Ryker

I spent seven years in a frozen outpost as punishment for saving my fated mate's life. My family called my sacrifice dark magic, a crime that shamed our name.

When I finally came home, I found my adoptive sister, Briar, wearing my life like a stolen dress. She had my parents' love and my mate's devotion, all built on the lie that she was the one who had saved him.

They forced me to sleep in the attic and serve champagne at the party celebrating her. My own mother called me a disgrace.

My mate, Alpha Ryker, planned to formally reject me and bond with her in front of the entire pack. He demanded I stand by and bless their union.

He looked at her feigned weakness and called it a noble sacrifice. He looked at my broken spirit and called it a stain on his honor.

Then my brother found the old medical files proving I was the one who nearly died for him. The truth came out at the altar, right as Ryker was about to bond with my sister. But by then, I was already gone, a rogue wolf with nothing left to lose.

Chapter 1

The old jeep rattled to a stop, the engine cutting out with a sputtering cough.

"We're here. Get out."

The driver, Gus Finch, didn't even turn to look at her. His words were as rough as the gravel drive. He spoke to her like she was a sack of potatoes he was finally unloading. After seven years, maybe that's all she was.

Elara Thorne pushed the creaking door open and slid out. Her body ached. Seven years in the Northern Rehabilitation Outpost had carved the softness from her, leaving a thin, wiry frame clad in the coarse, grey fabric of a prisoner. Her pale, silver-blonde hair, unwashed and unkempt, hung in a loose braid down her back.

The Thorne Manor stood before her, a monument of stone and dark wood, its windows glittering like cold, judgmental eyes. It was a palace, and she was a ghost haunting its gates.

Her inner wolf, a presence that had been a faint, pained whimper for years, stirred weakly. It didn't recognize the scent of home. It smelled only of cloying sweetness—Briar's perfume—and the sterile indifference of their parents.

The crunch of the jeep's tires on the gravel must have been the signal, because the heavy oak door swung open before she reached it. Arthur, the family's butler for as long as she could remember, stood silhouetted in the entrance. His posture was ramrod straight, his face a mask of professional disdain. His eyes raked over her, from her worn boots to her tired face, and he sniffed, a barely audible sound of distaste.

"Follow me," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "And try not to track the wilderness in with you."

Elara said nothing. She followed his stiff back into the grand foyer, her boots silent on the marble floor. The house was exactly as she remembered it, yet entirely different. The air was thick with the scent of lilies and a heavy, oppressive quiet.

Then she saw why.

Hanging on the walls where photos of her—at birthdays, at pack ceremonies, with her family—used to be, there were now landscapes. Anodyne, impersonal paintings. Her entire childhood had been erased and re-papered.

A knot tightened in her stomach.

Through an archway, she saw them. Her father, Alden, and her mother, Lyra, were gathered around a chaise lounge in the sunroom. They were laughing, their faces soft with affection. In the center of their attention, like a delicate flower, was her adoptive sister, Briar.

Briar, dressed in a flowing silk dress, looked up and smiled at something their father said. She was the picture of innocence and light. No one looked toward the foyer. No one acknowledged the daughter who had just returned from a seven-year exile. It was as if she were made of glass.

As Elara passed, Briar's gaze flickered toward her for a fraction of a second. Her doe-like brown eyes held no surprise, no pity. Only a flash of pure, unadulterated victory before she turned back to their parents, her expression melting back into one of sweet fragility.

The knot in Elara's stomach turned to ice.

Arthur led her up the grand staircase. At the second-floor landing, Elara's feet stopped automatically in front of a familiar white door. Her room.

Arthur let out a short, humorless laugh. "That is Miss Briar's dressing room now. Has been for years." He gestured down a narrow, unlit hallway. "Your accommodations are elsewhere."

Elara's hands clenched into fists inside the long sleeves of her tunic. Her fingernails bit into her palms, the small, sharp pain a welcome anchor in a sea of numbness. She followed him without a word.

He led her up a steep, narrow set of stairs to the attic. He stopped in front of a small, rough-hewn door and opened it, revealing a cramped storage space. Dust motes danced in the single beam of light from a grimy window. Inside was a narrow army cot, a rickety table, and the smell of dust and forgotten things.