ra

but professional. He pointed out the angry red welts on my arms from the burns and the deep cuts from the glass. My wolf Nyx whined faintly at the back of my mind, too weak to knit even a single woun

ng," the nurse said, her brow furrowed with concer

id, my voice raspy bu

g in my eyes must have stopped her. It was the lo

y borrowed gown - the screen a spiderweb, but the device stubbornly, mercifully

I rattled off the numbers Kaelen had so magnanimously bestowed upon me. Every card gilded with the Sterling crest, deactivated in a single breath. Eac

o years of untouched royalties from Aethel's early scripts had been quietly gathering interest. It was

d had just burned down. I stopped at the ATM by the entrance, withdrew a stack of crisp bills with an Aethel

ed, his eyes catching my disheve

downtown. Not the Sterling Grand, not any place Kaele

ur-hour electronics store. Ten minutes and one

e walls, a stiff-looking bed, and a single, uni

the shower. I turned the knob all the way to cold. The icy spray was a shock, a punishment, a

s smudged with ash, her hair matted, her eyes hollowed out pits of despair. Bu

earned to cook his favorite meals, even though I hated the kitchen. I'd given up

f the name

th

'The most gifted new voice,' one critic had called me. I had been on the verge of something big.

. I wrapped a thin towel around my body and limped to the bedside

el

swered. Two years ago, I would have s

us with the weight of his Alpha authority. "When you're done throwing your little

Not even a passing mention of the hou

e was so steady it startled m

abric, the soft creak of leather. He was somewhere warm. Somewhere comfortable. Some

her line, a breathy, pitiful voice drifted thr

right here. I'm not going anywhere." That voice again - soft,

e a slap. "That's it. This conversation

ne wen

t the fire, on a phone call over the still-smoking corpse of my parents' hou

hands, for the first time

ments deliberate. I took a piece o

s steady a

l Rej

tion, just legal precision. A clean severing of the mate bond, invoked under pack law and sanctioned by the M

an email account that hadn't been active in two years. The inbox was flooded. Hundr

looking for. Hannah Fos

ail wa

nn

me. A

to come ba

shoulders. It felt like breathing again after being held underwater for a

have folded a shroud and slid it into a plain manila en

to end. And it was go