Chapter 1

He called me a dog. I will erase every trace of myself from this so-called ‘home’—and leave him for good!

I hung up the phone with my father.

The bathroom was silent, except for the dripping faucet. Each drop hit the porcelain sink with a dull echo, like a monotonous reminder of my humiliation. The girl in the mirror looked pale, her hair sticking in messy strands to her damp cheeks.

Ansel had called me his… dog.

The word exploded in my skull. A sharp, unbearable buzzing filled my head, spreading through my veins until it coiled tightly around my heart. My stomach lurched violently, but nothing came up—only bitter bile burned the back of my throat.

On the phone, my father’s voice had been calm, almost satisfied. He said the Walker Pack in the North was a strong and strategic choice. My future husband—a man I’d never even met—was known as a ruthless Alpha. Respected, feared, but fair. Most importantly, he had no scandals trailing behind him. He was, in every sense, a powerful leader.

At least, I thought bitterly, he would never hold me in bed while linking his mind to someone else just to tell them I was nothing more than a plaything—a dog meant to please him.

My wolf, Lilith, growled inside me, her voice trembling with rage and hurt.

“That filthy bastard! How dare he treat us this way? I’ll tear his throat out! His stench makes me sick!”

“Lilith, we’ll leave him,” I whispered back to her, though my throat was raw. “And when we do, he’ll pay. He’ll learn that I am no one’s dog.”

Yes, I had loved Ansel once—before I saw the monster beneath his mask. He dared to insult me, to treat me as someone else’s replacement. He should be prepared for my revenge. For betraying all the love I gave him, he deserved to lose everything.

I staggered out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom we once shared. The air still carried the scent of our recent intimacy, mixed with his cedar pheromones. That suffocating cedar stench now made me want to vomit.

I yanked open the closet and began pulling everything out—dresses, shoes, accessories—tossing them onto the bed. Even the things he had bought me. They were tainted, just like him. All of it needed to be purged.

Lilith was unusually quiet now, licking the same wounds that bled inside me.

I picked up his favorite cashmere sweater—the one I had spent weeks finding as the perfect birthday gift. I remembered the way he had laughed, spinning me around in his arms.

“Leah, you’re the best. My little sun.”

Lies.

My eyes landed on the photo frame on his desk. In it, we were smiling, Ansel’s gaze deceptively soft. But now I knew that behind that tenderness was nothing but disdain and calculation.

I was never his partner. I was just a substitute for someone else. Every sacrifice, every piece of love I had given him—nothing but a pathetic joke.

Methodically, I packed everything I owned into bags to throw away. Even the smallest traces of me—the doorknobs I had touched, the switches I had flipped—I wiped them clean with a damp cloth. I wanted no evidence left behind. It would be as if I had never existed here.

In the end, I kept only a small suitcase: a few old clothes, my identification papers, and the necklace my mother had left me.

Lilith pressed her presence against mine, sending me a wave of steady determination.

“We’ll go somewhere far from him. Somewhere free of that cedar stench.”

“Yes,” I agreed softly. “We’ll start over.”

What was Ansel, really? Nothing but a despicable coward. He wasn’t worthy of being Alpha of the Blood Pack. I would make sure he lost that future. I would drag him down and leave him to rot like the dog he truly was.

My path lay to the North—the Walker Pack. Cold, formidable, and wealthy. Perhaps their Alpha wasn’t the man I could rely on. Perhaps the winds there would be merciless.

But what did it matter?

I had already clawed my way out of hell. Whatever awaited me could not possibly be worse.