"How will you help me?" she challenged, her voice filled with skepticism. "Don't insult me by saying you're a guide sent by the Moon Goddess. If she were truly present and cared for me, she would not have made me an orphan in the first place, only to be abandoned yet again!"
She sank deeper into her immediate despair. The agonizing wound of rejection by her mate hadn't even begun to heal when the deeper, the pain of her family's abandonment was ripped open.
The old woman remained still, her bright eyes fixed on Juniper's face. "Will you believe me if your family accepts you back?" she asked softly.
Juniper flinched at her question. "Don't pester me," she snapped, dragging her luggage past the woman. She was already crippled by stress and humiliation; this strange woman's impossible promises only rubbed salt in her wounds. Her adopted family would never take her back.
