ra

of a car engine starting up and driving away echoed from ou

It was my foster mother, Alar

eamble. "You have brought shame upon this family and this pack. I am appalled tha

assault. "It wasn't-" I start

e a disgrace. You will pack your things and leave this

ult?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "No matter what

ck is fragile. One word from me, and Alaric would send you to the Blood

feeling nothing. She wasn't my mother. Th

more

pare. I gathered the few things I was taking, wiped my digital footprint from the p

m happiness at the stroke of midnight. I opened the now-silent channel of our mind-link, a gaping w

last time, reinforcing the wall be

message arrived from my father's Gamm

y Alpha." The pictures were of them at Moon Goddess Falls. In one, she was kissing his cheek, his arm around her waist, the

e, but it was distant now, like a

laric, shirtless, sleeping in a bed. His shoulder was cover

ay night," she wrote, the message a final, t

them, and tore it to shreds. I placed the little moonstone wolf on top

e no connection from this point on. I hope you f

phone, my laptop, every trace that Ela

ipped out of the pack house and ran toward th