Chapter 4

The omega handed me a thick coat. “You’re still injured.”

“I have to go back.” My voice trembled even harder than the northern winds. My frostbitten fingers couldn’t even fasten the buttons.

He didn’t stop me again, just slipped a bundle of herbs into my bag. “If you cough up blood again, chew on this.”

The castle doors weren’t locked. The strong stench of disinfectant hit me, and my heartbeat stalled for a second.

Where’s Lucky?

I dragged my injured leg up the stairs. The bedroom was empty.

I checked the walk-in closet, the storage room, the garden…

No sign of that little yellow furball anywhere.

“Woof…” The memory of a puppy’s soft bark echoed in my ears as I stumbled into the living room.

Wendy was applying lipstick in front of the mirror. Wynne was trying on a new dress.

At their feet—

It was Lucky.

The puppy was curled up, a bruise around its neck, one hind leg twisted unnaturally.

Its eyes were still open, like little glass beads. They no longer reflected my shadow.

“What did you do to him?”

Wendy turned to me. Her lipstick was smudged, but she didn’t care.

“He was too noisy,” she said, dabbing at her lips with a tissue. “We just taught him a lesson. Didn’t expect him to be so fragile.”

“Taught him a lesson?”

I heard my own voice laugh — dry, rasping, like a bellows gasping for air.

“That puppy… was the only thing my mom left me!”

“It was just an animal.”

Wynne kicked Lucky’s lifeless body. “So what if your mom gave it to you? This place belongs to us now.”

Smack—

My hand trembled as it landed across Wendy’s face.

It was the first time I’d ever hit someone. I used all my strength.

“That was the only thing she left me!” I screamed.

Wendy clutched her face, stunned, then started shrieking.

Wynne bolted. “Alpha William! Alex has gone crazy! She hit us! She wants to kill us!”

I lunged for Wendy’s hair, but she shoved me away.

My back slammed into the corner of the coffee table. The pain from my torn wound sent blackness over my vision.

“You dared hit me?” Wendy snapped out of her shock, grabbed a perfume bottle, and hurled it at me. “Your useless trash who got kicked out!”

The bottle grazed my ear and shattered against the wall.

“Lucky…” I crawled toward the puppy’s body.

Just as my fingers brushed against his cold fur, Wendy’s heel came down hard on my hand.

“Don’t touch it. Filthy thing.”

She ground her heel into my skin. “Dead is better. Less of an eyesore.”

“Let go.”

My voice was so low it sounded like it came from the depths of hell.

“And if I don’t?” Wendy sneered. “William dotes on us. What can you do to me?”

Alpha William stormed in, eyes locking instantly on Wendy, who was crying with her face covered.

“What happened?” His voice thundered through the room.

Wynne flung herself into his arms. “Alpha! Alex lost her mind! She came back and attacked Wendy—and me! Look at her eyes, she’s insane!”

I stared at William’s face.

The same face that once turned red with tears for me.

Now held only fury. No questions, no doubt.

“Speak!” he stared at me.

I said nothing. I just slowly curled my hand around Lucky’s stiff little paw.

He was still holding the pose of scratching at a door.

This time yesterday, he would’ve been tugging at my pants for a snack.

“Cat got your tongue?” Wendy sobbed louder. “Alpha, look at her! She has no remorse at all!”

Alpha William’s gaze swept over the puppy’s body, frowning slightly.

“Get rid of it,” he ordered the omega, not even sparing Lucky a second glance.

Then he turned to me. “Who told you to come back?”

That metallic taste rose in my throat again.

So to him, I wasn’t supposed to return.

“His name was Lucky,” I finally said. “He was my mother’s gift to me.”

Wendy scoffed. “Still just a mutt—”

“Shut up!” I suddenly stood. My injured leg gave out and I collapsed to my knees.

“William, look at her Look at her!”

He stepped back, dodging the hand I stretched toward him.

“Enough.”

His tone dripped with disgust. “You look pathetic right now.”

Pathetic?

I looked down at myself—clothes stained with blood and dirt, frostbitten fingers still bleeding.

Yeah. I looked awful.

But compared to the tiny corpse at their feet, what did a little ugliness matter?

Wynne sniffled in his arms. “Alpha, she’s terrifying… what if she hurts us again?”

William tightened his hold around them and turned away. “Watch her. Don’t let her go crazy again.”

When the omegas came to drag me away, I clutched Lucky’s body tightly, my nails digging into his cold, stiff flesh.

No one touches him.

No one.