"Nira."

"What happened to the pup… that was my fault. Once you're better, I'll give you anything you want. That garden in the Southlands you love so much — I'll buy it for you, and it'll be our den after the mating ceremony. How does that sound?"

"And that ruby jewelry set you had your eye on last time — I'll send someone to the western territories right now to have it made…"

He paused, drew a long breath.

"As for Vesper… she really didn't mean it. She lost her parents young, and I spoiled her, but she's not bad at heart. Don't hate her. Do it for me, if nothing else. Can you do that?"

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Once Vesper is mated off, we'll have our ceremony. I'll make it grand. And then we'll have lots and lots of pups…"

I jerked my face away, dodging his lips.

His scent — pine resin, rain-soaked stone — settled over me like something that used to mean safety. Now it only made my stomach turn.

I hadn't told him that the last few times Vesper had driven me to the edge of death, I'd seen things in my dreams — fragments of a life before this one.

Each time, right when I was about to learn who I really was, the vision broke apart.

But the pattern was clear: every time they broke me, another piece of my memory came back.

All I had to do was wait. Once my memory returned and I found my pack, I wouldn't need him anymore.

Cassian's brow creased at my coldness.

"Nira, I'm already begging you. What more do you want?"

"Vesper was right — I'm the one who spoiled you. Let you think that having some talent at moonsong meant you could act however you pleased!"

"But you might want to take a good look at yourself right now. Drive me away, and what wolf would have you? Or would you rather go back to being a nameless ghost with no pack in the world?"

My eyes flew open, staring at him in disbelief.

The impatience on his face, the casual cruelty — and I understood that the man who had once so carefully soothed every flicker of my fear was gone.

How much I'd been made to suffer for Vesper's sake these past moon cycles, I couldn't even count anymore.

The day Vesper first arrived at the estate, she said my rooms had the best view and wanted to swap.

Cassian defended me without hesitation — said I was settled there, it wasn't convenient to move, and told her to pick somewhere else.

It was me who couldn't bear to put him in that position, so I offered to move on my own.

Cassian was so touched by my selflessness that he moved me into his own study. After that, we were together morning and night.

I thought he would always favor me like that.

But it wasn't long before Vesper invited me to see the frost-blooming trees behind the ridge.

When we reached the lake, she shoved me in.

Freezing water flooded my nose and mouth. I couldn't swim. I thrashed, screaming his name over and over.

Cassian took his time calming a hysterical Vesper before he ordered anyone to pull me out.

And even then, he pushed Vesper aside first — then came for me.

When I was dragged from the water, his first words weren't concern. They were blame.

"How could you be so careless? The ice was that thin and you were still playing around?"

"Cousin, I don't even know what happened — I felt someone push me, and I almost fell into the lake myself, so I grabbed at whatever I could, and I accidentally dragged Nira down with me…"

Vesper's version was deliberately vague. Her scent had been sharp with jasmine and copper that day, the way it always turned when she was performing distress.

But the way Cassian looked at me changed instantly.

"You two were the only ones there. Nira — did you hold a grudge over Vesper taking your rooms? Did you try to push her into the lake and end up falling in yourself?"

My mouth opened and closed, the injustice choking me, but I couldn't force out a single word in my own defense.

Once he suspected me, any explanation would have been useless anyway.

Then came the autumn hunt. Vesper's horse spooked and threw her — she scraped her skin.

My horse had been tampered with. I was flung from the saddle, and three of my ribs snapped clean.

Cassian scooped her up without a second glance and ran for the pack healer. I screamed after his retreating back until my voice broke, but he never once turned around.

The den attendants carried me back. I had barely finished having my wounds dressed when he stormed in, livid.

He accused me of drugging Vesper's horse, of being the reason she'd been thrown.

He didn't ask a single question before ordering the flogging.

The attendants wielding the rods had their instructions. It took only two or three blows to shatter both my legs.

After that, every slight Vesper suffered, every grievance she nursed, Cassian laid at my feet.

I was bitter, furious, and yet part of me still believed Vesper had deceived him, bewitched him into treating me this way.

Now I saw it for what it was.

He had never held me in his heart. He never would.

A dazed laugh left me, and I shook my head. Something flickered across Cassian's face, and he began to lift his hand toward my hair.

Then Vesper's voice cut in.

"Cousin, you don't understand how a woman's mind works. She's only upset because you're good to me. This pitiful act is just to make you feel sorry for her..."

"We're both women. Why don't you leave her with me? Let me talk some sense into her. She might come around."

"But..."

Cassian's gaze drifted between the two of us, hesitant.

"Cousin! I'll be entering the Heir Alpha's den in a few days. After that it'll just be the two of you here. If I don't smooth things over with Nira now, and you two end up at odds because of me, I'll never forgive myself..."

Cassian could never stand to see Vesper upset. He nodded, rose, and left.

A sly smile curled the corner of Vesper's mouth.

"Now it's just us. Finally, no need to pretend..."

"I haven't even thanked you properly. Without you, the Heir Alpha would never have noticed me. It's not the title of Heir Alpha's mate, but for someone of my standing, just being allowed to serve at his side is more than I could've hoped for..."

"Still, keeping you around is a liability. If the Heir Alpha ever finds out... No. I will never give him the chance."

"Until I leave for my mating ceremony, you're not setting foot outside this room. Not until I've secured my position in the Heir Alpha's den. And if you ever pull what you did that day again, if you so much as catch his eye, I'll have Cassian kill you."

