YOU SAY YOU HATE ME

Chapter One: Dillion's POV The dream always starts the same way. Moonlight. Silver and endless, spilling through the oak trees like the Goddess herself was watching. I'm fifteen again, wearing that white dress I hated—the one with the lace that itched—and my heart is slamming against my ribs because he's here. Lucien. He steps out from behind the old willow, and he's fifteen too. Younger. Softer. His dark hair falling across his forehead the way it used to, before he learned to cage every feeling behind that Alpha heir glare. "Dillion," he says, and his voice is exactly how I remember it. Warm. Low. Mine. I want to tell him to stop. I want to run. I want to wake up. But I never do. He crosses the grass in three strides and cups my face in his hands—hands that used to sneak me extra desserts from the Alpha kitchen, hands that held me when I cried after my mother didn't come to my birthday party, hands that I haven't felt in three and a half years. "I missed you," he whispers. I open my mouth to answer— And he kisses me. Soft at first. Gentle. The kind of kiss that makes your chest ache because it feels like coming home. Then harder. Desperate. Like he's trying to crawl inside my ribs and live there. My fingers tangle in his hair. His arm wraps around my waist, pulling me closer, and for one perfect, terrible second— I forget. I forgot that this is a dream. I forgot what he did. I forgot that his mother is dead, and everyone thinks I killed her, and he believed them. I just feel. And then I taste salt. Tears. My tears. Because somewhere beneath the kiss, beneath the moonlight and the lie, I remember the truth. He doesn't miss me. He hates me. I woke up gasping. The bus lurched beneath me, rattling over a pothole, and my forehead smacked against the cold glass of the window. Rain streaked down the other side, blurring the pine trees into dark smudges. Outside, the mountains of the Blackwell territory rose like teeth against the gray sky. Three hours. Three more hours until I crossed the border. Three more hours until I saw him again. I pressed my palm against my chest, feeling my heart race like a trapped bird, and tried to steady my breathing. Just a dream, I told myself. Just a stupid, pathetic dream. But my lips still tingled. I hated that. I hated him. Lucien Blackwell. The future Alpha. The boy who once promised to protect me. The boy who stood in that sacred circle three years ago watched his cousin point a shaking finger at my face and said nothing. He didn't defend me. He didn't even look at me. He just stood there beside his dying mother, his eyes hollow and cold, and let the pack decide I was a murderer. I curled my fingers into fists, nails biting into my palms. The bus was nearly empty. Just me, an elderly wolf couple heading back from the coast, and a warrior with a scarred face who'd been watching me from the front row for the past hour. He hadn't spoken. But I saw the way his eyes flicked to my wrists, checking for pack markings. The way his nostrils flared, scenting me. I didn't have to guess what he smelled. Fear. Grief. Rage. And underneath it all, the unmistakable scent of a wolf who'd been cast out and was stupid enough to come back. I turned my face back to the window. The trees were changing now. Thicker. Darker. The pines giving way to ancient oaks draped in moss—the** of Blackwell land. We were close. My wolf stirred beneath my skin, restless and uneasy. We shouldn't be here, she murmured. I know. They hate us. I know. He hates us. I closed my eyes. I know. Three and a half years. That's how long I'd been gone. Exiled. Not officially—the council's investigation had been too botched, too inconclusive to justify legal banishment. But packs don't need laws to cast you out. They just need whispers. Stares. The slow, suffocating weight of everyone deciding you're poison. So I left. Not because I was told to. Because staying would have killed me. I went to a boarding school three territories away, paid for by my father's guilt and my stepmother's relief to be rid of me. I learned to fight. To shift. To bury every soft thing I'd ever felt until I was nothing but sharp edges and silence. I came back different. But different wasn't going to be enough. Because I wasn't returning for forgiveness. I was returning for proof. The Luna didn't die from a sip of sacred wine. I watched her drink from that goblet. I watched her smile at Lucien, at Lori, at the whole gathered pack. And then I watched her collapse. No one believed me when I said I hadn't touched it. And three years later, no one would believe me now. But I didn't need their belief. I needed evidence. Witnesses. A confession from the person who actually poisoned her. I needed to find out why Lori's handwriting was on a letter I found hidden in the estate walls—a letter where she wrote: "She told me not to drink it. She said the goblet wasn't meant for the Luna." Because that letter meant someone knew the truth. And I was going to find them. Even if it burned down everything left of my life. The bus crested a hill, and suddenly the valley opened up below us. Blackwell Town. Lights flickered in the dusk, warm and golden, strung between the old brick buildings like nothing had changed. The pack square. The academy. The training grounds where I'd learned to shift. And beyond it all, carved into the mountainside, the Blackwell Estate. Lucien's home. My chest tightened. Don't think about him, I ordered myself. Don't think about the way he used to look at you. Don't think about the way he said your name. Don't think about the kiss in the dream. He's not yours anymore. He was never yours. He chose to believe Lori. He chose to forget you. He probably doesn't even— The bus pulled into the station, and the warrior in the front row finally stood. He walked past me slowly, deliberately, and paused at my seat. "Heard you were coming back," he said quietly. I looked up. Met his eyes. "And?" His lip curled. Not quite a snarl. Just... disgust. "The Luna was a good woman," he said. "We haven't forgotten." Then he walked off the bus and disappeared into the rain. I sat there for a long moment, hands trembling in my lap. We haven't forgotten. No. They hadn't. And they never would. I grabbed my bag and stepped off the bus. The rain hit my face immediately, cold and sharp, washing away the last traces of the dream. I pulled up my hood and started walking toward the estate—toward my father's house, toward the whispers, toward the stares. I made it three steps before I heard the voices. Two girls. Young. Maybe sixteen. Huddled under the awning of the pack diner, phones out, pretending not to stare. "She's back," one whispered. "The Luna killer?" "The Beta's daughter. The one they couldn't convict." "I thought she was exiled." "She came back. Can you believe the nerve?" I kept walking. My jaw was so tight it ached. The Luna killer. That was my name now. Not Dillion. Not Beta Everhart's daughter. Not the girl who used to braid flowers into her hair during the summer solstice. Just... the Luna killer. I was almost to the estate gates when I saw the announcement. It was posted on every board. Every lamppost. Every shop window. Cream parchment. Gold seal. The Alpha's crest. And in elegant script, the words that stopped my heart cold: The Alpha Heir, Lucien Blackwell, and the Beta Heiress, Lori Everhart, announce their sacred engagement. The union will be celebrated at the Rising Moon Ceremony. All pack members are invited to witness the bond. I stopped breathing. Lori and Lucien. Engaged. My half-sister. The girl who pointed at me and ruined my life. And him. The boy I'd loved for half of my life, the one who had followed me everywhere when we were pups until I got annoyed and told him to go home. The boy who once told me he'd never leave me. The boy who was going to marry the woman who framed me and ruined my life. The rain kept falling. The world kept spinning. And I stood there, frozen in front of the announcement, feeling something inside me crack. Not because I loved him anymore. I told myself I didn't. But because she won. Lori won. And I hadn't even known we were still fighting.