Chapter 1: The Girl Who Had Nothing
ISLA
I heard his name before I saw the trouble coming.
"Crossbane is going to be there." The taller one, red dress, Sylvia crest at her collar. "The actual Apex. At the induction."
"I heard." Her friend, dark lipstick, diamond earrings, the kind of bored confidence that came from never having been told no. "Can you imagine? Being claimed by someone like that?"
"Practically impossible. Wolves like him don't look twice at anyone below Beta bloodline."
I was reaching past them for a glass of water.
That was all, just water, trying to get through the next hour without dying of the social exhaustion that came from being the only packless wolf in a room full of people who knew exactly where they stood, when the taller one clocked me hovering at the edge of their conversation.
"Sorry." Already stepping back. "I didn’t mean to interrupt."
"Were you listening in on our conversation?" Diamond earrings regarded me the way you regarded something you weren't sure was worth your attention.
"Just reaching for the water."
"Right." A pause as she looked me up and down.
“You're Isla, aren't you? Jaxon's little translator?"
Of course. There it was.
"I work with him, yes."
"Must be nice." Red dress, tilting her head. "Getting to be in his orbit. Even if it is just, you know." A gesture. “Professional.”
Something made me say it. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe years of standing at the edges of rooms like this one, swallowing things that deserved to be said out loud.
"I was actually just thinking–" Keeping my voice light. "A wolf as powerful as Gideon Crossbane probably doesn't see much difference between us. We're all the same to someone at that level."
Dead silence.
Then diamond earrings laughed. Not warmly.
"Oh that's sweet." She exchanged a look with her friend. "She thinks she's the same as us."
"I didn't say–“
"Honey." Red dress stepped closer. Not threatening. Worse, it was pitying.
“There is a very big difference between us and you. We have a Pack. We have bloodline. We have wolves who will claim us." Her eyes traveled down me again with the leisurely cruelty of someone who had never needed to hurry.
"What do you have? You're Packless. Mateless. You don't even exist in our world except as the person Jaxon Ashford calls when he needs his paperwork translated."
"Wolves like the Apex?" Diamond earrings smiled. "They don't see you at all. You're invisible to them– no, wait, you're beneath invisible. They step on wolves like you without even noticing."
My face was hot. My hands were completely still at my sides.
"At least we have access to higher wolves," red dress continued, like she was making a reasonable point in a reasonable conversation.
"Chosen mates, futures, positions worth having." She tilted her glass slightly, just slightly.
"You have nothing. You are nothing. And everyone in this room knows it."
The wine hit me before I registered the motion.
White. Cold. Down my front in one smooth pour that absolutely could have been accidental if you weren't watching her hand, and everyone nearby was very carefully not watching her hand.
"Oh no." Perfectly blank eyes. The exact same expression women had been using to destroy each other for centuries. "I'm so clumsy. I'm so sorry."
The murmur that moved through the nearby crowd was not sympathy.
I stood there with wine dripping from my dress and my eyes found Jaxon across the room.
He had seen. I knew him well enough to know that.
But what he did broke my heart into a million pieces.
He turned back to his conversation.
I rushed to the bathroom because it felt like the only place to escape to.
The marble was cold under my hands.
I gripped the sink and looked at myself in the mirror and the woman looking back at me had wine on her dress and mascara that hadn't smudged yet but was going to, and I thought about what red dress had said.
You are nothing.
He doesn't see you at all.
I pressed my eyes shut.
He cares. He just can't show it right now. The timing isn't right. He's in a delicate position and I understand that, I've always understood that, and when the induction is done everything will be different–
He cares.
He swears he cares.
I turned the tap on and pressed a cold cloth against the stain and told myself that this was the price of something worth having.
That the women in that room didn't know what we had.
That the way he saw me when no one was watching was real, that the promises he made were real, that the boy who kissed me in the ashes and said you and me, always was still somewhere inside the polished Alpha playing the long game.
He loves me.
He swears he loves me.
Everything will be okay.
That's what I always believed.
Until the night it all came crumbling down.
