Ava’s POV
The question had already been living in my head. I’d used it to talk myself out of hope once. I couldn’t anymore.
Children don’t remember the way adults do. Their memories aren’t pictures filed in order—they’re feelings, fragments, scraps that blur and reshape. And there was nothing to anchor June’s face in Jasper’s mind. No photographs. No one allowed to speak her name. A year of silence could erase a sister from a five-year-old as cleanly as a fever had erased a childhood.
That was the part that kept me awake. Why had Laura erased June but kept Jasper? If it came down to a daughter being worth less than a son, I didn’t buy it. Jasper was the alpha heir—the greater threat by far. So why him spared, and her gone?
My wolf paced under my skin all night, and sleep never properly
