Chapter 2

Back then, I didn't know a thing. I was a scared fifteen-year-old about to meet her real family, after a whole life spent with humans who never told me what I was.

And here was this sweet, sparkly girl, my new sister, handing me something she'd made just for me.

So I drank every drop.

Bianca clapped. "Do you like it? It took me three tries to get it right."

"It's really good," I heard myself say. My voice was so small back then. So desperate to be liked.

In the passenger seat, my father, younger and with less gray at his temples, looked back over his shoulder at us.

"She hasn't stopped talking about you all week," he said. "She begged to come pick you up."

"Of course I did." Bianca hugged my arm. "She's pack. She's family. Who cares if she grew up with humans? She's one of us now."

My mother, sitting on Bianca's other side, leaned forward with a smile. "We're so glad you're finally home, Ivy."

Home.

No word had ever felt so new to me. Or so precious.

I remember thinking, So this is what it's like to belong somewhere.

Then the cramps hit.

Sharp and sudden, low in my stomach.

I shifted in my seat. Bianca kept chattering about the pack house, about my new room, about everything we were going to do together.

The cramps got worse.

Then something warm started spreading under me.

I looked down.

Blood. It was soaking through my jeans and pooling on the leather seat.

No.

This couldn't be happening. My period had ended days ago. There was no way—

The smell reached the front first.

Garrett's hands tightened on the wheel. His nostrils flared. A wolf's nose catches blood fast.

"What the hell—" He checked the rearview mirror and saw the dark stain spreading across his brand-new seat.

His face twisted.

"Are you kidding me right now?"

"I'm sorry—" My voice came out choked. "I don't know what's happening. Please, can we pull over—"

"We're twenty minutes from the next exit."

"Garrett." My mother's voice was tight. "Just... keep driving."

The car went quiet.

I squeezed my thighs together until they ached. The blood kept coming. I could feel it, warm and humiliating, ruining everything.

The very first time I met my family.

And I was bleeding all over my brother's car like an animal.

Nobody said another word for the rest of the drive.

A voice cut into the memory. Garrett's. The present-day one.

"Why is she showing us this? I had to get that car detailed three times."

Then my father, cold: "She couldn't even control her own body. Pathetic."

Then my mother, quieter: "I remember thinking... maybe bringing her home was a mistake."

They were watching. Making comments. Like it was a show.

So they were disgusted from the very first day.

They just smiled through it.

The memory kept going.

The pack house. My new room. Bianca helping me unpack the one small bag I'd brought from the human world.

"Don't stress about the car," she said, folding one of my shirts. "Garrett's a neat freak. He'll get over it."

I sat on the edge of the bed, still shaking and so embarrassed I wanted to die.

"That drink," I said quietly. "Was there something in it?"

Bianca's hands went still.

Then she turned around, and her smile was different. Sharper.

"Oh, you figured it out?" She didn't even pretend.

"Just a pinch of crushed redroot. It brings on bleeding." She tilted her head. "I didn't think it would hit you that fast, though. And the smell—"

She wrinkled her nose and laughed.

"Why would you do that?"

"Why not?" She shrugged. "I wanted to see what you were made of. Whether you'd panic. Whether you'd cry." Her eyes sparkled. "You did both. It was perfect."

I couldn't speak.

This girl. This bubbly, sweet girl who'd held my hand and called me family.

She'd done it on purpose.

"Oh, relax." Bianca patted my shoulder. "It was a prank. Think of it as hazing. You're pack now. You need thicker skin."

She walked to the door.

Then she stopped.

Took a breath.

When she turned around, tears were running down her face.

"Mom! Dad!"

She ran out sobbing loud enough for the whole house to hear.

"I was only trying to make her feel welcome, and she—she said the most horrible things to me—she called me a—"

Footsteps rushed toward her. My parents' voices, worried. Garrett asking what happened.

I sat frozen on the bed.

Through the open door, I could see all of them. My family, wrapped around Bianca, hugging her, stroking her hair.

Nobody looked my way.

The memory faded.

I opened my eyes in the seer's den.

My mother couldn't look at me.

Garrett's jaw was clenched.

Even my father looked shaken for a second.

"Well," the seer said quietly. "Now you've seen it."

The silence dragged on.

Then Garrett blew out a breath. "Okay. So she put something in the drink. That was... a bad joke. Bianca was fourteen. She didn't know any better."

"She was just a kid." My mother shook her head. "You know how she is. She always wants attention. She probably just wanted you to notice her."

"It doesn't matter." My father got to his feet. "That was three years ago. A stupid prank. It has nothing to do with where Bianca is now."

He turned to the seer.

"How many readings are left?"

"Two. Maybe three, if she holds steady. But Alpha—"

"Then keep going." He sat back down. "I need to find my daughter."

My daughter.

He didn't mean me. He never meant me.

He meant Bianca. It was always Bianca.

The seer pressed her hands to my temples again.

The pull dragged me under.

And I already knew which memory was waiting.

The night my family picked Bianca over me for good.