Chapter 2

Damien dragged me toward the pack court.

Kane and Selene strolled behind us, taking their time.

Six years without sunlight had wasted the muscles in my legs. I couldn't keep up.

He yanked, and I went down hard, my back scraping across the stone.

The thin cloth of my shirt tore through. My skin burned.

Selene made a soft, concerned sound. "Damien, gentler. You're not this rough with me."

I clawed at the ground, trying to grab something. He hauled me up like I was filthy.

"How are you supposed to carry an heir looking like this?"

I could barely speak.

"Let… let me go."

Kane frowned.

"Why are you this weak?"

I lifted my eyes to his.

After everything they'd done to me — he really didn't know?

Damien muttered something — he didn't know how to answer.

Selene jumped in. "Oh, she's always like this. Acting pitiful, like we've been abusing her. We've been feeding her the best meat all these years, just to keep her blood strong."

I tasted blood at the corner of my mouth and almost laughed.

When they first locked me up, they said the blood "couldn't see daylight" or the cure wouldn't take.

I'd lived on what I could fight the rats and roaches for. Slept on a moldy felt blanket crawling with lice.

Once, I spent three days and three nights with a rotting corpse.

When the maggots crawled off the body and onto my hand, I thought that was the end of me.

I'd been out of my mind with terror, clawing at the wall — left the same white marks I had on my fingertips now.

"Damien, let me walk on my own. If I bleed more, I might die."

"Quiet. Stop acting pitiful."

Kane lifted me up. His fingers brushed the back of my neck —

And it hit, both of us at once. That sharp, instant pull. The bond.

Then it cut off.

Kane shivered, just slightly. His face tightened. Confused. But he let it pass.

"Selene already told me. They always measure each draw carefully. There's no way it could hurt you."

"Save your strength. Just apologize."

The pain in my chest didn't have a word for it.

"Every time… you knew they were drawing my blood?"

The memories crashed back.

How many times the needle had slipped near my throat, nicked my vocal cords.

That was why my voice came out broken now, like a busted fan.

The times when the nurse stepped out — when the doctor's hand had slid inside my torn shirt.

"Look at you, so thin… nothing left to grab. Just this part's still got some use."

Six years. All of it. All of it — they'd known?

I remembered being little. The border pack.

My foster mother dumping a pot of just-boiled bean soup over me, the pain so bad my body convulsed.

I'd screamed for my mother, and that monster only pinched me and kicked me, snarling:

"You filthy little bastard. Who said you could call me that? I have a daughter. You're nothing."

That's right. Her daughter — the one she'd swapped me with, the one who got to enjoy the Luna’s love and glory.

I'd been taken from my real family at four. By the time I was found again at fourteen, Damien and parents had been raising Selene as their own for years.

Even the mate bond had become hers.

We reached the pack court. I looked at every face in the hall.

Then I smiled, rolled up my sleeves, and showed them the scars running up both my arms.

"I'm not apologizing."

"You told me, years ago, that the one who took me would pay. That nothing would ever hurt me again."

"The woman who stole me was Selene's mother."

The room went still. Every eye turned to Selene.

A flash of panic crossed her face. She shot me a poisonous look.

The next second, right in front of everyone, she folded herself into Kane's arms.

She broke down sobbing. "Kane, I know she's suffered a lot. Ever since I came, our parents loved me a little more. Damien doted on me. She must feel like she lost everything because of me — that's why she's saying these things."

"And she's had feelings for our Alpha for years."

"Since you and I got together, she's been trying to —" She let it trail off into a sigh.

The moment she opened her mouth, every truth I'd said turned into "the lies of a jealous sister."

I shook my head. No. That wasn't what happened.