For weeks I had let Selene’s words bury themselves into me like thorns. Every mention of Evelina was another cut, another reminder that no matter what I did, I would never measure up to the perfect ghost she dangled over my head.
But something inside me shifted.
Maybe it was the way my body had begun to change, my child stirring faintly inside me, the soft flutters reminding me that there was more than grief and shadows to this world. Maybe it was Jacob’s constant control, suffocating yet unshakable, reminding me every day that I was bound to this pack whether I wanted it or not.
Or maybe, I was just tired.
Tired of being Evelina’s shadow. Tired of letting Selene carve me open with her poisoned tongue, while the rest of the pack nodded silently, letting her cruelty spread like wildfire
