After Xandar left, Katia remained slumped on the cold ground.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I'm so sorry, Rose."
She should not have tried to fight back. Not when she was still so weak. Not when she had nothing—no power, no protection, nothing at all.
She reached into the inner pocket of her dress and retrieved the folded papers she had carried with her since leaving the Snow Moon Pack: Rose's ownership documents. The legal proof that Rose belonged to the pack, that she could be bought and sold, that she had no rights of her own.
Katia pulled the papers out with shaking hands and smoothed their wrinkled edges.
"I was so stupid," she continued. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she laid the documents in Rose's cold palms and curled the dead girl's fingers
