Chapter 3

Thalyn's POV

My cheek throbbed. My ears were ringing.

My blouse had been torn open, the blush-pink strap of my bra exposed.

"Theron doesn't know what he's missing."

"A girl as pretty as Thalyn shouldn't go to waste. Might as well be us."

I squeezed my eyes shut. Inside, everything went cold and gray.

Just when I thought the worst was about to happen, my door burst open for the second time.

Three Elders stood in the doorway—Elder Ossian, Elder Oriel, and Elder Hollis—with a wall of hulking guards behind them. The guards surged forward and tore the men off me. Oriel, the only woman among them, hurried to my side and caught me as I sat up, shaking all over.

"What the fuck? Do you have any idea who I am?" Joren was still mouthing off even as the guards dragged him back. "I'm the Alpha heir of Kaelis Pack! You can't touch me!"

Ossian walked right up to him and slapped him so hard that blood beaded at the corner of his mouth. Then he turned his gaze on the others, his voice cold as frost.

"Find out which families these pups belong to. They laid hands on the Lycan King's bride. Bind them—and have their fathers come collect them in person."

At his word, the guards hauled them out.

When Ossian turned back to me, his eyes had softened.

"You've given us your answer. Now, as we agreed, it's time to cut your ties with this pack."

He meant renouncing my pack.

When I was little, I once watched a pack member who'd committed a terrible crime get cast out in front of everyone—stripped of his place and sent off to live as a rogue. I was so scared I clung to the hem of my dad's shirt, my voice shaking.

"I never want to get kicked out of the pack. I never want to leave you and Mom. I don't want to be a rogue."

Dad laughed and ruffled my hair.

"You won't be, sweetheart. You just grow up happy and healthy, and you can stay with us forever."

"Unless you decide to leave on your own, your mom and I will never let anything like that happen to you."

"You're our little girl. The most precious thing we've got."

Back then, they loved me without holding anything back.

That all changed when Dad's best friend, Callum Hale—the man who'd fought at his side for years—was killed in a pack war. My parents brought his daughter, Coralie, home to live with us.

On her very first day, they sat me down and made it clear.

"Coralie's all alone in the world now. You need to let her have her way."

"Otherwise, she'll be so hurt."

So from that day on—clothes, toys, everything—I got whatever Coralie didn't want.

I worked myself to the bone to finish first in my class, and my parents promised me a new laptop. The day the rankings came out, that laptop showed up on Coralie's desk.

"You already have everything you need," they told me. "You're really going to fight your sister over a computer?"

After that, I never asked them for anything again.

Because whatever I had, half of it had to go to Coralie. All so my parents could call it "fair."

Theron was the one thing I thought I'd never have to share with her.

We were fated mates. He just never marked me—never sealed the bond between us.

But the moment he started coming around our house, he changed too.

I'd called in every favor I had to get a top designer to make my wedding dress. Coralie didn't like it. So Theron dismissed the designer on the spot, hired someone else, and had the dress remade to Coralie's taste—without ever asking me.

"You two are basically the same size," he said. "Making it the way she likes is the same as making it for you, right?"

"Come on, Thal. You adore your sister. Don't tell me you'd begrudge her something this small."

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I'd made up my mind.

I straightened my spine and faced Ossian and the other Elders. My voice came out clear and steady.

"I, Thalyn Lessard, of my own free will, renounce my place in Orien Pack. I give up my rank and my name among them, and I sever every bond that ties me to this pack."

Beside me, Oriel let out a quiet sigh—as if she were saying it to me, or maybe to herself.

"Once you choose this path, there's no turning back. Nothing that happens in Orien Pack will ever concern you again."

But I just felt... calm. Calmer than I'd ever felt in my life.

Even looking back on what had just happened to me, it didn't hurt as much anymore.

Ossian smoothed his long beard, smiling kindly.

"It's almost time, Thalyn. Go put on your gown. You're coming with us."