Chapter 1

ELOWEN

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The pack hall didn't clean itself.

That was something the ranked wolves of Blackthorn never had to think about, because thinking about it was my job. So was doing it. Every morning, every evening, and on days like today when the whole pack was buzzing with excitement over something I wasn't invited to, I was the one on my knees with a scrub brush while everyone else got to live their lives.

I wrung out the mop and pushed it across the far end of the hall, working in long even strokes the way I had taught myself to, the way that covered the most ground with the least wasted movement. The ceremony was tonight. Every surface in this hall had to be spotless before sundown, and I was the only one assigned to making sure that happened. No help, no instruction, just a list left on my cot this morning with my name at the top and every task underneath it.

That was the shape of my life in Blackthorn Pack.

I didn't even have a room. The space I slept in was a storage closet at the back of the pack house, narrow enough that if I stretched both arms out I could touch either wall. My cot sat between the shelf of cleaning supplies and a stack of old packhouse linens that nobody used anymore. I kept my few belongings in a bag tucked under the cot because there was nowhere else to put them.

I ate when I was permitted to eat. I spoke when I was spoken to. I made myself as small and invisible as possible because I had learned early that drawing attention to myself only ever ended one way.

Nobody in Blackthorn Pack liked me. That wasn't self-pity, it was just fact, the same way the cold floor was fact and the ache in my knees from kneeling was fact. I was low-ranked, unmated, parentless, and useful only when there was a mess.

There had been days when I sat in my storage room in the dark and thought about leaving, just walking out past the pack borders and not stopping.

The only thing that had ever pulled me back was Dorian.

I squeezed the mop out over the bucket and moved to the next section, trying not to think about him too hard because thinking about him made it difficult to keep my face neutral, and I needed my face neutral today of all days.

Dorian Cross. Future Alpha of Blackthorn Pack. The man that every she-wolf with a functioning pulse had her eyes on, and the man who had somehow, inexplicably, chosen me. We had been a secret for months, meeting in an abandoned section of the pack grounds that had become ours. He was the reason I hadn't run. He was the reason the dark thoughts stayed thoughts and nothing more.

He told me once, his voice low and certain in the dark, that when he was Alpha, things would be different. That I would be his Luna. That nobody would touch me or speak to me the way they did ever again.

I returned to those words more times than I could count.

I was so deep in my own head that I didn't hear them come in.

"Well, look at that." Jade Mercer's voice cut across the hall like a slap. "She actually found something she's good at."

I kept moving the mop and I didn't look up.

There were three of them, which was how Jade always operated. She never came alone because she didn't need to. She had Talia Wren on her right and Brynn Cassel a half step behind. They were all dressed for the ceremony tonight, hair done, dressed up, already glowing with the anticipation of whatever the evening was going to bring them.

"I'm talking to you," Jade said.

"I heard you." I still didn't look up.

The sound of her heels crossed the hall toward me and I straightened, turning to face her with the mop handle in my hand. She stopped a few feet away, eyes moving over me the way they always did, slow and contemptuous, like she was taking an inventory of everything wrong with me.

"It's actually perfect when you think about it," she said, glancing back at Talia with a small smile. "She finally has a place where her miserable little life is going to amount to something. Cleaning up after the rest of us."

Talia laughed. Brynn said nothing, just watching me with that flat expression she always wore, one that was somehow worse than laughing.

"Shame you won't get to experience the rest of tonight though." Jade tilted her head. "The ceremony isn't really for people like you, is it? I mean, who would want you? No offense."

"Some offense," Talia added helpfully, and they both laughed again.

I kept my jaw tight and said nothing.

"That body though." Jade's eyes dropped, and her smile sharpened. "I'll give you that much. Very generous of whatever gave it to you. Pity about the rest." She glanced around at the section of floor I had already finished. "You really think curves are going to be enough to get you a mate? Is that the plan?"

"I don't have a plan," I said, keeping my voice flat. "I'm just cleaning."

"Good." She stepped forward and kicked the bucket. Water sloshed across the section of floor I had spent the last forty minutes on. "Then clean."

I watched the dirty water spread across the tiles. I felt something hot move through my chest and I held it there, didn't let it out, couldn't afford to let it out.

I made the mistake of reaching for the bucket to right it.

Jade shoved me first. Not hard enough to knock me down, but hard enough to make a point. Then Talia moved and it stopped being a shove and started being something else. I got my hands up and managed to land one before Brynn came in from the side and then it was three against one.

I stopped being able to track the individual hits, only the general fact of them. They all continued pushing and shoving me until I hit the floor and the cold water soaked into my knees.

Then they were gone, laughter trailing behind them as they left me on the ground in the middle of the hall I still had to finish cleaning.

A few pack members who had been passing through on the other side of the room looked over. None of them stopped. One of them turned away like he'd seen something mildly unpleasant and kept walking.

I stayed on the floor for a moment, then I got up, righted the bucket, and went back to the shelf for more water.

I cried while I worked. I couldn't help that part, the tears just came, but I kept moving because stopping wasn't something I could afford. The ceremony was in a few hours. The hall had to be done. Those were the facts and the facts didn't care that my ribs hurt or that my hands were still shaking or that three people had just beaten me in a room where nobody lifted a finger to help.

But underneath all of it was the thought I always came back to.

Tonight, Dorian was going to choose me.

He was going to stand in this hall, in front of every wolf who had ever laughed at me or put their hands on me and walked away without consequence, and he was going to choose me. I was going to be his Luna, and Jade Mercer was going to have to look me in the eye every day knowing that the girl she kicked water on was the one who ended up with everything.

That thought was small but I held onto it for the rest of the afternoon.

By the time the hall was done, my knees were raw and my back was screaming and the light coming through the high windows had gone from afternoon gold to the flat grey of early evening.

I gathered my things, tucked the mop back in the storage room, and made my way to my cot to wash up and get ready to see Dorian before the ceremony tonight.