Chapter 1

8 years ago

Questorian Valley

If I were to sum up my life in a simple yet pitiful story, it would be this: John Brook and I will never be. The simple part? He’s in love with her. The blonde with the forever-long legs, the too-white teeth, and the laugh that sounds like it was pulled straight from a shampoo commercial. The pitiful part? It’s my fault.

I knew. I knew John wasn't built for loyalty. I knew it the first time he flirted with her in front of me, eyes glazed over with that dumb alpha charm he oozed when he thought it would distract people from the fact that he had all the emotional depth of a teaspoon an empty one at that. But still, knowing the cheating dipshit scum is cheating is very different from hearing it from the entire pack. The whispers, the looks, the not-so-subtle silence when I walk into a room. It’s humiliating in a way that cuts deeper than any blade.

Our house, scratch that, my house, looked like a mix between a hippie retreat center and an overgrown herb garden. I lived in a converted caravan that sat stubbornly on the edge of the woods like a creature too wild to be tamed. The porch was a mismatched mosaic of wood planks and colorful rugs I'd salvaged from the packs discarded stuff and small town markets. I had to clean it for days to get the scent of others off but it was worth it in the end.

Wind chimes tinkled constantly, strung from every edge of the roof. Inside, the walls were covered in tapestries of moons and mandalas, paintings of wolves howling at purple and dark blue skies, incense burning in every corner. It was chaotic and warm and smelled like sage, lavender, and wet earth.

John hated it.

Too many smells. Too much clutter. Too me.

He stood in the middle of the room like he didn’t belong, which was funny, considering he’d been crashing here for over six months. Using my space, eating my food, sneaking out at night thinking I wouldn’t notice. I wasn’t stupid— I was just tired of being right.

“You said go on, do what I want, Ash,” he had the audacity to say.

"I SAID, do what makes you happy. Not do her. And don't call me Ash—it’s Ashlyn to you.” My voice cracked more from fury than pain.

He lifted his hands like I was being unreasonable. As if I hadn’t just caught him lying to my face for the hundredth time. “You’re not acting sane. I’m allowed to reject you. I’m allowed to choose another.”

I laughed, sharp and humorless. “I’m not acting sane?” I repeated. “Was your pants around your ankles sane? Or the stolen money from my wallet sane? Or the fact that you live here while screwing her, was that sane, John?”

He flinched. Good.

"Ash...Lyn," he said, dragging out the syllables like they were poison. "Let’s face facts. You and me were never going to work. You’re cruel most days, nice like, one tenth of the time. We have nothing in common. Why we were picked as mates? I don’t know.”

Cruel.

That word clanged inside me like a bell struck too hard. Cruel. It was what everyone said behind my back when they thought I wasn’t listening. That I was the hot-headed troublemaker. The bully of our year. The wild girl with the bite sharper than her bark. Maybe I was. I’d broken more than one nose in a fight. Told off teachers, challenged elders, questioned every single tradition this damn pack had clung to for generations. People didn’t know what to do with girls like me. Especially when we didn’t cry when they left.

Cruel.

“I cook for you,” I muttered, the words choking on their way out. “I let you sleep in my bed when your stupid Alpha pride kept you from asking your parents for help. I defended you when you got suspended for fighting because I thought maybe, just maybe, you were hurting like me.”

John rolled his eyes. “Oh please, you loved that I needed you. You don’t want a partner, Ashlyn. You want someone who’ll worship you. And when they stop, you turn into this… this hellcat.”

My hands shook. I walked to the small kitchenette, trying to distract myself with something, anything. The sink was full of chipped mugs stained with coffee, jars with dried herbs sat on every counter, some labeled, most not. A kettle whistled from earlier, forgotten. I yanked it off the stove and slammed it onto the wooden slab of a table I’d built with my own two hands. No one helped me build this place. No one helped me survive my shift. No one helped me when my parents died.

And yet everyone expected me to be soft. Forgiving.

"You think being nice is easy for me, John?” I turned to him, eyes burning. “You think kindness just shows up like magic when you've spent your whole damn life fighting to breathe in a world that keeps trying to drown you?”

He stared at me like I was speaking a language he never bothered to learn. Because he didn't bother to learn it. To learn me. John was an Alpha gene wolf shifter. A pureblood. Our future Alpha.

I was always the girl they warned their sons about. Pretty in a dangerous way. Quick to bite. I didn’t cry when my first boyfriend cheated. I broke his ribs. I didn’t beg when my best friend left me behind. I erased her name from every notebook, every photo. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to plead now.

Still, it hurt.

I pointed to the door with a trembling finger, my voice low. “Get out.”