Ever POV:

A few days later, they came for me. The cold and hunger had weakened me to the point where the world was a constant, hazy blur. Two guards hauled me from the stable, my feet dragging uselessly on the frozen ground.

They took me to the pack's ancestral hall.

It was a large, circular chamber built of cold, gray stone, with high, narrow windows that let in only the weakest of the late autumn light. There was no fireplace, no warmth. The wind whistled through cracks in the stone, a constant, biting presence.

Alpha Fremont's decree was read aloud. I was to perform public penance for Caroline's soul. I was to kneel here until I was "forgiven."

They stripped me of my ragged dress and forced me into a thin, white linen shift. Then they pushed me to my knees on the stone floor before a makeshift altar. On it sat a framed portrait of Caroline, smiling her perfect, angelic smile.

Pack members came and went in a steady stream. They stared. They pointed. Some spat on the floor near me. Their whispers were like a swarm of angry wasps. "Murderer." "Witch." "She-devil."

My body was already failing. A fever had taken hold, making my skin burn and my limbs ache. The cold from the stone floor was a living thing, creeping up my legs, into my spine, stealing the last of my strength.

My vision swam. The whispers faded into a dull roar. I swayed, my body about to give out.

The heavy oak doors creaked open.

Through the blur, I saw a figure walk in. Tall, broad-shouldered.

Vaughn.

A tiny, stupid flicker of hope ignited in my chest. He had come. He had realized it was all a mistake. He had come to save me.

He strode across the stone floor, his boots echoing in the silent hall. He knelt in front of me, his face close to mine. His eyes, the color of a stormy sea, were even colder than the stone beneath my knees.

"Why didn't you just die like her?" he hissed, his voice a low, violent tremor. He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my jaw, forcing my head up. "If you think you can copy her death to get sympathy, I will tear you apart with my own hands."

The tiny flame of hope didn't just die. It was annihilated. He hadn't come to save me. He had come to make sure I died the right way.

He released me with a shove, wiping his fingers on his trousers as if he'd touched something foul. He turned and walked away without another word.

That was it. The last thread holding me together snapped.

My body gave out completely. I crumpled sideways, my head hitting the stone floor with a dull crack.

The cold rushed in, a final, merciful wave. It washed over me, extinguishing the fever's fire, silencing the whispers. My breathing grew shallow, each one a tiny, painful puff of air.

I felt a strange, pulling sensation. A lightness.

My perspective shifted. I was rising, floating upwards, looking down at the pathetic sight of my own body, a crumpled white heap on the gray floor.

I was a ghost. A spirit.

I drifted through the stone wall, the cold of it passing through me without sensation. I floated across the courtyard, towards the main manor. I didn't guide myself; I was pulled, drawn by the source of my own destruction.

I passed through the thick oak of the front door and up the grand staircase. I was drawn to the Luna's private sitting room.

I saw Juliana. I saw Kane. They were talking to a guest, their backs to me.

Then the guest turned.

My spirit, my very essence, recoiled in a silent, soul-shattering scream.

It was Caroline.

Alive. Unharmed. Her golden hair was perfectly styled, her blue eyes bright with a triumphant smile.

She was nestled against Juliana, whining in that sweet, childish voice. "Mother, I came back as soon as I took care of things. Is that fool dead yet?"

Juliana stroked her hair, her face glowing with the kind of love she had never once shown me—not in nineteen years, not in a single glance. "Soon, my darling. Once she's gone, Vaughn will be all yours, officially."

Kane stood nearby, arms crossed, a satisfied smirk on his face. "I've made the arrangements. It will look like she took her own life out of guilt. The pack will be glad to be rid of her."

They laughed. My mother. My brother. My sister. Laughing.

I had spent my whole life begging for scraps of their affection. And they had spent that same life planning how to dispose of me.

The sheer scale of the betrayal was a force of nature. It ripped through my consciousness, a hurricane of agony and rage.

Darkness swarmed at the edges of my vision, a final, crushing void. My last thought was not of pain or fear, but of a hate so pure and concentrated it became a prayer.

I will have my revenge. I will make them pay.

As the blackness consumed me, a voice echoed in the void. It was ancient, female, and filled with a strange, sad power.

Do you want a chance?

With the last shred of my being, I screamed back into the abyss.

I'll give anything.