Chapter 2

He looked as if he'd stumbled across some rare prey he hadn't expected to find. Cruel excitement flared in his eyes.

"Well, well." William tilted his head and burst out laughing. "There's a little blind girl in dark glasses hiding back here."

William strode toward me, a sadist's curiosity burning in his gray eyes.

I tightened my grip on the cane and was about to strike back when Arthur stepped in front of me. "Don't touch my daughter!"

Though badly injured, Arthur tried to charge forward, but two elite wolf guards slammed him in the chest.

Eleanor rushed at William, sobbing.

She clutched the hem of his coat, her voice shaking so badly she could hardly speak. "Please... Alpha Carter, my two girls are still so young..."

William frowned in disgust.

He raised his combat boot and kicked her hard in the ribs.

Eleanor grunted as the kick sent her flying into the corner of a heavy wooden cabinet.

"Mom!" Evelyn let out a heartbroken wail.

The next moment, she rushed back and threw her arms wide in front of me. "I'll go with you!"

Tears streaked Evelyn's pale, delicate face.

She shook like a leaf, but her voice was firm. "Let my family go. Let Iris go!"

William stopped. He looked even more amused.

Arthur's eyes were bloodshot as he braced himself against the floor and roared, "Evelyn! Get back here!

"As long as there's a single man left alive in the Silver Moon pack, no daughter of mine is throwing her life away!"

Eleanor lay on the floor, sobbing too hard to speak as she reached a bloodstained hand toward the hem of Evelyn's dress.

But Evelyn pried Eleanor's fingers loose, one by one.

She turned to our father and brothers, their faces covered in blood, and wept.

"Dad, Mom, I'm sorry.

"I was only ever the Howard family's adopted daughter.

"I took my sister's place for over ten years. I stole all the love that was supposed to be hers.

"I should have repaid this family with my life long ago."

I'd always thought their warmth was only a mask powerful families wore for show.

But Evelyn's despair and resolve, and the way my parents and brothers protected us, were too real to fake.

For the first time, I felt a twinge of guilt.

Ever since I came home, I'd let them shower me with kindness without a second thought, but I'd always thought of myself as an outsider.

The opaque lenses of my dark glasses blocked my vision completely, but my other senses were sharper than anyone else's.

I thought back to my first night home with the Howard family three years ago.

That night, red-eyed, Evelyn had clumsily taken my hand and tapped a message into my palm using the Braille code she'd just learned. "I will protect Iris with my life."

Over those three years, even a distant relative calling me a "blind girl" behind my back could set Evelyn off.

Though she usually didn't even dare raise her voice, she would go after the offender like a cat with its fur standing on end.

"Bravo. How touching!" William clapped and laughed. "Such family devotion. I'm practically in tears."

William's contemptuous gaze dropped to Arthur, who lay badly wounded.

"Since you love each other so much, I'll be generous and take both sisters with me.

"I'll lock them both in an animal cage on my private estate.

"Especially this little blind girl. Watching her huddle in a cage, feeling her way around and begging, is going to be so much fun."

With that, William threw his head back and laughed.

My seventh brother, Lucas Howard, stayed silent in the shadows. He slipped behind a toppled bookcase and into William's blind spot.

His bloodied right hand slid to the side of his combat boot and drew the tactical knife hidden there.

A second later, Lucas burst from hiding. He locked a forearm around William's throat from behind, then dropped his weight to drag William off balance.

The ice-cold blade bit into the hollow above William's carotid artery.

A thin line of blood ran along the blade and dripped onto the wool rug.

"Tell your men to lower their guns."

Lucas pressed close to the back of William's neck, his voice rough as sandpaper. "Back out the front door.

"Go ahead and bet on whether your men can draw their bows faster than I can open your throat."