When Victor tore open the collar of his shirt, the entire assembly hall gasped.
There, burned into the flesh at the base of his neck, was the ancient branding of the Ash Pine Alpha line—superimposed directly over the White Deer crest.
It was a containment seal. Only the inner circle of the Alpha’s bloodline could hold it.
Victor might have been too young to understand what it meant when it was placed on him.
But he had carried that mark for years. It meant his family’s survival had been paid for with my mother’s blood.
His fingers brushed the raised scar tissue, coming away bloody.
At that exact moment, the full, unmitigated weight of the rejection backlash crashed down on him.
The glowing silver potion I fed him had incinerated the residual threads of our mate bond. Which meant I w
