Chapter 1

When I was ten, I followed my mother into the Thorne Pack Grounds after she bonded with Alpha Alaric Thorne.

My stepbrother, Kieran Thorne, always called me a parasite, and one day he shoved me down the stairs.

He watched me lie there in a pool of blood and said coldly, "Don't think bonding your mother to my father makes you a Thorne. Sooner or later I'll throw you out."

He tore up my homework and drew on my dresses with paint, just to humiliate me.

No matter how obedient I was, his cruelty never stopped.

Until his best friend, Nash Calloway, confessed to me at university.

After that, for the first time in my life, Kieran stopped tormenting me.

I treated Nash like my salvation, and on my birthday I slept with him.

The next morning I overheard him talking to Kieran.

Kieran's voice was soaked with malice. "Did you get her first time on camera?"

Nash laughed. "Of course. HD, no filter. If it weren't to get back at them for you, I'd never touch a home-wrecker like her."

I clapped my hand over my mouth and the tears spilled over.

So the salvation I'd believed in was just another of Kieran's revenge plots.

But he didn't know I'd already submitted my application to leave the territory.

I was never coming back.

......

Inside the lounge, Kieran took a drag off his cigarette. "Ruin her reputation. Let's see her keep clinging to my house after this."

"What if she can't take it and something happens to her?"

Kieran shot him a sidelong look and sneered. "You're worried about her? Don't tell me you actually like her."

Nash denied it fast. "No way. I was just playing with her."

"Camille's coming home. Why would I waste time on her?"

Standing outside the door, my heart went to ice.

Camille Beaumont was their childhood friend, the girl they'd grown up with, and Nash's first love.

I'd always known Kieran hated me.

He believed my mother had driven his mother to throw herself off the cliff at the edge of Thorne Grounds, and he put all of that hate on me.

After Nash and I got together, Kieran had still disliked me, but he stopped making my life hell.

I thought he had finally accepted me.

I thought I finally had a real brother, and I'd been looking forward to having a normal relationship with him.

It turned out this was a worse revenge than anything he'd done before.

He and Nash had grown up in each other's pockets. I'd actually let myself believe Nash really liked me.

I had overestimated myself.

I swallowed the sourness in my throat and ran out like I'd lost my mind.

It was pouring outside.

I was soaked through.

The second I got home I texted the professor. "Sir, I'll take the position abroad with you."

Professor Silas Ellsworth had been my mentor at an international competition, and he was a leading figure in Pack Tech.

Once, to earn the approval of my family, I'd pushed myself to be the best at everything.

But no one had ever cared.

Not my mother. Not Kieran.

The project was classified. Three years, no leaving the institute. That was why I'd turned it down before.

Now I didn't need a reason to stay.

The rain must have gotten to me. I curled into a ball.

I woke up from a nightmare burning hot.

I was about to get up for medicine when the door slammed open.

Before I could speak, my mother hurled a stack of photos in my face, furious. "Wren Hayes! How old are you, sleeping with a man? Are you that cheap?"

The photos had all been taken by Nash while I was asleep.

My eyes went dull. A cold, tired grief rose up in me.

Overnight they had already pushed the photos out.

Two days ago Nash had sworn to me, "I'll take responsibility. When we graduate, we'll Bond."

He'd poured drink after drink into me, and under his coaxing I'd said yes.

He'd pulled me to the bed again and again, lost in the rawest part of himself.

At the time I'd actually thought he loved me.

When I didn't answer, my mother kept pushing. "Say something! Who took them? If anyone sees these, Alaric and I will never hold our heads up in the Pack circles again!"

What she cared about was never me. It was always herself.

But the moment I said Nash's name, she went quiet.

Then she turned on me. "How could you get tangled up with the Calloway heir? We can't afford to cross a Pack like his…"

"And you two were in a relationship, so even with evidence we can't touch him. You didn't say no, did you?"

I jerked my head up and stared at her, not believing what I was hearing.

She wouldn't meet my eyes. "The photos have been pulled down. Give it time. Nobody will remember."

Nash had power and connections. The Thornes couldn't afford to make an enemy of the Calloways.

As the door closed, I saw Kieran standing at the top of the stairs, smirking at me, eyes full of challenge.

It was like he'd known exactly how this would go.