Chapter 6

She screamed and covered herself with her hands. Then she broke. "Yes. I did all of it. It was me."

"I hate Zara. She occupied my place as the Calloway daughter and lorded it over everyone for fifteen years. My face was destroyed by her mother. I wanted to make her pay."

"Mother." Elena turned to Clara, sobbing. "I'm your real daughter. Why won't you send Zara away? She's nothing but the low-born child of a concubine."

Mother looked at Elena's face with pain in her eyes and couldn't say a word.

I said flatly, "So Elena had her maid drug Zara and destroy her, to make Zara as broken as she is."

"Then she tried to put the blame on me, so our parents would turn against me."

"That way, all three Calloway daughters would be equally worthless in our parents' eyes. Elena, that was a well-laid plan."

Grandmother appeared in the doorway. She closed her eyes for a moment. "When children become like this, the blame belongs with the parents."

"If you had been fair from the start, none of this would have happened."

"I've made my decision. Zara goes to the Pack's Sacred Shrine for confinement. As for Elena — her face is ruined. I'll arrange a match with a low-ranked Pack member. The Calloway dowry is generous enough."

Father and Mother accepted the arrangement through their tears.

That night, Zara was given a dose of medicine and locked away in the Shrine.

Seven days later, Elena left through the Calloway gates, hiccuping with sobs, her dowry of Pack assets loaded into a waiting vehicle behind her.

On the eighth morning, Grandmother suffered a heart attack and collapsed unconscious.

I stayed by her side and didn't sleep for a full month. When she finally opened her eyes and saw me, she pulled me into her arms. "Sophia, you didn't have to wear yourself out. Let the servants handle it. As long as you marry that Thorne boy, I can rest easy."

Looking at her gentle smile, I cried.

In my past life, my parents had locked me in a back room. Grandmother fought with them and took me away to her private estate.

Grandmother was devoted to me. She spent a fortune on tutors. I had a natural gift — I wrote poetry, and under a pen name, I published a collection that sold widely and made my name known across the territory.

Except for the face Livia had destroyed, I had become the most sought-after talent in the Pack's world.

Later, my real sister Elena — visiting Grandmother one day — found out I was the anonymous author. She immediately came up with a plan.

Because everyone in the territory knew that Zane Thorne admired talented women. Elena had believed her looks gave her an advantage over me. But once she knew what I was, she realized I was her real competition.

She had me knocked out and drugged mute, stole my new writings, and performed them at a Pack spring gathering.

But the moment Elena finished reciting, Zane's face changed.

He asked her to compose something on the spot. Elena's eyes went red. She couldn't write a single line.

Zane said coldly, "Are you sure these are yours?"

Elena tried to play innocent, but my parents rushed her out of the room.

That incident made Elena hate Zane. When I turned sixteen and moved back to the main estate, she lured Zane to my room and set it on fire, burning us both.

I had grown up without my parents' love, but I had never been without Grandmother.

She never gave up on me. She poured money into searching for medicine to heal my scars. She created chances for me and Zane to meet through a screen. She kept my pen name alive while I hid behind it.

"Sophia, don't cry. I have a ruby jewelry set in my dowry — a gift from the old Alpha Queen. I'll give it to you when you get bonded." Grandmother's voice pulled me back.

In this life, I hadn't grown up in her estate, but I visited her often. She treated me exactly the same as before.

I wiped my tears and leaned into her shoulder. "You're the best person in the world to me, Grandmother."

Zane kept his word. His mourning period ended and he came to claim me immediately.

The tenth of the following month was a good day for bonding.

I was dressed in an embroidered wedding gown for the Bonding Ceremony at Thorne Pack Manor. The bonding candles burned through the night. By morning I was Zane's mate.

Compared to life inside the Calloway estate, my days in Thorne Pack Manor were a different world.

There was no mother-in-law. Zane's father was guarding the northern borderlands. I was the sole woman of the house, free to do as I pleased.

On our bonding night, Zane handed me the estate's master seal and the keys to his private vault.

Sometimes I would pinch my arm because I was afraid I was dreaming. Only when the pain was real did I believe this life was real.

Then one night Zane saw the bruises on my arm and his expression went cold.

When I finally admitted, a little shamefaced, what I'd been doing, Zane cried.

He bandaged my arm with his own hands. After that, he found every way he could to spend more time with me, so I wouldn't drift off into my own head and hurt myself again.

Time passed. The full moon season came.

Father planned a Pack family gathering and sent word to Thorne Manor. I hadn't seen Grandmother in months and missed her terribly, so I pulled Zane back to the Calloway estate with me.

The moment we stepped through the gates, we walked right into a scene.

Zara was decked in pearls and hiding behind a man — Rowan Alderton, Elena's husband.