a P

behind the closed door of my room. The phone slipped from my numb fingers, landing with a soft thud on the plush rug. I slid down the wall,

adows and silence. It was my bedroom, but it had never felt like mine. It was a large, impeccably decorated spac

nd unwanted, floo

less orphan plucked from the fringes of society. Matriarch E

assessment, like a rancher inspecting livestock. He couldn't feel it. Because I was wolfless, the mind-l

table that could seat twenty, with me as the sole

at the annual pack gala. Her laughter echoing in the garden during a family barbecue, sitti

e to ask. My voice had been a small, trembling th

his gaze so cold it felt like frost

d harbored had died a swift, brutal death. He wasn't my s

A relic from my first few weeks here, when the gilded cage had felt so suffoc

y cheek startled me.

he dark screen: Rejection Ritual Pro

y limbs stiff and cold. I sat on the

both parties to be present, along with Pack Elders. Vows had t

ir soul. The rejected party, the document state

w for the cruelty of it all, twisted in my gut. A bond I never fel

Application for Diss

A line for my signa

on the lamp, and a pool of warm, yellow light illuminated my pale, dete

fragile scaffold of hop

expensive gowns and outfits Eleanor had insisted on buying for m

ment bag, I found them. The worn jeans and f

y old clothes. It felt like shedding a skin that had n

ance for me, deposited into a private account. I had barely touched it, too proud or too foolish to feel

I would leave. I would go to town, find

rs to Duke myself. I owed myself a cle

ember of the Blake family and their inner circle. Everyone

r, her eyes hard and empty of the hopeful light they once held. The girl who had

free. Whate

mail. "Thank you. I will have the documents prepar

lowly subside. As the first hint of gray light appeared on the horizon,