CHAPTER 5

Ciara's POV

"How dare you speak to me this way!" My father's hand rose again. "Your punishment is not complete! You knelt for barely three hours before you disappeared—"

"Three hours?" I laughed. "In weather cold enough to limit shifting. You know what happens when a wolf cannot shift to generate heat. You know exactly what you were sentencing me to."

Something flickered across his face. Guilt, perhaps. Or simply annoyance at being called out.

It lasted less than a heartbeat before anger consumed it again.

"I did what was necessary to teach you humility!" He took another step toward me. "You needed to understand the severity of your failure! Instead, you run away, you bring more shame upon us by letting people question how I raised you—"

"Ciara, darling."

My stepmother's voice dripped like honey as she descended the stairs. Elara moved with grace, one hand trailing along the railing, the other reaching out to touch my father's shoulder in a soothing gesture.

"My love, please." She gave him a gentle smile. "Your blood pressure. You know what the healer said."

My father's breathing was ragged, but he stepped back, allowing Elara to position herself between us. She looked at me with an expression that might have passed for concern if not for the cold calculation in her eyes.

"Oh, Ciara." She sighed, shaking her head. "What are we going to do with you?"

"Nothing," I said flatly. "You are going to do nothing with me."

"Now, now. I know you are upset, but there is no need for hostility." Elara's smile widened. "We are family, after all. And family takes care of each other, even when... difficulties arise."

"Difficulties." I repeated the word like it was poison. "Is that what we are calling it?"

"Your reputation is in ruins, dear." She spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a simple child. "The entire pack knows you were rejected by the Alpha's heir. And then you disappear for three days, only to return with a strange man's carriage dropping you off like... well." She let the implication hang in the air. "People talk. They wonder. They judge."

"Let them."

"Oh, but we cannot." Elara's hand fluttered to her chest. "We must think of Seren. Of her future prospects. Having a sister with such a... tarnished reputation..." She turned to my father. "Darling, I think the only solution is to marry Ciara off quickly. Before more damage is done."

My father nodded slowly, his anger cooling into something worse—determination.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, that makes sense."

"And I have the perfect candidate." Elara's smile turned sharp. "Mr. Garrett next door has been widowed for five years now. He mentioned just last week that he would like to remarry. An older gentleman would be understanding of Ciara's... circumstances."

Mr. Garrett.

The neighbor who was my father's age. Whose last wife had died under mysterious circumstances—a fall down the stairs, they said, though the bruises on her face told a different story. Who spent his evenings drinking himself into violent rages that the entire street could hear.

They wanted to marry me to him.

"How thoughtful." My voice came out flat. "You really are concerned for my welfare, stepmother."

"Of course, dear." Elara placed her hand over her heart. "No matter what mistakes you make, no matter how much shame you bring to this family, we cannot simply abandon you. Your mother—Moon rest her soul—would never forgive us."

Don't. Don't you dare speak about her.

"We will send word to Mr. Garrett this afternoon," my father said, his voice businesslike now. As if he were arranging a trade of livestock. "He is a respectable wolf from a good family. You should be grateful anyone will have you after—"

"No."

The word cut through the air like a blade.

My father blinked. "What?"

"I said no." I straightened my spine, drawing on every lesson in deportment I had ever learned, using that training to mask the terror churning in my gut. "I will not marry Mr. Garrett."

"You will do as you are told!" My father's face went red again. "You ungrateful, stupid girl! Do you not understand what we are trying to do for you?"

"Oh, I understand perfectly." Something inside me cracked, years of silence breaking apart. "You want to be rid of me. You wanted me to die in the snow, and when that failed, you will settle for marrying me off to a man who will likely kill me within a year. At least then, my death will not be on your hands."

"How dare you!" Elara gasped. "Your father loves you! We both do! We are trying to help you despite your complete disregard for this family's wellbeing!"

"Help me?" I laughed, the sound verging on hysterical. "You are trying to help me by sending me to a known drunk who beat his last wife to death?"

"She fell—"

"She fell after he hit her!" I shouted. "Everyone knows it! Just like everyone knows you convinced my father to leave me in the snow to freeze! Just like everyone knows you have wanted me gone since the day you married him!"

"Ciara." My father's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Apologize to your mother. Now."

"She is not my mother!" The words ripped out of me, raw and bleeding. "My mother is dead! She has been dead for eight years, killed by heartbreak because you replaced her before her body was even cold! You brought this woman into our home, you gave her the place that should have been sacred, and then you stood by while she poisoned every memory of the woman who actually loved you!"

The silence that followed was absolute.

My father's face went white, then red, then a shade of purple I had never seen before.

"You will not speak of your mother," he said, his voice shaking with rage. "You will not use her memory as a weapon against me. I loved her. I mourned her. But life continues, Ciara, and I did what was necessary for this family!"

"You did what was convenient!" Tears burned in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. "You did what made your life easier! And now you are trying to kill me because I am inconvenient too!"

He moved so fast I did not see it coming.

His hand caught me across the face with a crack that echoed through the street. The force of it spun me around, and I fell, my knees hitting the stone steps hard enough to send pain shooting up my legs.

"You will learn respect," my father snarled above me. "Even if I have to beat it into you."

I looked up at him through the hair that had fallen across my face. Looked at this man who had given me life but never love. Who had stood by while I was shaped and molded into someone else's dream. Who was now willing to sell me to a monster rather than admit he had failed as a father.

He raised his fist again.