I was the daughter the Beta forgot to look at. My mother died bringing me into a pack that keeps careful score, and I started my life already owing a debt I never agreed to. My wolf is late. Three years late. Long enough that the girl who runs the ranking board says it in front of the coach now, like a fact instead of a cruelty. Long enough that I train alone before dawn because no one else will watch me fail. Then he comes back. Heir to a rival pack, exiled once for a reason no one will say out loud, and somehow the only person in Ashwood territory who looks at me like I'm not furniture. He doesn't smile. He doesn't soften it. He just doesn't look away — and that's worse, somehow, because I don't know what to do with someone who sees me. He has his own war coming. I have a wolf that won't come and a brother who's stopped knowing my name. Neither of us asked for this.