ry
and pressed my back against the attic door as those
h a sharp clicking sound, but the heavy deadbo
n't that fat
ice filtered clearly through the thin
-out sigh of my stepmother, Demetra Gross, the woman w
e your time, that usele
rame, my heart hammering against my ribs as my finger
bane soup I brew for her every day, her precious
eped through the wood, followed i
the Holder family could be turned into a spotty, bloa
ning, my knees buckling so hard I nearl
dormant wolf and deformed body weren't natural defects at all-they were t
il I tasted copper, forcing the choking rage dow
rd the other hallways did my legs give out completam
et in the corner, I yanked out the clay jar of her
w and poured the thick black sludge straight into the gutter outside,
cked mirror, I breathed in the lingering cedar scent
ate mother's tattered herbal journal, flipping through the yello
slow, gluttonous fool during the day, secretly dumping
rriors to slip across the Pack border, crawling through the damp und
n, the moon's peak power triggered a violent backlash f
between sixteen and eighteen, enduring the agony of every b
ess as my spineand ribs popped with sickening cracks, the pain
uffle my screams as foul, black, poisoned blood oozed
in that forgotten attic, the memory of that dark suite and t
s and forced my shattering bones to fuse back to
eceded like a tide, leaving me drenched in sweat a
the oversized clothes that used to strain agai
d a full year of hellish detoxification that carve
I stood in front of the dusty full-length mirror and w
ng woman with snow-white skin, a waist I could span wit
of my tailbone, where the crescent-moon birthmark-the royal sy
strength, and the rightful pride
meone forcefully projected a Mind-Link into my head-a telepathi
n to the front
y skull, and I curled my lip, severing our mental
ok, I threw it over my frame and pulled the hood low
r over a decade, I walked out of the attic and he
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