CHAPTER 1: LOSE AN EAR

CELINE

I almost killed a guy who had almost rap**d me.

Everyone in that house had seen what he was like. Everyone had heard the things he said to me. I had warned him, I had reported him, and nobody had believed me.

So when the lamp cracked against the side of his head, I think I was more surprised than he was.

(But to understand how I got there, you have to go back to that evening.)

Doland was my step brother, Muize’s best friend, and for two years he had treated me like something he was owed.

It started with comments; like sexy, nice legs..

Then a hand on my waist whenever he squeezed past me in the kitchen. Then a slap on my backside. Then he waited outside the bathroom door until I came out.

Every time, I told him to stop. Every time, he laughed like I’d told a joke.

I reported it. Of course I did. I told my mother first, and she sighed, said he was a boy with a crush, and asked me not to make things awkward in her new home.

I told Muize, who said I should be flattered. I told my stepfather once, when he was home long enough to listen. He promised to talk to them.

He did. Doland apologised with a grin, and the next day was worse.

So I stopped telling people. I learned the rules of that house instead. Take the back stairs. Eat early. Never stand with my back to a doorway.

That Friday, around five, I was coming down for snacks when it happened. A hand smacked my backside so hard I yelped.

“Damn!” Doland’s voice, delighted. “Your stepsister’s got a fat b**tt!”

I spun around. He was grinning from two steps down, thumbs hooked in his belt, looking at me like a prize he’d already won.

I felt disgusted.

“Touch me one more time,” I said, very quietly, “and you’ll lose an ear.”

“Come on, Celine. Everyone in this house knows I like you.”

“I hate you!” I snapped at him. He’s a man whore and lacked self control.

“Chill.” Muize drifted out of the living room, drink in hand, not even pretending to be concerned. “He’s just playing.”

“He put his hand on me.”

“And you’re acting like it’s a crime. You should be flattered.” He smirked. “Not like anyone else is going to. You don’t even have a wolf. Or a mate. Unattractive and proud. It’s honestly disgusting.”

The words hit between my shoulder like a thrown knife.

I froze, one hand locked around the railing. Doland was smiling. Muize was waiting for me to cry.

I didn’t. “I’m going to my room.” I muttered.

“Run along, then.”

I walked up slowly. I didn’t let them see me shake. I locked my door and slid to the floor with my back against it, and only then did my eyes burn.

I had made peace with not having a wolf. That’s what I told myself. At eighteen I had waited for the change, and it never came. No wolf, no mate, no explanation from the Moon Goddess.

And if I’m honest, the fault was my mother’s. After she cheated on my father and married Muize’s dad, she stood in front of me with wet eyes and begged.

“Please, Celine. I can’t lose you too.”

So I stayed. My father let me go without a fight, and neither of us had called the other since.

I was paying for that choice every single day.

A knock rattled my door around eight.

“I’m having people over tonight,” Muize said, hair styled, smelling of cologne.

“What? Your father said no parties.”

“He and your mother are out of the city. Perfect opportunity.”

I stared at him. His last party had ended with broken furniture, two people in hospital, and his father furious for weeks. This time the answer had been a hard, final no.

“Muize, you can’t—”

“Don’t forget whose house this is.” He leaned on the doorframe, and for a second his eyes did something I couldn’t read. “Just stay in your room tonight. Lock the door. Don’t come out.”

He left. I locked the door. I wouldn’t let him ruin my night.

By ten, the walls were shaking. I called my mother, and it rang out. I called my stepfather, who always answered, and tonight he didn’t.

My throat felt like sandpaper, and my water bottle was empty. I stood at the door for a full minute with my hand on the lock.

“Don’t come out.” His words rang in my ear.

It was only water. Down the stairs, kitchen, back. Two minutes.

I went down.

The smell hit first: alcohol, smoke, too many bodies. The living room opened up and I stopped moving. It wasn’t a party, it was a flood.

Couples kissing and tangled on every surface, a bra hanging from the chandelier, a girl screaming with laughter as a boy tipped a bottle over her head. I kept my eyes on the floor.

Muize stood in the middle of it, an arm slung around a girl, looking like a king. Doland was nowhere in sight. Good.

I filled my bottle with shaking hands, ran upstairs, locked my door, and leaned against it until my heart slowed.

Water. Bed. Sleep. That was the plan.

I lay in the dark, listening to the house shake itself apart, and thought of my stepfather. If he had been home, none of this would be happening.

Then I heard it. The door clicked.

My lock, turning. My locked door, opening. The hallway light spilled across the floor and was swallowed as the door closed again.

I didn’t breathe.

“Celine?” A whisper. A voice I knew. “Are you asleep?”

It was Doland.

Muize keeps the spare keys in the kitchen drawer. The thought arrived with sick clarity.

I closed my eyes and kept still. If I screamed, nobody would hear me over that music. If I ran, he’d catch me in the dark. So I lay there and told myself he was drunk. That he’d come to apologise. That he’d turn around any second.

The bed dipped.

“Don’t make this hard,” he whispered. His breath stank of beer. “Two years you’ve walked around like you’re too good for me.”

My eyes flew open.

His hand clamped over my mouth. He was on top of me, his whole weight pinning me down, his free hand dragging at my nightgown.

“Shh. Nobody’s coming. Nobody can hear you. You know that, right?”

I fought. Goddess, I fought. I twisted, I kicked, I bit his palm until I tasted blood, and he swore and slapped me so hard the room spun.

“Stupid bitch.” He pinned my wrists over my head with one hand. “You owe me. Every day I’ve been nice to you. Every day I’ve waited.”

Something tore. The strap of my nightgown. The sound that came out of me wasn’t a word. It was pure animal terror. He was going to rape me, and nobody was coming.

My right hand slipped free. It found the nightstand. The cold neck of the lamp.

I didn’t think. I just swung.

The base cracked against his skull. “Shit!” He rolled sideways off me. I scrambled up and hit him again, harder, and this time it caught him across the ear with a wet crack that split the air.

He collapsed on the floor, one hand clamped to the side of his head, blood running between his fingers.

“My ear,” he gasped. “You cut my ear—”

I stood over him, chest heaving, the broken lamp shaking in my hands.

“I told you,” I said. My voice was dead calm, and I didn’t recognise it. “I told you the next time you touched me, you’d lose an ear.”

“You’ll pay for this.” His eyes rolled back, and he went still.

I didn’t wait to see if he was breathing.

I grabbed my bag and shoved in my phone, a charger, a jacket, shoes I put on without tying. I stepped over his legs and walked out without looking back. Downstairs, nobody noticed me. Somebody was dancing on the coffee table. Muize was laughing, his back to me. I walked through them like a ghost and out the front door into the night.

The cold hit my face, and my knees buckled at the gate. I caught the post, gasping, my fingers shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone. I scrolled past my mother’s name. Past Muize’s. Down to a contact I hadn’t touched in two years.

Father.

My thumb hovered. What if he didn’t pick up? What if he hated me for choosing her?

I pressed the call. It rang once. Twice. Three times.

“Elin?”

My whole body folded in on itself. That voice. Deep and warm and unchanged. And that name, my pet name, the one only he had ever called me.

“Elin, what’s wrong? Why are you crying? Did someone hurt you?”

“Father,” I choked. “I want to leave. I can’t stay here anymore. Please—”