Chapter3

"Why?" she repeated. "You want to know why?"

The sweetness slid off her face, and what was underneath was ugly. She swung her legs off the bed and came at me, step by slow step.

"Have you got any idea how I've lived these past years, Lyra Ashvale?

"The mate they shipped me off to used me like a pack mule. Fists every day. Filth out of his mouth every day. I ate what the dogs wouldn't, and I slept with one eye open so the other females wouldn't rip my throat out in the night!"

Her palm pressed flat against her chest, over the place where her shriveled wolf barely stirred. Her eyes burned with resentment.

"And you? Where were you while I was living like a stray?

"Right here, soaking up everything that was supposed to be mine! Kael doted on you. Spoiled you. Treated you like something precious! Why you? Tell me why!"

Her voice rose to a scream an inch from my face. "I'm his fated mate! Me! His love, the best of everything this pack has to offer, it was all meant for me!

"So why does an orphan with no mate mark on her skin get to sit in my place and live my life?"

Cold crept up my spine as she ranted.

She truly believed it. That I had stolen her life. That was the whole reason she hated me.

I hadn't sent her away. I hadn't put a single bruise on her. And still every misery she'd ever suffered had my name written on it.

"So here's what I've decided. I'm taking that precious white wolf core of yours. You'll be a husk. No wolf. No shifting, no running, nothing. Everyone will look at you and feel sick. And then, maybe, you'll have paid me back for all the good years you stole, with interest."

She laughed, high and wild, her eyes glittering strangely. "And then Kael will finally look at me. Only me!"

"You've lost your mind," I said, though my heart had gone cold. There was no point arguing with someone this far gone. I looked at the box instead.

"Give it back."

"Back? Of course! Here!"

Something vicious sparked in her eyes. She swung the box like a club and smashed it against the iron bedframe.

The old cedar burst apart with a loud crack. A thousand letters, fifteen years of loving him, sprayed out across the floorboards.

Right then, footsteps pounded up the stairs.

Vivienne let out a scream and flung herself down onto the floor, tears already pouring.

Kael filled the doorway. One look at the room, and his face went black.

He scooped Vivienne up and rounded on me before anyone had said a word.

"Lyra Ashvale! What the fuck is the matter with you?"

I didn't answer. I knelt and started picking up the shattered pieces of the box.

Splinters stabbed into my fingertips. Blood welled up and dripped onto the letters, spreading into the paper.

"I… I opened the wrong door, Kael… I got dizzy, and I reached out to catch myself, and I knocked Lyra's box over…"

She buried her face in his chest and cried harder. "I never thought she'd come at me like that and shove me down. I didn't mean to break anything…"

Kael's knuckles cracked as his fists tightened.

That very morning he'd told me to throw those ridiculous letters away. And now I'd knocked Vivienne to the floor over a broken box?

He drew breath to tear into me, and then his eyes fell on one letter lying open on the boards, its words as clear as day.

"I hope Kae stays happy and well, always."