Chapter 2

With twenty-six days left before my departure, an email arrived from the Northern Research Council.

[FINAL REVIEW COMPLETE]

[Dr. Evelyn Harper's shift-trauma stabilizer has passed its last laboratory review. Following a successful public demonstration, the formula will be added to the Northern Royal Medical Center's emergency protocol under its creator's name.]

I'd spent four sleepless months testing the formula until I produced three stable doses. I locked them in a temperature-controlled medicine case, ready for the council representative the next morning.

That night, Chloe came home crying.

During a practice session, she mixed the wrong dose, destroyed her sample, and nearly sent a volunteer's wolf into dormancy. The board gave her one last chance: produce a safe stabilizer within forty-eight hours or lose her eligibility.

Margaret held her on the couch for nearly an hour. "It was one mistake. It doesn't mean you're not capable."

Chloe shook her head through her tears. "I can't do it. The stabilizer is too hard. Evelyn got it right on her first try, and I've failed six times."

Her gaze drifted toward my medicine case.

Margaret followed it.

I stepped in front of the case. "Those are my research samples."

My mother held out her hand. "Give her one."

It was the first complete demand she had made of me in years. I didn't even have time to mourn that before anger scorched through my chest.

"Candidates have to make their own samples. If she submits mine, it's fraud."

Chloe bit her lip, and fresh tears spilled over. "Forget it, Mom. Evelyn is already a Chief Healer. Of course her formula matters more than my whole career."

She said forget it while staring at the case like she was waiting for someone else to open it.

Margaret's expression hardened. "You already have the northern appointment, the council's approval, and a fully awakened wolf. Chloe needs one chance to prove herself."

"By taking my work and calling it hers?"

"You can make another batch."

She said it as if my lost sleep, failed experiments, and burned hands meant no more than a cup of sugar Chloe needed to borrow.

I tightened my grip on the handle. "No."

Disbelief flashed in Margaret's eyes. I had always yielded eventually, and she clearly expected tonight to be no different.

"Evelyn, she has already lost so much because of me."

There it was. The phrase that ended every argument in our house.

When Chloe was six, a fever sent her wolf into dormancy for seven years. Margaret never explained it. She simply invoked that suffering whenever Chloe wanted something of mine.

"Whatever happened is between you and Chloe," I said. "It isn't a license to take pieces out of my life."

Margaret froze.

She grabbed the case and pressed the family emergency release. Her credentials still overrode mine. The lock snapped open, and she handed one stabilizer to Chloe.

I lunged for it, but Margaret blocked me with her body. "Enough. You still have two."

Chloe hugged the sample to her chest. "I'm sorry, Evelyn. Once I pass, I'll make this up to you. I promise."

That was how she always did it. She took first and apologized second, but somehow never returned a damn thing.

I stopped reaching for the vial and pulled out my phone. In front of both of them, I called the examination board's fraud hotline.

All the color drained from Chloe's face. "What are you doing?"

"Protecting my work."

Margaret snatched the phone and ended the call. "Do you have to ruin her?"

I took my phone back and laughed once. "So stopping her from stealing my work means I'm ruining her. Got it."

Margaret opened her mouth, but no answer came.

I turned toward my room. As I closed the door, I heard Chloe ask in a wounded little voice, "Does Evelyn really hate me that much?"

Margaret's reply was soft and immediate. "Life has always come easily to her. She doesn't understand how hard you've had to fight for everything."

My hand paused on the doorknob.

Then I shut the door, packed the remaining two samples in my suitcase, and sent the Northern Council proof of ownership and a formal theft notice before dawn.

I left Chloe's name out—not to protect her, but because I'd decided that vial would be the last thing this family ever took from me.