en wasteland. She looked directly at Warren, her voice quiet and even. "I won't marry him." The three simple words hung in the air, a shocking act o
choose who I spend the rest of my life with?" She turned her deadened eyes to Chloe. "Yo
ly," Chloe said, her voice losing some of
will not marry a man I've never met." Her finality seemed to give
. Warren's expression hardened into something ugly and resolute. He had one more card to play, the cruelest one in the deck. "Your brother's
had been seized by an icy fist. Leo. Her sweet, fragile b
n, "I will be forced to withdraw the family's financial support from his care. I'm
shared her blood, and saw a monster. "You're... despicable," she forced out through clench
look away. "I'm teaching y
had cornered their prey. They had won. Ella closed her eyes. She saw Leo's face, pale and
. Everything was gone. "Alright," she whispered, the sound barely a
arren, Annette, Chloe. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. "Remember this day," she said. "From the moment I walk out that door as a bride, I am no longer a Long. I have no family here." Sh
t as a defeated victim, but as a queen going into exile. In the barren landscape of her heart, a single, poisonous s
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