Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The slap cracked my head into the doorframe, and while blood was still coming up warm on my lip, one of the two men the Moon had built for me stood across the hall, laughing, coaching my stepsister on how to hit me better.

"You're doing it wrong, Isabelle. Wolfless ones—you hit the left cheek. The bone's softer on that side."

That was Xavier. The other one, Xander, didn't even look up. He was signing the Rejection Contract—the pen scratched twice, done.

The terms were simple: in three days the twins turned eighteen, and if a fated mate showed up, they'd reject her in front of the whole pack. In exchange, Isabelle's family folded their warriors into the Alpha line.

They were signing away a woman none of them had met.

Spoiler: it was me. Nobody in that hall knew it yet—including me. But the Moon knew, and apparently she has a sense of humor.

What everyone did know: I was Regan, the Beta's wolfless daughter, the girl the whole pack said killed her own mother at six years old. Seven years of that story. Seven years of trays, slaps, and stitches, and the first thing I ever learned in this pack was how to bleed without making noise.

Isabelle shook out her stinging hand and smiled at me, and that's when I saw it.

My mother's crescent pendant hung against her collarbone. Silver, small, with a chip on the lower horn—a chip I put there when I was five, the day I dropped it on the hearthstones. Mom never fixed it. She said it made the moon look like it was smiling crooked.

The tray tilted in my hands. A glass slid.

"Careful," Isabelle said. "That's my engagement gift. Heather thought it suited me."

I set the tray down. I didn't reach for the necklace, because reaching gets you a broken finger. Rule one of bleeding quietly: want nothing where they can see it.

Xavier crossed the hall with that lazy stroll of his and stuck his foot out just as I turned. The floor came up fast—glass everywhere, laughter everywhere—and then he was standing over me with his hand held out.

For half a second I was stupid enough to almost take it.

He pulled it back and wiped it on his trousers. "Almost forgot. Things you touch catch bad luck."

The hall roared.

A shard had opened my palm, and blood dripped onto the stone next to a polished black boot. Xander's boot. He looked at the drop, not at me.

"Wipe it."

Then he stepped over me and kept walking.

I knelt there picking glass out of my hand while Isabelle crouched down close, her perfume thick enough to chew.

"A murderer, staring at the Alpha heirs." Her voice went soft and sweet. "Know your place, Regan."

Over at the contract table, Xavier spun the pen between two fingers and talked to the whole room at once.

"Fated mates? The Moon Goddess runs a lottery. My brother and I pick our own. Always have."

I stood up with my palm throbbing, and my mouth moved before my brain could stop it.

"You signed fast. Shame the Goddess doesn't check signatures before she deals."

Isabelle's smile died. The pen stopped spinning, and for one second, nobody laughed.

Then Isabelle grabbed my wrist, nails first. "Three days. Their birthday. The ceremony. You'll kneel and watch me become Luna—and then I'm handing you to Tiffany as a chew toy."

I pulled free and gathered up the tray.

At the kitchen door, Dr. Sarah caught my sleeve. She pressed something small and cold into my cut hand and folded my fingers over it before anyone could see.

A key. Old brass, worn smooth.

"Your mother left something with me," she said, her eyes on the hall behind us. "She said—when you turned eighteen. You're eighteen now. It opens the bottom of her cedar box. Go tonight."

I couldn't breathe right the whole walk back.

That night I climbed to the storage attic where they'd dumped Mom's things after the funeral. The key fit a seam in the bottom of her cedar box—a hidden panel I'd never found in seven years of looking—and underneath lay a folded letter, one edge browned with old blood.

I got it half open.

My daughter. The blood in you is royal—

The attic door banged.

Isabelle stood there with an oil lamp, Tiffany behind her. Before I could move she ripped the letter's corner clean off, dropped it, and ground it under her heel.

"Digging through a dead woman's trash?" At the door she turned back and smiled. "Three days, Regan. You're serving the drinks at their birthday. Don't cry into them. Salt ruins wine."

Xavier's voice floated up the stairwell after her, bored and bright.

"She's right, you know. Nobody likes salty wine."

I sat alone in the dark with the torn letter shaking in my hands, and read that half line over and over until the lamp burned out.

The blood in you is royal—

Royal what?