CHAPTER 2

Seraphina's POV

I couldn't think past the fire eating through my skin. The pepper was still working into the raw flesh, and I could feel blisters forming where the worst of the heat had hit.

If I had a wolf, I would already be healing. The pain would fade in minutes and the burns would close up like they'd never existed. But I didn't have a wolf. I was the only one in my family, maybe the only one in the entire pack, who had nothing inside her. No beast, no power, no connection to the Moon Goddess who blessed everyone else.

I was a black sheep born into a family of wolves, a stain on a perfect bloodline. The burns on my back would take weeks to heal because whatever was supposed to make me whole had never bothered to show up.

"I said get up." The Luna's shoe connected with my ribs, and I cried out as fresh pain exploded through my side. "Two minutes. If you're not in that dressing room when I arrive, you don't eat for a week."

Then she swept out of the kitchen with Octavia floating behind her, neither of them looking back at the mess they'd left on the floor.

I stayed there shaking for a few precious seconds, my back on fire and my ribs throbbing where she'd kicked me. Every breath sent pain shooting through my body, and I could feel the hot soup soaking into my wounds while the pepper kept burning like it would never stop.

Two minutes.

I had two minutes to pull myself together and walk into that dressing room like nothing had happened.

So I did what I always did. I swallowed the scream building in my throat and pushed myself up from the cold stone floor, straightened my spine even though it felt like my skin was being peeled off my bones, wiped my face, and walked out of that kitchen with my head high and my expression empty.

Crying meant they won. And I'd stopped letting them win a long time ago.

Every step to the dressing room was agony. The hallway stretched forever, and by the time I reached the door, sweat was dripping down my temples and my vision was starting to blur at the edges. The pepper hadn't stopped burning. If anything, it was getting worse.

I slipped inside just as the Luna turned to check the clock on the wall.

"Cutting it close." Her lips pressed into a thin line of displeasure. She'd wanted me to fail. She always wanted me to fail.

Octavia stood on a raised platform in the center of the room, draped in crimson silk that made her dark hair shine like ink and her skin glow like moonlight. A seamstress knelt at her feet, carefully pinning the hem while the Luna circled like a hawk examining its prize.

"Don't just stand there being useless." The Luna gestured impatiently at the platform. "Help the seamstress. Hold the fabric so she can pin it properly."

I moved toward my sister, each step sending fire through my back. When I knelt down on the hard floor beside the seamstress, I had to bite the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood just to keep from crying out.

"Tighter." Octavia looked down at me with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Pull the fabric tighter, Sera. I want the fit to be perfect when Alpha Vaelorin sees me."

I pulled the fabric taut, which meant lifting my arms, which meant stretching the burned skin across my shoulders. The pain was so sharp that white spots danced across my vision.

"Tighter."

I pulled harder and felt blisters split open beneath my dress, my blood mixing with the soup still soaking through the fabric.

"Perfect." Octavia's smile widened as she watched me struggle not to scream. "See how helpful she can be when she actually tries, Mom?"

I knelt there on that cold floor holding fabric for my sister's seventeenth new gown while my back bled and burned, and I let myself feel the rage I usually kept locked away. Twenty-one years of being invisible. Twenty-one years of swallowing screams and bowing my head while they made me feel like nothing.

Someday, I told myself. Someday this will end.

"The Alpha arrives in three days," the Luna was saying as she circled Octavia with pride glowing in her eyes. "Everything must be perfect. Dax Vaelorin is the most powerful Alpha in the region, and when he sees you, he won't even remember other females exist."

Dax Vaelorin. I'd heard the name whispered through the estate for weeks. Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack, coming to negotiate an alliance with Greymist. But everyone knew what my parents really wanted from this visit. A mating. A bond that would make Octavia a Luna and lift our pack higher than politics alone could ever reach.

"What about Sera?"

I went completely still. Octavia was looking at my reflection in the mirror now, her head tilted like she was genuinely curious about the answer.

"What about her?" The Luna didn't even glance my way.

"We're twins. Won't the Alpha expect to meet both of us? It might seem strange if he only sees me."

The Luna laughed, a short dismissive sound that cut deeper than any of the burns on my back. "Seraphina won't be attending the welcome feast. There's no reason to parade our shame in front of the most powerful Alpha in the region."

"Oh." Octavia's eyes found mine in the mirror, bright with triumph; she didn't bother to hide. "That's probably for the best. We wouldn't want to embarrass the family."

I held her gaze with a blank face and steady hands, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me break, even though my back was screaming and my blood was dripping onto the floor beneath me.

She hated when I didn't react. I could see the irritation flicker across her face before she smoothed it away.

Good.