Kira's POV
The slap comes out of nowhere.
I stumble backward, my cheek burning as stars explode across my vision. The breakfast tray crashes to the floor, eggs and toast scattering across the pristine kitchen tiles.
"You clumsy idiot!" My sister Stella towers over me, her perfect face twisted with rage. "Do you know how much this dress costs? You got juice on it!"
I touch my stinging cheek, tasting blood where my teeth cut into my lip. There's barely a drop of orange juice on her sleeve—so small you'd need a magnifying glass to see it.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, because that's what I always say. Sorry for existing. Sorry for breathing. Sorry for being born.
"Sorry doesn't fix anything!" Stella raises her hand again.
I don't flinch. I learned years ago that flinching only makes her angrier. Instead, I stare at the calendar on the wall behind her. December 5th. My eighteenth birthday.
Today, I escape.
"Stella, darling, don't waste your energy on her." Mom—Helena—glides into the kitchen wearing a silk robe that probably costs more than I've eaten in a year. She looks at the mess on the floor, then at me, her lip curling like she's spotted a cockroach. "Kira, clean this up. And when you're done, there are seventeen more tasks on your list. The party is tonight, and everything must be perfect for your sister."
My birthday is today. Stella's engagement party to Daemon Silvercrest, future Alpha, is also today.
Guess which one matters?
"Yes, ma'am," I mutter, dropping to my knees to pick up broken pieces of plate.
Mom's heel nearly steps on my finger as she walks past. I don't think she even notices.
Stella flips her golden hair—so different from my dull brown—and smirks down at me. "Oh, and Kira? Happy birthday. I got you a present." She kicks the backpack I stupidly left by the kitchen door. "It's called get out of my sight."
They both laugh as they leave.
I wait until their footsteps fade before I let out the breath I've been holding. My hands shake as I pick up the last pieces of broken plate. A shard cuts my palm, and I watch the blood well up, bright red against my skin.
In the werewolf world, when you turn eighteen, two things are supposed to happen. First, your wolf fully matures—you become faster, stronger, complete. Second, you might find your mate, the person destined to love you forever.
I'm eighteen today, and I still don't have a wolf.
Everyone else in the pack got theirs at twelve or thirteen. By fifteen, when mine still hadn't shown up, the whispers started. Defective. Broken. Worthless.
My own father—Beta Marcus Ashwood, second-in-command of the entire Silvercrest Pack—told me last year that I was an embarrassment to our bloodline. He won't even look at me anymore.
But none of that matters after tonight.
Hidden under my bed upstairs is a backpack with everything I need: clothes, my life savings from working at the pack library ($847—I counted three times), a bus ticket to Seattle, and a fake ID that says I'm human. No wolf? No problem. I'll disappear into the human world where nobody knows I was supposed to be special.
I just have to survive one more party.
"You're really doing it? Tonight?"
Zara Chen appears at the library window at noon, grinning like a maniac. She's my only friend—the only person in this whole pack who doesn't treat me like garbage.
"Shh!" I glance around, but Mr. Chen, the elderly librarian, is in the back room. "Yes, tonight. After the party."
"Good." Zara's eyes flash gold—her wolf is close to the surface. She's a warrior-class wolf, strong and fierce, everything I'm not. "You deserve better than this place. Better than them."
She pulls out a cupcake from her jacket, a single candle stuck in the top. "Happy birthday, Ki. I know it's stupid, but—"
"It's not stupid." My throat tightens. This cheap cupcake means more than anything my family never gave me. "Thank you."
We eat it together, and for five minutes, I pretend I'm normal. That I'm not the pack reject. That my own parents love me.
Then reality crashes back.
"I have to go," I say. "Mom gave me a list of tasks for tonight, and if anything goes wrong—"
"It'll be your fault, yeah, yeah." Zara squeezes my hand. "Just promise me something. Once you're out? Don't look back. Don't let them guilt you into coming back. Promise."
"I promise."
But as I watch her leave, a tiny voice in my head whispers: What if something goes wrong? What if they catch you?
I shove the thought away. Nothing will go wrong.
Tonight, I disappear forever.
The party is a nightmare.
Our house—technically the pack Beta's house, but it feels more like a hotel than a home—is packed with wolves from all over the territory. Everyone's here to celebrate Stella's engagement to Daemon Silvercrest.
I'm here to serve drinks and be invisible.
"More champagne!" someone barks.
I hurry over with a tray, keeping my head down. The trick is to move like furniture—quiet, unnoticeable, nothing.
"Is that the Ashwood defect?" a woman whispers.
"Shh, don't stare. I heard she still doesn't have a wolf."
"At eighteen? That's not a late bloomer, that's a failure."
Their laughter follows me across the room.
I grit my teeth and keep moving. Four more hours. Just four more hours.
Stella holds court in the center of the room, wearing a dress that probably costs more than a car. Next to her stands Daemon Silvercrest, and I hate that my stupid heart still skips when I see him.
He's twenty-four, impossibly handsome with silver-grey eyes and black hair. He's also the boy who pushed me into a mud puddle when I was ten. Who laughed when other kids called me "defect." Who once told me I'd be better off dead.
I was stupid enough to have a crush on him anyway, once. Before I learned that fairy tales don't come true for girls like me.
Right now, Daemon looks bored, barely listening as Stella chatters about wedding plans. His eyes scan the crowd with the cold detachment of someone who's never had to care about anything.
Those eyes land on me.
I freeze.
For one heartbeat, we just stare at each other across the crowded room. Something flickers in his expression—confusion? Recognition?—but it's gone so fast I think I imagined it.
Then someone bumps into me.
The champagne tray tilts. Glasses tumble, and expensive champagne splashes across the floor—and across a warrior's shoes.
"You stupid girl!" he roars.
The entire room goes silent.
My face burns as everyone turns to stare. I drop to my knees, trying to clean up the mess with napkins, my hands shaking.
"Typical." Daemon's voice cuts through the silence like a knife. Cold. Mocking. Cruel. "The defect can't even serve drinks properly. Tell me, Kira, is there anything you can do right?"
The crowd laughs.
Stella laughs loudest of all.
I keep my head down, scrubbing at the champagne, willing myself not to cry. Don't give them the satisfaction. Don't let them see it hurt.
"Maybe she'd be better at cleaning toilets," someone suggests.
More laughter.
I finish cleaning and escape to the kitchen, my chest so tight I can barely breathe. Through the window, I see the moon rising. Almost midnight.
Almost time.
I slip out the back door while everyone's distracted, heading for the tree line. Just need to grab my bag, circle back to the road, and—
Pain explodes through my body.
I gasp, stumbling against a tree as my bones feel like they're breaking and reshaping all at once. What's happening? What—
Hello, Kira.
The voice in my head is not mine. It's ancient, powerful, and completely unfamiliar.
My wolf.
After eighteen years of nothing, my wolf is waking up.
But that's not the worst part.
As midnight strikes and my transformation begins, another scent hits me like a freight train. Pine and thunderstorms. Leather and midnight. A smell so perfect it makes my knees weak and my heart race.
It's the mate scent.
And I know—I know—who it belongs to.
No. No, no, no, no—
My wolf howls inside my mind, a sound of pure joy and triumph: MATE. OURS. GO TO HIM.
"NO!" I scream out loud.
But the mate bond is already snapping into place, a golden chain wrapping around my soul, and on the other end of that chain is the one person I hate most in the world.
Daemon Silvercrest.
My tormentor. My sister's fiancé. The boy who made my life hell.
He's my fated mate.