Chapter 102
Kara
"Settled?" I round on him. "You think I'm going to settle? You think knowing my parents dumped me because I was inconvenient, that Luna has been projecting her hatred of my mother onto me for a decade, that you all knew and said nothing—you think I'm just going to accept that?"
My voice breaks. Tears stream down my face.
"They left me," I choke out. "They saved themselves and they left me, and I never knew why. I thought—I thought maybe I'd done something wrong. Maybe I wasn't worth keeping. But no. I was just... collateral damage."
"Baby—" Blake reaches for me.
"Don't." I back away, water sloshing around me. "Don't touch me. Not right now."
The world tilts.
No—it fractures.
The warm water around me turns to ice. The tropical flowers blur into white snow. Cole's mint-and-ozone scent morphs into something chemical and desperate—cheap vodka, cigarette smoke, the acrid tang of fear.
I'm not in Hawaii anymore.
I'm eight years old, and it's the coldest night of my life.
---
Ten Years Ago
Midnight Estate, Alaska
The car stinks.
That's the first thing I notice—not the blizzard howling outside, not Mommy crying in the front seat, but the smell. It's everywhere: stale tobacco ground into the seats, the sharp burn of vodka spilled on the floor mats, and something else. Something sweet and wrong that makes my nose wrinkle.
Later, I'll learn it's the smell of the white powder Daddy sometimes snorts when he thinks I'm asleep. The pills Mommy crushes and mixes into her drinks.
But right now, I'm just eight. I don't understand why we're parked a hundred yards from the big iron gates, engine idling, snow piling up on the windshield faster than the wipers can clear it.
I clutch my snow wolf plushie—the one Daddy gave me for my seventh birthday, back when things were still okay—and listen to them fight.
"We take her with us and she's dead, Celeste!" Daddy's voice cracks. His hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel, shaking. "You heard what they said on the phone—'We don't care if she's eight or eighty, she gets a bullet like the rest.' You want our baby to end up in a ditch?"
Mommy's sobbing, mascara streaking down her face. "But she's just a child... she needs us... I can't just leave her—"
"Victoria already paid off the debt! Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!" Daddy twists to look at her, and his eyes are all red and watery. Later, I'll recognize the look: withdrawal. Right now, I just think he's sad. "But those people saw our faces. They know where we live. The only place they won't follow is Marcus's territory—they're not stupid enough to go up against a whole pack of wolves unless they want a war."
My small voice pipes up from the backseat: "Daddy? Why can't I come with you?"
He flinches. Won't look at me.
Mommy turns around, forces a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. Her hands are shaking as she reaches back to touch my frozen cheek.
"Sweetheart... Daddy and I have to go away for a little while. Just to fix some problems. It won't be long—maybe a few weeks. Two months at most. And then we'll come get you and everything will be okay again."
"But why can't I come?" My voice is so small. "I'll be good, I promise. I won't even cry—"
"Your Aunt Victoria has a big house," Daddy interrupts, staring at the snow-covered dashboard. "Heat. Food. Three boys about your age to play with. It's better than... than what we can give you right now."
Aunt Victoria. The tall woman with cold green eyes who came to our apartment once and yelled at Daddy for three hours. I remember hiding behind the couch, watching her pace and cry and scream about how Mommy was "ruining him" and "dragging him into hell."
She didn't look at me once that whole visit.
Daddy pulls a battered duffle bag from the trunk, starts shoving my clothes into it with jerky, desperate movements. My two pairs of jeans. The sweaters with holes in the elbows. My snow wolf.
"That's it?" Mommy whispers. "That's all we can give her?"
"That's all we have."
The walk to the gates feels endless.
Daddy carries me through snow that comes up past my knees, my duffle banging against his leg. Mommy follows with my backpack, moving slower and slower, like her feet don't want to obey.
We reach the massive stone steps leading up to the front door. Warm light glows in the windows of the estate—a fortress of black stone and timber, chimneys pumping smoke into the frozen air.
Daddy sets me down on the top step. Kisses my forehead so fast I barely feel it.
"Be good. Listen to your aunt. We'll—" His voice breaks. "We'll come back for you."
He turns and runs.
"Daddy, wait—"
But he's already gone, boots crunching through the snow.
Mommy kneels in front of me, wraps her scarf tight around my neck even though I'm already wearing two. Her breath smells like mint gum trying to cover something bitter.
"Forgive me," she whispers in my ear. "Baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry—"
Then she runs too.
I stand on the steps, watching their shapes disappear into the white curtain of falling snow. The car is still idling by the gates, headlights cutting yellow paths through the storm.
Waiting.
Waiting for someone to answer the door. Waiting for this to become real.
The door opens.
A boy my age—no, older. Maybe ten. He's wearing soft-looking pajamas, his black hair messy like he just woke up. Bright blue eyes blink at me in confusion.
"Huh. Who are you?" He tilts his head. "You selling cookies or something? 'Cause it's like, actively a blizzard out here."
I'm too shocked to answer. Too cold. I just hug my snow wolf tighter and take a step back.
The boy turns and yells over his shoulder: "Blake! Asher! Come look—there's some random kid on the porch!"
Two more boys appear. Same black hair, same blue eyes, same height. They look exactly like the first one.
Triplets.
One of them—the one who feels the most... serious, somehow—scans the area behind me. "Where are her parents?"
"Dunno." The first boy shrugs. "Maybe she got lost?"
The serious one's eyes narrow. "She doesn't look like she's from any pack family I recognize."
The third boy—rougher, with a sharper edge to his voice—jerks his chin at me. "You got a name, kid?"
My teeth are chattering too hard to answer. I manage to whisper: "I'm... I'm waiting for Aunt Victoria..."
All three boys go still.
Then a woman's voice, sharp and cold: "Move. Now."
They scatter like leaves.
Luna Victoria Sterling pushes past her sons, elegant even in a silk robe, her long brown hair cascading over her shoulders. When she sees me, her whole body freezes.
Her green eyes travel over my face—my brown eyes, my deep gold curls, my light brown skin—and something shatters in her expression.
"No," she breathes. "No, he didn't—"
She looks past me, toward the gates. Toward the idling car.
And then she screams.
"Connor?!" She's running now, bare feet in the snow, robe flying behind her. "Connor, is that you?! Connor, please!"
I watch—frozen, terrified—as this strange woman who's supposed to be my aunt races toward the gates, her voice breaking on every syllable.
"Please stop! Please! I can fix this! Marcus will protect you—all of you! Just come back! Please come back!"
The car's engine revs.
"Connor, I can still save you! Don't do this! Don't leave me! Please, little brother, please—"
The car lurches forward, tires spinning in the snow.
Victoria collapses at the gates, both hands gripping the iron bars, and the sound that comes out of her is barely human. It's the sound of something essential breaking.
"Connor... please... I love you... come back..."