Shattered Trust (The Girl That Came Back)

I was seventeen years old when I learned that perfection is just a mask people wear so no one can see them breaking underneath. The ceremony was supposed to be the best day of my life. That's what everyone told me. I'd been told it since I was twelve years old—this day would be perfect. This day would be everything. I wore a white dress that cost more than most people's cars. My mother had commissioned it from a designer in the city, all lace and silk that moved like water when I walked. My dark hair was woven with small white flowers that someone had spent three hours placing strand by strand. I looked like someone from a fairy tale. I looked like someone who had everything. The thing about fairy tales is that they never show you what happens after "happily ever after." My best friend Alie adjusted my dress one more time. She stood beside me in the preparation room, her blonde hair falling in perfect waves down her back. She'd known me since we were eight years old. She was supposed to be the one person in the world who knew I was terrified. "You look beautiful," she said, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. I noticed that. Even then, when I didn't understand much about reading people, I noticed that something in her expression was off. Like she was playing a role in a movie and had just remembered the camera was on. "I feel like I'm going to throw up," I whispered. "Cold feet?" She laughed, but it sounded sharp. "Everyone gets cold feet. Wait until you see Aaron. You'll forget everything." The thing about Aaron was that he existed in my life more as an idea than as a person. We'd grown up knowing we'd be mated—that's how it worked in our world. The strongest families' children were bonded early to create alliances. My father was the Alpha of the Silvermoon pack. Aaron's father was the Alpha of the Blackstone pack. Our mating was supposed to be the most powerful union our territory had seen in a generation. But I'd barely spent time with him. We'd been at pack gatherings together. We'd danced at formal events. We'd spoken maybe fifty words total in our entire lives. "Everyone says he's into you," Alie said, and there it was again—that edge in her voice that sounded like something sharp hidden under velvet. "He's always looking at you." "I didn't notice," I said honestly. "Of course you didn't. You only notice what's right in front of you." She moved away from me, walking to the window that overlooked the ceremony grounds. "Some of us have to look harder to be seen." I didn't understand what she meant then. I wouldn't understand for six more years. The ceremony began. I remember walking down the aisle toward the altar where my father waited. He looked proud and sad at the same time—like he was saying goodbye to someone he loved. He was. In our world, when you become a mate, you belong to the pack of your partner. I was leaving behind my childhood home. I was becoming something new. Aaron stood waiting. He was handsome the way fairy tale princes are handsome—dark hair, strong jaw, the kind of face that made girls look twice. He was taller than me by a head. He was smiling, but his eyes looked nervous. The ceremony was long. We exchanged vows that other people had written. We spoke words about loyalty and bonding and forever. We drank from a shared cup of something that tasted like herbs and honey. Our hands were bound together with silver thread. It should have felt magical. Instead, it felt like I was watching someone else's life happen to someone else's body. Then we were supposed to be presented as mates. The entire pack was gathered—hundreds of people—and they were waiting for Aaron to make the formal claim. In our tradition, when a mate is officially recognized, they form a mental bond. I should have felt him in my mind. I should have understood, for the first time, what it meant to not be alone inside my own head. But something was wrong. My body started to feel hot. Then cold. Then like it was being torn apart from the inside out. I grabbed Aaron’s arm, trying to tell him something was happening, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking past me, toward the back of the gathering. Aaron?" I tried to say his name, but my voice came out wrong. Too high. Too desperate. That's when I smelled it—a scent that shouldn't have been there. A scent that made my wolf—the animal part of me that lived beneath my skin—go absolutely wild. It was a scent that meant something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Alie finally looked at me. His face had gone pale. He let go of my hand. "There's something I need to tell you," he said. He didn't say anything else before he walked away. He walked right off the altar in front of three hundred people and walked toward Alie, who had just entered the ceremony space. They were holding hands. They were looking at each other like the world had stopped existing. I stood alone on the altar in my fairy tale dress while everyone watched my life fall apart. "Aaron, wait," I called out, but he didn't stop walking. That's when the pain got worse. I fell to my knees. My mother rushed toward me, but my father held her back. His face was dark with rage. He was looking at Aaron with an expression that made even me—even in that moment of agony—feel afraid for what might happen next. "Get her to the medical rooms," my father commanded someone. "Now." Two healers appeared beside me. They were saying things I couldn't understand. My vision was blurring. My body was doing things it had never done before. All I could understand was that something was wrong with me, and whatever was happening was happening because of Aaron walking away. As they carried me out of the ceremony space, I saw Alie looking back at me. She wasn't smiling anymore. She looked almost sad. But there was something else in her expression too. There was satisfaction. That image—Alie’s face, Aaron's absence, my father's rage—that was the last clear memory I had for six years. Everything after that became fragments. I remember pain. I remember being in a room that was white and sterile and cold. I remember voices arguing. I remember my mother's crying. I remember my father saying words in a language I didn't fully understand, the kind of anger that makes animals whimper and hide. I remember something breaking inside me that had nothing to do with my body and everything to do with the parts of myself I thought I knew. The parts that were supposed to be safe. The parts that were supposed to matter. I remember, in the midst of everything, understanding that the world was not what I thought it was. And then I remember nothing. For six years,