Chapter 1

As I stumbled down the path toward the dining hall, the morning air bit through my thin dress and settled cold against my skin. Gravel shifted beneath my shoes, every uneven stone mapped in my memory after years of walking this route half by instinct and half by stubbornness. Around me, pack members lowered their voices into the kind of hush meant to be heard.

“There is the blind girl again.”

“How embarrassing. She still hasn’t gotten her wolf.”

“How can a wolf be blind?”

“Such a joke.”

“Alpha should have killed her the moment she turned sixteen.”

“No wolf and blind too. She’s a drain on the pack.”

“Watch this,” a young male voice muttered, close enough that I could hear the smug grin in it. Footsteps pounded over the packed earth. “Morning, Sila.” Wind sliced across my cheek as he swung. I let the basket slip from my hands and dropped with it, my fingers closing around the handle as his fist cut through empty air above me. He stumbled over his own force, cursed, and hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.

Laughter rippled through the courtyard. Dale grunted in pain while I straightened, lifted my basket, and walked on as though nothing had happened. If you gave cruel boys attention, they mistook it for power.

The laughter followed me for several steps, then dissolved into gossip, whispers, and the scrape of boots as the pack moved on with the day. I kept my chin up. Blind or not, wolfless or not, I had survived worse than sharp tongues and failed punches.

By the time I climbed the kitchen steps, the warm scent of fresh bread rolled over me like a welcome. Yeast, butter, rosemary, woodsmoke. It wrapped around the raw edges the pack had left behind and soothed them better than any apology ever could.

I breathed it in and sighed. “That smells so good.”

“That’s because it is,” a deep voice said from the right.

I smiled and carried the basket to the nearest bench. “Morning, Alpha Cameron.”

“Morning, Sila. I see Dale is still being an idiot. Want me to teach him a lesson?”

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “I’m pretty sure today’s embarrassment will stay with him for a while. The pack will make sure of that.”

Alpha Cameron chuckled, the sound warm and rough. “That they will. Though I still don’t understand why he keeps trying when every single time you put him on his back.”

“Because he’s desperately in love with Beth, and getting noticed means being her obedient little pet,” I muttered.

“Honey, did you see that horrible child? Dale was picking on poor Sila again. I wish I could trip him, lace his clothes with itching powder, or give him explosive diarrhoea and send him on an eight-hour patrol,” Luna Lea said, laughter dancing in her voice.

“Love, while I appreciate your very creative revenge plans, I think Sila handled it perfectly well,” Alpha Cameron replied. A moment later I heard the unmistakable soft smack of a kiss.

“Morning, Sila dear. You did handle that very well,” Luna Lea said, coming to stand beside me.

“Morning, Luna Lea. Dale just wants brownie points with Beth. I’m sure he’ll think twice before trying that again.” I moved to the sink and began sorting the vegetables by touch.

“If you ask me, we should have done far worse. Stupid little worm,” Neeka, my wolf, snapped in my mind.

I kept my face smooth as I washed the vegetables. No one in the pack could ever know the truth. They believed I was blind and still waiting for my wolf, something broken and unfinished. But Neeka had been with me since the accident. She saw what I could not, felt danger before it reached me, and guided me through a world that would have swallowed me whole if I had faced it alone.

“We can’t stay here, Neeka. No one is going to want a blind mate, and Beth will never stop until she ruins what’s left of us,” I whispered silently as my fingers moved over damp carrots and potatoes.

“What rubbish,” Neeka huffed, retreating to the back of my mind, though I could still feel her irritation simmering.

“How are things going at the Lancaster’s?” Luna Lea asked, placing more vegetables into my hands.

“Fine,” I said automatically, the lie as practiced as breathing. If Alpha Cameron and Luna Lea ever learned that the Lancaster ‘s made me sleep in an outside shed without blankets, that they withheld food when Beth was displeased, that they punished me for every imagined insult, there would be war inside the pack house before sunset. And after the last incident, the Lancaster’s  had promised me something worse than cold and hunger if I ever aired their dirty laundry again.

“I’m sure it is,” Alpha Cameron muttered, a warning growl rolling under the words.

“You’re moving into the pack house,” he said. “Luna needs an assistant, and I’m done pretending those people are looking after you properly.”

“Say yes. If you don’t get proper care, you’ll die, and if you die, I die, and I am absolutely against that plan,” Neeka muttered.

“What would that mean?” I asked, turning toward Luna Lea.

“It means you’ll spend your days with me, help with pack matters, and sleep somewhere warm for once,” Luna Lea said lightly, though concern threaded every word.

“It’s for the best, child,” Alpha Cameron said, pushing back his chair.

“All right,” I said slowly. “Just until Ty comes back from Alpha training.” The words tasted dangerous the moment they left my mouth. By the time Ty returned, I would be eighteen. Old enough to leave. Old enough to disappear before anyone could trap me with pity, duty, or memories I had spent two years trying to bury.

“That’s wonderful, dear, but let’s not put a deadline on anything just yet,” Luna Lea said, wrapping me in a quick hug that smelled faintly of lavender and flour.

The rest of the day should have felt ordinary, but it didn’t. Once the kitchen staff officially started, I was forbidden from lifting anything else. Instead, they made me sit, drink tea, and answer questions as though I were already half moved in. The kindness should have comforted me. Instead, it unsettled me. Kindness always came before life changed.

Just before lunch, Luna Lea collected me and guided me to her office. She settled me at a second desk near the window and began walking me through pack business in a cheerful stream of words: supply counts, patrol rotations, healer requests, guest lists, decorations, food planning. Then she moved to the one subject I had not prepared myself to hear.

“We’ll need to finalise everything for Ty’s welcome-home celebration earlier than expected,” she said. “He’s coming home in a few months.”

My breath caught. It felt as though the floor had vanished beneath me and left me hanging over empty air. “Why is Ty coming home so early?”

“He flew through the last part of his training,” Luna Lea said, unable to hide her excitement. “Your Ty has always been exceptional, but this? Even Alpha instructors are impressed. I haven’t seen him in nearly two years.”

Your Ty. The words pressed against old wounds that had never healed right. Once, before the accident, before darkness and silence and blood, Ty had been mine in every way that mattered. My best friend. My secret keeper. The boy who swore he would come back for me. The boy I had loved too early and too fiercely and never, ever admitted aloud.

A sharp knock cut through the room before I could steady my breathing. Luna Lea crossed to the door. Even before it opened, a cloud of pungent perfume announced Beth’s arrival.

“Mom, I’m here to help organise Ty’s welcome-home party,” Beth said brightly.

Silence dropped across the office, heavy and immediate. Then Luna Lea spoke, each word crisp enough to cut. “Mom? I am certainly not your mother.” She paused. “And before you take another step inside, perhaps you should explain why you’re wearing the crescent moon necklace Ty gave Sila the night before he left.”