"Mom, Dad, I'm home." Her voice dripped with sweetness.

Marcus and Vivian transformed on the spot.

The two people who had barely looked at me moments ago were now beaming, warm and fawning.

Vivian hurried forward. "Melody's back! Are you tired? Hungry?"

Marcus's gaze landed on Kieran, and he straightened immediately. "Alpha Kieran, welcome to Ashford territory. It's an honor to have you."

I stood on the stairs and watched them orbit around Melody and Kieran like planets, performing for an audience.

Kieran's gaze swept the room and landed on me. He frowned, just slightly. "And this is?"

As if he had never seen me before.

Marcus blinked. "Oh — this is my other daughter. Seraphina."

Kieran gave a small nod and said nothing more. He didn't spare me another glance.

Melody smiled. "She's my younger sister. Since Kieran is here, you should stay for dinner, Seraphina."

Her smile was warm and gracious. The triumph in her eyes was completely naked.

At the long dinner table, Melody and Kieran sat on one side. I sat across from them, alone. The odd one out.

The Omega servant Margaret brought out roasted chicken and venison.

Kieran glanced at the plate in front of Melody and frowned slightly.

"You don't like venison." His voice was gentle with concern.

Melody gave him a sweet, slightly put-upon look. "You noticed. But Seraphina loves it, so we've always kept it on the menu."

Without a word, Kieran lifted the venison off her plate and set it aside, then moved the roasted chicken in front of her. It was a gesture so practiced it looked like habit.

Margaret poured white wine. Kieran glanced at it. "Switch to red. She prefers red."

Melody looked at him, her eyes full of warmth. "You remember everything."

I watched this unfold, gripping my knife and fork hard. My heart felt like it was being cut open with a dull blade, slowly.

Vivian smiled pleasantly. "How did you two meet?"

Melody lowered her eyes, a flush rising to her cheeks. "It was during a border patrol. I found Kieran lying in a pool of blood — he'd fallen into a wolfsbane trap. I got to him in time and treated him with moonlight herb."

She looked up at Kieran, her eyes full of devotion. "Otherwise, the outcome would have been unthinkable."

Kieran took her hand. "So I knew she was the one. She saved my life."

Melody's face went pink. She looked like the happiest she-wolf in the world.

I listened to this story and suddenly laughed out loud.

The sound cut through the quiet dining room. Everyone turned to look at me.

Marcus frowned. "Is something funny? Keep your voice down."

I set down my knife and fork and looked at Melody. "You're sure it was you who saved him? With moonlight herb?"

Melody's smile flickered. "Of course it was me. Who else?"

"Melody." I said it simply. "You couldn't tell moonlight herb from wolfsbane when we were children. Remember my pet rabbit? The one that died because you fed it the wrong plant."

"So when did you suddenly learn to identify wolfsbane poisoning symptoms?" I tilted my head. "Remarkable, isn't it."

The atmosphere at the table froze.

Melody's eyes went glassy. She bit her lip, the picture of hurt. "Seraphina, why would you say that? I'm not lying."

Vivian slapped the table and stood. "Seraphina! That's enough! Melody saved Alpha Kieran — that's a fact! What gives you the right to slander her out of jealousy?"

Marcus's face hardened. "Apologize. Right now. To your sister."

I leaned back in my chair and said nothing.

Melody dabbed at her eyes, then suddenly smiled. "It's all right. Don't blame Seraphina. She probably just hasn't found her own mate yet and is in a difficult mood."

She looked at me, her concern perfectly performed. "Have you chosen a mate yet, Seraphina? When's the marking ceremony?"

I looked at her act for a moment. Then I smiled — bright and wide and unguarded.

"Too many to choose from." My gaze swept past Kieran and settled back on Melody's face. "Not like you, taking three years to land one this ordinary. The Alphas pursuing me could fill every road from Ashford territory to the Northern Snowlands. Genuinely can't pick."

Marcus slammed his hand on the table. "Enough! Have you no manners?"

Vivian's chest heaved. "You shameless thing! How dare Ashford Pack have a daughter like you!"

Melody pressed a hand to her mouth, tears falling. "How can you say something like that?"

She turned to Kieran, helpless and injured.

Kieran set down his utensils and slowly wiped his mouth with his napkin. Then, unhurried, in front of everyone, he reached over and took Melody's hand where it rested on the table.

"Melody doesn't need to compete with anyone."

His voice was cold and certain.

"In my eyes, no she-wolf compares to her. She is the best."

