sister. If I had any doubts about that, I only had to see the way he looked at her. Jason and Erina drifted across the room together, accepting congratulations. Erina parted from Jason and went ove

f everyone. He chose Irina instead- and everyone was laughing. They called me names and-" I dissolved into tears. "Is that all?" His question temporarily stunned me into silence. My life was literally ruined and he was asking if there was more. "Dad, I told you-" "I heard what you said! You got rejected by your mate. So what? Life's hard. Get used to it. Get that stuff back into your room now and stop acting like a spoilt brat. If you make another move to leave this house, you'll suffer something much worse. You know I don't make idle threats. " He stormed off, muttering something about useless, ungrateful daughters. The next few days were a nightmare. Word had spread to everyone in the pack about me getting rejected. Once, I thought I had a hard life. It was nothing compared to what I faced now. I would gladly have spent all my days locked up in my room alone, but Lora was not having it. She sent me on stupid, irrelevant errands and I knew it was just so people could point, stare, laugh, and jeer at me. Whenever I returned from these errands, she would stare at my reddened eyes hungrily, eagerly waiting for a tear, and then her face would droop in disappointment when I stubbornly refused to cry. But I made up for all the tears I refused to shed, in my room, bawling my eyes out. As if all that wasn't torture enough, I wasn't allowed to eat my meals in peace. I was forced to sit at the dining table with Lora and Erina chatting excitedly about Erina's relationship on one side, and my father, hanging on to his wife's every word on the other side. Then Lora and Erina would pause to ask why I looked so unhappy and why I wasn't excited about my sister's good fortune. "Fortunately, Erina will soon move in with Jason," said Lora to my father one time with a disdainful glance at me, while I tried to swallow past the pain and clog my throat. "The way Kiara looks at Erina sometimes... like she wants to murder her..." Lora shivered delicately. My father let out a humorless laugh and patted her hand. "Nonsense, love," he said. "Kiara wouldn't dream of hur