Chapter 3

Ethan gripped the ring.

"You know I hate it most when you force me like this."

He stood there, still waiting for me to back down first, the way I always had.

"I'm going to the lodge with her because she needs a healer. I've known her since we were children. Was I supposed to just watch her fall apart?"

"You can go with her."

I said.

"I'm not stopping you."

That only made him angrier.

"Then what are you doing right now?"

Lily walked in crying.

"Stop fighting. It's all my fault."

She reached for the jewelry box in Ethan's palm, then turned and grabbed my wrist, as if to push it back into my hands.

"Nora, I'll give it back. Don't cancel the ceremony, I'm begging you..."

But her nails dug precisely into the bruised needle marks on the back of my hand.

The sharp pain made me flinch instinctively.

The next second, she let go of the box and threw herself backward.

"AH!"

Lily fell onto the hallway carpet, her wrist hitting the edge of the low table.

The moonstone necklace slid out of the box, dragging a pale thread of light.

Brooks charged up from the stairs.

He moved so fast I had no time to dodge.

My shoulder was seized hard, and my whole body slammed into the wall behind me.

A dull pain exploded at the back of my head.

Something in my lungs felt like it had torn.

I turned my head and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Warm liquid surged past my lips and ran down through my nose, falling onto my light gray scarf.

No one in the hallway was looking at me.

Ethan had already knelt down and pulled Lily into his arms.

My mother held Lily's wrist, her voice shaking.

"Where did you get hurt? Does your belly hurt?"

Brooks stood in front of them, his eyes flashing the wolf-gold of rage.

"She just lost her pup, and you still dare push her?"

I braced myself against the wall and slowly straightened up.

I wiped my hand under my nose.

It was covered in blood.

A Frostridge wolf should have been able to smell it.

But ever since Lily's miscarriage, she said any strong scent made her nauseous, so the main house had been burning scent-masking silent grass ever since.

Now the air held only that sweet, bitter herbal smell.

They saw the blood.

But not one of them came closer to tell where it was coming from.

I looked at Ethan.

He was a healer.

If he would just take my wrist, even a small probe of power would tell him that the wolf spirit in my body had almost vanished.

But he kept his head down, wiping the small red mark on Lily's wrist with a clean handkerchief.

"Nora, apologize."

My throat was clogged with blood. I couldn't make a sound.

Just then, my father came back.

His boots landed on the stairs.

The Alpha of Frostridge stood on the landing and saw the whole family gathered around Lily. He also saw me leaning against the wall, blood dripping from my fingers.

He frowned.

For a moment, I thought he would at least ask one question.

But when he saw the necklace on the floor, his first sentence was:

"What are you fighting over now?"

My mother turned, her gaze finally landing on my face.

She froze for a moment.

Then that flicker of surprise turned into annoyance.

"Nora, did you bite your lip?"

I didn't answer.

"To avoid taking responsibility for pushing Lily, you'd come up with even this?"

Brooks sneered.

"The year she came back at seventeen, didn't she fake a high fever? Insisted she couldn't shift and demanded Ethan stay with her."

That wasn't faked.

That was the first outbreak of the silver blight.

When the shelter was attacked by hunters, a silver trap had bitten through my leg bone.

The wound healed later.

Everyone said that as long as I could still walk, there wouldn't be any problem.

I believed it too.

Until three months ago, when Northshore Healing Institute found the silver poison already spread through my bone marrow.

Lily leaned against Ethan and sobbed quietly.

"Don't blame Nora. I just didn't stand steadily..."

My father's gaze on me turned colder.

"We brought you back. Gave you a name. Gave you a place to live. Acknowledged you as my daughter."

"What more do you want after three years?"

I looked at him.

Once, I had wanted many things.

I wanted him to introduce me to the rest of the territory.

I wanted to sit closer to him at the family feast.

I wanted to hear him praise me after my first successful shift.

Now I didn't want anything.

My father pointed downstairs.

"Since you can't tolerate Lily, leave the main house. Don't come back before the solstice is over."

Brooks went into the guest room, picked up my old duffel bag, and threw it by the stairs.

The zipper wasn't fully closed.

Grandma's old photo album and a few boxes of painkillers scattered out.

His boot stepped on a medicine box, cracking the cardboard.

Ethan finally looked up at me.

He saw my bloodstained scarf. He saw my face.

His gaze stopped on the medicine.

"So you've been taking things all this time to suppress your wolf?"

My lips moved.

He had already looked away in disappointment.

"Nora, weakness caused by medication can't be used to prove everyone owes you something."

I didn't explain again.

I just took out the already-signed waiver of inheritance rights and the key to the annex from my bag and placed them by my feet.

That document wouldn't erase my bloodline.

But it would set their minds at ease.

I wouldn't apply for a share of the family trust. I wouldn't fight for the housing and support owed to an Alpha's child.

And I wouldn't stay and make Lily uneasy.

"No need to wait until the solstice is over."

I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand.

"I'm not coming back."