodline.

Serena Frost.

For eighteen years, no one questioned me. Frost blood had always been clouded by the family's curse-our firstborn daughters bore veiled wolves, their true scents hidden until adulthood. Everyone thought I was simply waiting for my wolf to awaken, that when my eighteenth moon came, my bloodline would blaze through.

But Serena's arrival tore that veil away. She carried the Frost scent openly, defiantly, as if the curse itself bent to reveal her. And before my own wolf could even stir, my father's gaze slid past me, clinging to her as though she had always been the one.

With that breath of recognition, my world shattered.

My family wrapped her in their arms. And me? I became the mistake. The burden. The outsider.

At the ceremonial gathering, poison seeped into the wine. Serena collapsed, choking out my name. The cups were searched, and mine-the only one untouched-was blamed. No one listened. No one cared.

Father growled I had shamed the bloodline.

Mother wept, asking why I could not rejoice for my "sister."

Callen, my warrior brother, said I was cruel.

Even Elias, who once clung to me, snarled he had no heartless sister.

They sent me here. They said I needed to undergo "re-education."So they stripped me of my name. Stripped me of my identity. From that moment, I was Celeste Hallow, the discarded pup.

The two-year reformation period will end in 7 days, and I have already spent 723 days here-723 days, 24 visiting opportunities, and not once did they show up.

By the third day in isolation, I am delirious. Hunger gnaws, thirst burns, exhaustion crushes me. I see Elias outside the bars again, begging for forgiveness. I lunge, and silver bites my arm. Reality crashes in.

When the Enforcer finally opens the cage, I stumble to my knees. "Up," he barks, kicking my ankle. "Dinner's in ten minutes-or you get nothing."

The mess hall is a gauntlet. Slop in bowls, stolen before I finish. A boy from Bloodfang smirks as he grabs mine. "Trash doesn't get to eat," he sneers.

I do not fight. Fighting is more punishment, more whips, more tiles to crash my head against. I have learned invisibility: hunch my shoulders, eyes down, speak only when spoken to.

In the laundry room, sorting Lyra's dirty uniforms, I freeze when I hear a familiar voice crackle through the comm.

My father's voice came first, cold as the silver bars of my cage: "Hallow-still quiet?" Lyra grunted, "Quieter than a corpse. She doesn't fight back anymore." 

Then my mother's voice, soft but sharp enough to cut: "Good. Serena's been restless, thinking about her. We can't have that-Serena's our real daughter." A pause, and Elias spoke. 

My little brother, who once climbed into my bed when he had nightmares. "If she dies there… it's fine. She was never part of us." 

My blood runs cold. My own father-the man who once cradled me in his arms, who taught me to trust-he orchestrated this. He smiled, taught me, loved me, and all the while had been plotting my torment.

The words slam into me harder than any whip.

Every hope I clung to-that maybe they'd regret it, maybe one day they'd come to save me-

shatters like glass.

My own father's voice, sharp and unforgiving like a blade of silver, cuts through my heart deeper than the cold metal bars of this cage ever could, just as the realization that my mother, my brothers, and every single bond I had once believed was unbreakable and true were all nothing more than elaborate lies settles heavily over me.

Something deep inside me cracks, the hollow, gnawing ache of a wolf who has been utterly abandoned by the ones she thought would never leave her side.

I sink to the floor, too weak to move, my chest aching with a pain no wound could match.

The world outside the laundry room blurs; the voices fade.

Only one brutal truth remains clear in my mind: I am no one's daughter, no one's sister, and no one's mate-just a small, discarded pup left to fend for herself in a world that has shown me nothing but cruelty.

And as I curl against the cold stone, eyes burning but tears refusing to fall,

I realize the cruelest part of all:

I still wish they loved me.