Melody's tears broke into a radiant smile. She turned her hand over and held his tightly, happiness and triumph glowing on her face.

I watched their joined hands. My heart turned to dust — a pain so sharp I could barely keep my face intact.

But I raised my head. My smile was bright and careless.

"Then congratulations. I wish you every happiness."

Kieran's face darkened in an instant.

I didn't look at him. I pushed back from the table and walked out of the estate on legs I had to force steady.

My heart felt like it was about to explode.

Margaret called after me from behind. I didn't answer — just quickened my pace toward the deep woods along the territory's edge.

"No she-wolf compares to her." Kieran's words played back like a blade, over and over.

I stopped walking, tilted my head back, and looked at the moon.

Then I shifted into my white wolf.

I ran. I ran as hard as I could, trying to fling that sentence out of my head, trying to outrun the pain in my chest.

"Running away, Seraphina? You were so talkative at the dinner table." Melody's voice came from behind me.

I stopped and turned. She had shifted too — smaller than me, her coat dull and mottled with brownish-grey patches. Not pure Alpha bloodline, and it showed.

I laughed coldly. "You chased me out here to brag about whatever sweet nothing Kieran said to you?"

"Jealous, Seraphina? Makes sense — Kieran only has eyes for me now." Melody suddenly lunged.

I stepped back on instinct. In the same moment, urgent footsteps sounded from the distance — Kieran was coming.

I caught the flash of calculation in Melody's eyes.

She spun abruptly, bolted toward the cliff nearby, and threw herself over the edge with a scream.

"Melody!" Kieran leaped after her almost before she'd finished falling.

I stood frozen.

I knew that cliff. It was barely three meters high. Below was soft earth and shrubs — nothing that could seriously hurt a werewolf.

But Kieran clearly didn't know that. He jumped without hesitation. Not even a half-second of doubt.

When he went over the edge, his eyes held only Melody.

I looked down from the clifftop. Kieran was holding her — careful, impossibly gentle, like something precious in his hands.

He climbed back up carrying her, Melody curled against his chest, trembling.

Melody looked up at me with tear-filled eyes, her voice soft and fragile. "Seraphina... why did you push me?"

I laughed.

This performance was so pathetic it made me sick.

Footsteps came from behind. Marcus had arrived with several Ashford elders.

Vivian shrieked. "My daughter! You vicious creature! You pushed her off that cliff!"

"You actually believe her?" I ignored everyone else and looked only at Kieran.

I looked at the suspicion and revulsion in his eyes, and suddenly felt cold — a chill that went all the way to the bone.

Marcus stared at me, his eyes full of disappointment. "Seraphina. How could you do this? She's your sister."

Kieran said nothing. But his expression said everything I needed to know.

Everyone gathered around Melody, fussing, asking after her.

No one asked me a single thing.

"You said I pushed you?" I walked toward Melody, and let myself smile.

In full view of everyone, I raised my front paw and brought it down hard on the back of Melody's leg, enough to come close to the bone.

"Remember this. This is what it looks like when I actually attack you. If I'd really wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have just pushed you off a three-meter drop." My laugh was cold.

Melody screamed.

Kieran shoved me back. The full force of his Alpha dominance hit me like a wall, nearly driving me to my knees.

But I stayed upright. Head high. I looked him in the eye without flinching.

Kieran turned to the Ashford elders, his voice cold enough to frost the air. "Your pack has no discipline. In Frost Pack, a she-wolf who attacks another pack member like this would be put in the silver dungeon."

Then he picked up Melody and walked away without a backward glance.

I stood there, barely believing what I'd heard.

The silver dungeon was one of the harshest punishments a pack could impose — reserved for the most violent rogues.

When I was three years old, I'd wandered in by accident and seen a rogue being tortured inside, barely recognizable through the blood. It gave me nightmares for three days.

Once, after we'd been together in bed, I told Kieran that memory. He rubbed my back gently and promised me I would never see the inside of that dungeon again.

And now — over Melody's injury that would heal in less than a day — he was having Marcus put me in there.

At Marcus's order, the guards rushed me immediately and clasped silver chains around my wrists to suppress my shift.

Two guards dragged me into the silver dungeon. My knees hit the stone floor hard.

Marcus stood in the doorway, his face iron. "Chain her. Silver whip. Ten lashes."

A guard lifted a silver whip from the wall. In the dim light, it gleamed with a cold, killing edge. I fought with everything I had. "Marcus! What the hell is wrong with you?! I'm your daughter!"

