1. Chapter

Corin

Dawn was nowhere in sight, only a frozen gray haze gnawed at the Silver Stone pack’s territory. My fingers went numb in the icy water after the first fifteen minutes. The laundry room sat at the very bottom of the pack house, a windowless, damp hole where the air always smelled of mold, lye, and suppressed rage. Moisture seeped from the walls, as if the stones themselves pitied me for being forced down here.

“For fuck’s sake… I hope they all rot,” I muttered under my breath as I scrubbed a massive training outfit caked with mud and dried blood against the edge of the wash basin. The soap burned my wounds, the lye ate at my skin, but I could not stop.

My back throbbed. Yesterday Lumi had “accidentally” shoved me into the corner of the wood shed, and now my shoulder was one huge, pulsing bruise. But rest was not an option. If the clothes were not ready for morning training, the Alpha would not limit the punishment to words. In this pack, I had no rights. My mother was just a human, and I was a half blood. That put me at the very bottom of the hierarchy. I was a mongrel with duties only. Stay quiet. Work. Take the kicks.

Just hold on, Corin, I whispered to myself, closing my eyes. Just a few more days. You’ll be eighteen. Glacier promised.

Glacier. At the sound of his name, warmth flooded me for a moment, a sharp contrast to the freezing water in the basin. He was my only light. The only one who did not call me “mongrel,” but used my name. The one who sometimes, when no one was watching, took my hand behind the stables and said he would be my savior. I clung to that promise like a last straw. I believed it because I had to. Without Glacier, I would have walked into the forest long ago and let the wild tear me apart.

My thoughts drifted to my mother. Elena lived at the other end of the pack house in a tiny, windowless servant’s room. Since my father, Luke, died, she had been nothing but a shadow. The pack treated her cruelly because she had “seduced” their Alpha and given birth to a half blood. Every day I had to watch the once cheerful, beautiful woman slowly break. There was no fire left in her eyes, only fear and that silent guilt I always felt when she looked at me. I know she blames herself for being born human and sealing my fate.

Suddenly the door slammed open with a loud bang. I flinched, and pain shot through my shoulder.

Lumi stood there with two other girls. Lumi was perfect. Silky hair, flawless skin, clothes worth more than my mother earned in a year. She was pureblood, and she made sure I never forgot it.

“You’re still stinking in here, you filthy mongrel?” she sneered, lifting an eyebrow as she walked inside. Her expensive boots clicked mockingly against the stone. “I thought you’d be done by now. Or does that half blood brain of yours work slower than a real wolf’s?”

I did not look up. I kept scrubbing. The water had turned brown with filth. “I’m working, Lumi. Go away.”

“What did you say?” Her voice was sharp as a freshly honed blade. She stepped up to the basin. “Did you hear that, girls? She thinks she can talk back to me. She forgot her place. Maybe that weak human mother of yours didn’t beat enough respect into you. Though what can you expect from a woman who never belonged in a pack?”

“Don’t you dare say my name, and don’t talk about my mother,” I hissed, finally meeting her eyes. Rage flooded my head.

“Oh? There’s some fire in you after all?” Lumi smiled. It was the cruel, predatory smile that always twisted my stomach. “You know, I just came from the kitchen. There was some slop left on the table. I thought you and your dear mommy might be hungry. After all, mongrels get the leftovers.”

She pulled a bucket from behind her. I realized too late what was inside. With one smooth motion, she dumped it over the freshly washed clothes and over my head. Cold, greasy food scraps, coffee grounds, and stinking chunks of meat poured over me.

“Fuck!” I shouted, jumping back and wiping the filth from my face. My eyes burned with humiliation.

Lumi and her friends shrieked with laughter. “Look at her. Now she looks like what she is on the inside too. A pile of shit,” Lumi cackled. “What are you staring at, nobody? Want to hit me? Go on, try. My father is the pack’s beta. Touch me and they’ll skin you alive and throw your mother into the woods.”

My fists clenched until my knuckles turned white. Suddenly I felt a strange heat under my skin. Something deep in my bones began to vibrate. For a moment, my vision sharpened, everything became clearer, and I felt a wave rising inside me, desperate to break free. Lumi went quiet and stepped back. She felt something. Fear flickered across her face for a split second.

I took a deep breath and smothered the fire.

Don’t. Not yet. Glacier said to stay quiet. Protect yourself. Protect your mother.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a hoarse, broken voice, lowering my head again as the slop dripped down my face.

“That’s right,” Lumi spat on the floor beside my hand. “Clean it up. And if every piece of clothing isn’t ready by morning, I’ll personally make sure you and your mother sleep in the dog kennels.”

When they left, I remained there in the stinking mess, shaking with rage and cold. I wanted to tear the whole place apart. My father would never have allowed this. He had been a proud Alpha, and I had been his princess. But he was gone. And I was just a half blood who had to apologize every day for existing.

I sank onto the wet floor and brushed away a single tear, mixing with the coffee grounds on my face.

“Just a few more days, Mom,” I whispered. “We just have to hold on until I’m eighteen. Glacier will take us away from here.”