She dropped that threat like a parting gift, turned on her heel, and locked the door from the outside, every bolt thrown tight.

I lay on the bed and let the tears soak into the pillow.

Three full days. Apart from the attendant who brought meals, the silence around me was terrifying. I drifted in and out of consciousness, fever rising and falling, and images streamed through my dreams that I could not tell from memory.

One moment it was warhorses and clashing steel, bodies crumpling before me one after another. The tang of blood so sharp I could taste iron on my tongue even in sleep, and somewhere beneath it a scent I couldn't name, something cold and clean like snow cedar carried on winter wind.

The next, someone was gripping my hand, calling me "Sister."

Just as the face was about to come into focus, the dream shattered. My eyes flew open to an empty room, and a single thought took root in my mind.

If teetering on the edge of death could summon visions like these, then maybe all I needed was to try again. And again. Until I finally learned who I really was.

I dragged myself upright and rummaged through the cabinet until I found a length of white silk.

I flung it over the ceiling beam and knotted it tight.

The instant my neck slipped through the loop, the fabric bit into my throat.

Agony and suffocation crashed over me at once, and everything went black.

Consciousness peeled away, and the face from my dream sharpened, inch by inch. Something deep inside me stirred, a presence I had no name for, pressing forward as if it too wanted to see.

I was so close to seeing it clearly.

BANG.

The door was kicked open.

Vesper stood in the doorway, two senior den attendants behind her, a bowl of broth in her hands.

"Oh my. Still alive?"

She strolled in with a smile, crouched down, and peered at me. "Trying to die? Did you ask my permission first?"

I lifted my head. My throat hurt too much to speak.

Vesper tilted her head, putting on a look of pity.

"Oh dear, look at your neck, it's all red. That must hurt so much. Why would you do something like this? It's just a pup. Cassian said you can always have another one."

She set the bowl of broth on the ground, stood, and brushed off her skirt.

"But since I happened to walk in on this, I suppose I should help."

She turned to the senior den attendant. "Go fetch Cassian. Tell him Nira tried to hang herself, and I saved her."

The attendant left at once.

Vesper crouched down, brought her face close to mine, and dropped her voice. The jasmine-and-copper scent of her thickened, cloying, wrong.

"You know what he's going to think, don't you? He's going to think you're threatening him. Using death to guilt him into pushing me aside."

"He despises that kind of trick."

She was right.

When Cassian burst through the door, there was no concern on his face. Only fury. His scent hit me before his voice did, pine resin gone sharp and acrid with anger, stripped of every soft note I'd once found comfort in.

"Nira! Have you lost your mind?!"

He grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up off the floor. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

I opened my mouth, tried to explain that I wasn't threatening him.

Not a single sound came out.

Vesper was shaking with sobs, pressing herself into Cassian's arms. "Is she blaming me? Is this because of me? Everything that's happened to her is all my—"

Cassian held her, patting her back gently. "Don't be silly. None of this is your fault."

Then he turned to me, his voice ice.

"I thought you were a sensible woman. I never imagined you'd stoop to this—crying, making scenes, trying to hang yourself. Every trick in the book."

"Don't blame her…" Vesper was still pouring fuel on the fire. "She just lost the pup, she must be heartbroken…"

"Enough." Cassian let go of Vesper, walked up to me, and looked down. "You want to die? Fine. I'll grant you that wish. But don't do it in my den. I won't have that stain on my threshold."

He turned to the attendant. "Lock her in the stone shed. No one is to visit her without my orders."

"Cassian…" Vesper caught his arm, performing reluctance. "Don't be too cruel, she's still—"

"She needs to learn."

Cassian left without looking back.

Vesper followed him out. At the doorway, she glanced back at me, her lips parting around silent words.

Wait to die.

The door slammed shut behind her.

The stone shed had no windows. The only light was a thin line bleeding in through the crack beneath the door.

I curled up in the corner, my neck burning, my body covered in wounds, a dull ache still grinding through my lower belly. Deep inside me, something I could barely name lay utterly still. My wolf had gone silent. Not sleeping, not resting. Just gone quiet the way a creature goes quiet when it has given up finding a way out.

After nightfall, the lock rattled.

Vesper pushed the door open. Moonlight caught her sweet, pale face, but the smile beneath it was vicious.

Two heavyset senior den attendants stood behind her.

"Tomorrow I enter the Heir Alpha's den for the mating ceremony. I mentioned, just in passing, that I wanted a luminous pearl from the Eastern Sea as a bonding gift, and Cassian rode out to find one that very night. No one will disturb us. We have until dawn."

I shrank back until my spine hit the cold wall, eyes sharp with alarm.

"What are you going to do?"

Vesper smiled, rose to her feet, and drew a whip from her sleeve. The warmth drained from her gaze.

"I've waited a long time for this."

The first lash came down across my body.

"This one is for seducing Cassian. He's mine—"

A second. A third.

She counted them out, unhurried, and soon there was no unmarked skin left on me, only welts and blood. Each strike landed where my wolf should have surged to protect me, and nothing rose. Nothing stirred.

The two attendants pinned me down so I couldn't twist away. All that escaped my lips was a thin, broken whimper.

Vesper lowered the whip and looked down at me.

"Look at you. You're less than a dog."

She seized my chin, her voice bright with triumph. "Tomorrow I enter the Heir Alpha's High Den to live in splendor, and you—you'll rot here, thrown away by Cassian like the nothing you are."