Was it always like this for me? My memories of my life before I came here are hazy at best. Fragmented. But I remember one incident with perfect clarity: the massacre.
I was thirteen. Trevor was seventeen, and I can still see him clearly. His smile. The way my brother would ruffle my hair every morning. How he’d sneak me extra dessert when Mom wasn’t looking. The sound of his laugh, warm and genuine, filling whatever room he was in.
My father, too. I remember his hands, so gentle when he’d hold me. His voice, deep and soothing. The way he’d kiss my forehead and tell me I was brave even when I didn’t feel that way.
That’s all I have left of my life before. Just fragments. Trevor’s laugh. My father’s hands. Feelings of being loved. Of being safe.
Everything else is gone. Our old pack, our house, my room, what my daily life looked like. The memories won’t come into focus no matter how hard I try to hold on to them. That part of my past is blank, erased, like someone took a cloth to a mirror and wiped away everything except the reflection of loss.
What I do remember is the massacre itself.
Blood. So much blood.
Screaming. High-pitched and terrible and everywhere.
Trevor’s face. His eyes wide and staring at nothing, his smile gone forever, his body crumpled and wrong.
And then, being wrapped in a blanket, held tight against my mother’s side as we ran. Ran and ran and ran until my lungs burned and the world went dark.
After that, there’s only pain and fever and my mother’s pale face hovering over mine.
“Drink this,” she’d said, pressing a cup to my lips. “It will help you feel better.”
I was so sick. Frail and delirious, unable to move without my entire body screaming in protest. The medicine helped. The fever broke. The weakness became manageable instead of debilitating.
But I’ve never shifted since. Or maybe I never could before. That part is blank, too.
Everyone said it was trauma. That my wolf had retreated to protect me from the horror of what had happened. That she might never come back.
Now, the pills keeps me stable. Keep me from getting sick again. As much as I hate them, I need them.
I open my eyes and stare at my reflection once more.
Weak. Lesser. Not quite wolf enough to belong.
I’ve felt this way my entire life. Accepted it. Built walls around the pain until it became just another part of who I am.
But when Darius said those things to his father, somethinginside me broke.
“Clumsy. Shy. Couldn’t get through a family dinner without dropping something or saying the wrong thing. Can barely function in normal society.”
Because hearing those words from him—the boy I once thought was different, kind—made it all true in a way it never really had been before.
He claims he didn’t mean it. Claims he was wrong. But how can I believe that?
My pulse quickens at the memory of his hands on me in the conference room a few days ago. The way he caged me against the table, his body so close, I could feel the warmth coming off him.
Heat pools low in my stomach, unwelcome and confusing. I squeeze my thighs together, trying to ignore the wetness gathering there.
No. I can’t think about him like this. Can’t let my body respond to memories of his touch.
There has to be a reason he acts this way. Maybe he gets off on messing with his weak, little stepsister.
Because we are brother and sister. Technically. Our parents are married.
We’re siblings, I tell myself firmly. Stepsiblings, yes, but still. Family. This attraction, this pull I feel, it’s wrong. Twisted.
My hands tighten on the edge of the sink.