Two guards pinned my shoulders. I was forced face-down onto the floor, my back exposed.

When the first lash came, I clenched my jaw tight. The silver burned through skin and went straight to bone.

My consciousness began to blur. My mind, without my permission, drifted to a rainy night in a cemetery.

It was the anniversary of my mother's death. I'd been sitting in the rain at her grave, not wanting to go home.

Kieran had found me. He draped his jacket over my shoulders.

"Don't sit in the rain. You'll get sick."

Then another night — a pack council meeting where he stepped between me and a group of elders who were questioning my presence.

"Seraphina is an Alpha's daughter. She has the right to sit in on any council decision." His voice was cold and certain, and every challenge fell silent.

I had believed, back then, that his care was something real. That I was different to him.

Looking back now, I had simply been fooling myself.

I started to laugh, quietly.

Vivian blinked. "What are you laughing at?"

I raised my head. Blood at the corner of my mouth. "I'm laughing at the two of you. A mother and daughter who have spent their whole lives picking up someone else's scraps."

Vivian's face twisted. "What did you just say?!" She crossed the room and drove her foot into my ribs.

A sharp crack. Something broke.

Blood flooded my throat. I opened my mouth and coughed it out — a mouthful, then darkness.

When I came to, I was in my own room. My body was agony, every part of me in shreds.

Margaret was sitting at the bedside, her eyes red and swollen. "You're awake. I put moonlight herb on you — I had someone smuggle it from the pack healer. But silver wounds are so hard to close..."

Margaret had once nearly died on the border. My mother had brought her home.

After my mother died, Margaret stayed voluntarily and served in the pack house to look after me.

"Please." Margaret was crying. "Go apologize to the Alpha. If you just show a little humility, he'll soften. He's your father, in the end."

I laughed, and the movement tore at my wounds. Another wave of pain. "Show him humility, and I'll end up worse than my mother."

Margaret wept harder.

I forced my arm out against the pain, reached under the pillow, and pulled out a bank card. I pressed it into her hands. "I'm leaving. I won't be coming back. This is enough for the rest of your life — get out of Ashford Pack."

Margaret's hands were trembling around the card, tears streaming.

I suddenly thought of the venison soup she used to make when I was small. My voice came out softer than I meant it to. "Margaret. I want some of your venison soup."

She stopped. Then she wiped her eyes and stood up. "I'll go make it right now."

For the next few days, I lay in my room recovering.

Marcus never came. Neither did Vivian. Neither did Melody.

It was as if I had already ceased to exist.

I pushed through the pain and began to pack.

Clothes. Documents.

I opened the drawer at the very back of my wardrobe.

Inside were everything Kieran had ever given me.

The moonstone necklace. A custom-made silver wolf sculpture. And one of the Frost Pack family crests.

He'd been drinking the night he pinned the crest to my collar. Said it would keep other male wolves from getting too close.

My heart had raced. I thought it was a courtship signal.

Now I could see it for what it was — a careless joke.

Together, those things were worth nearly fifty million dollars.

Part of me wanted to throw it all away.

But then I thought: what a waste. Better to let those things do some good.

I called the pack alliance's charity auction house and told them I had items to donate.

That evening, I hired a car and hauled several large boxes to the alliance's charity hall.

The staff member checking the items looked up with wide eyes when he saw what was inside. "Miss Ashford, these things..."

"Auction everything." I cut him off. "Every cent goes to the orphanages in neutral territory."

He nodded and packed the items away with careful hands.

I turned to leave. Made it to the door.

And stopped.

There they were.

Kieran and Melody, walking in hand in hand.

Kieran's gaze caught the boxes of items near me. Something shifted in his eyes — a flicker of displeasure, quickly suppressed.

His eyes swept over me, paused for a moment on my pale face, then moved away with indifference. Like I was a stranger.

Melody spotted me too.

She tightened her grip on Kieran's arm. At an angle he couldn't see, she gave me a slow, triumphant smile — then rose on her toes and murmured something in his ear.

Kieran tilted his head down. He smiled, indulgent. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

That kind of kiss. Tender. Reverent. A kiss that made a promise.

Nothing like the possession he'd shown me in bed.

My heart seized. I couldn't breathe.

Just then, a drunk rogue wolf swayed toward me. "Hey, beautiful—"

He reached for my waist. The smell of liquor hit me like a wall.

I stepped aside.

He crowded in again. "Don't run—"

His mouth was moving toward my face.

I was about to slap him when Kieran appeared in front of me in an instant.