I Breathed Silver So She Could Live

ee years, letting the toxic dust rot my lung

th, our biological parents-Alpha Sil

d corpse, intending to marry it off to a powerful Alp

lf bloodline, they had suppressed Snow's shifting, allowed

p pine coffin, they ordered their wa

rn

te to destroy the evidence of her silver-scar

shift, my chest spasmed, coughing up t

us to their own flesh and blood, sacrificing thei

lready sent a blood-stained

pped out of the shadows, and I knew I would li

pte

ra

e crumbling ramparts of the estate. It w

sts-blew steam from their nostrils, the vapor turning to ghost-white plumes in the sodden air. Torches sputter

ked open. Alpha Silas

hing a fan of gray mud across my shins. He did not

lk umbrella aloft. Her face was a mask of disdain as her gaze swept over the churned ground. Alpha

arents. They had not come to mourn

as pitched low, yet it carried the im

ut I lacked the strength to shift from the degrading posture. Beside me rested a coffin of cheap, unvarnis

thin tremor-a product of the chill

descended the stone steps. "Vanya is inconsolable. She refuses her

fin. A dry, bitter sound-something that m

was a shard of ice in my gut; they meant to offer

to meet their imperious stares. "There is no pulse left

fury-a metallic, storm-laden odor-roll