Chapter 18

Valeria POV

I was done with waiting for anyone to change. It was time to start putting myself first.

After the incident at Red Door, I kept my distance from my stepbrothers. To me, they no longer seemed like people I’d once wanted to know, much less impressed. So, I moved through the house as a ghost might, quiet and detached, not stopping to make small talk or meet anyone’s eyes.

My life was triangular. From school to the café to the pack house. I made sure I left the house early enough to avoid riding to school with Lysander and found another route home after my shift to the café. I didn’t want to run into any of my stepbrothers by mistake.

Alerion was the first to try to try to engage in a conversation with me.

“Hey, Val,” he greeted me when we met in the hallways, the kind of tone that might have once prompted a smile from me. I merely nodded, barely glancing at him.

Caius, too, tried a gentler approach. One morning he’d left a small box of my favourite tea on the kitchen counter,