Substitute bride

Emilia's POV

For a very long time, I had believed that pain was something a person could grow used to, the same way one grew used to winter wind slipping through cracked windows or old scars aching before rain.

In the Frostridge pack, I was not simply disliked. I was considered an error that had somehow survived birth.

My father was Alpha Henry, but being his daughter had never protected me, because my mother had been a witch, and in a pack that worshiped pure wolf blood above almost everything else, my mixed blood became a crime no one needed to prove before punishing me for it.

When I was younger, I used to wonder if they would have treated me differently if my wolf had awakened early, if I had shifted beneath the moon like every other Alpha-blooded child was expected to do, if my claws had been sharp enough and my howl loud enough to make them forget the witch half of me.

But year after year, nothing came.

Hybrid.

Bastard.

Curse.

The words followed me through the halls of the pack house, across the training field. My stepsister Linda was even better at it; she never needed to raise her hand when she could turn an entire room against me with one sweet, pitying glance.

By the time I turned twenty-two, I had already learned how to lower my eyes when elders looked at me with disgust, how to ignore the servants who whispered that I was cursed, and how to pretend my stepmother Dorothy's gentle smile did not hurt more than open cruelty because it always came before she reminded me, in the softest possible voice, that I should be grateful the pack still allowed me to stay.

The only reason I had not completely collapsed under all of it was Brandon Cole.

He had been my hope for so long that I no longer knew how to separate him from the idea of survival itself.

Brandon was the strongest young warrior in our pack, handsome, admired, and respected in a way I had never been.

"When she comes, Emmy," he used to whisper, brushing his lips over my scars as if they were something precious instead of proof of every punishment I had endured, "everyone who looked down on you will regret it."

So I waited.

I waited through my eighteenth birthday, when most wolves shifted for the first time and I felt nothing but silence beneath my skin. I waited through nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one, while the pack's disappointment hardened into mockery and my father's eyes grew colder each time he looked at me. I waited until my twenty-second birthday, the final night a werewolf could still awaken before being declared permanently defective.

Tonight was my last chance.

Under the full moon, surrounded by wolves who had gathered less to witness my awakening than to enjoy my final failure, I stood barefoot in the ritual circle and forced myself not to tremble. The silver bowl before me reflected the moonlight, the elder's chant rose and fell like distant thunder, and somewhere beyond the crowd, Brandon watched me with an expression I wanted desperately to believe was love.

Then the ritual ended.

Nothing happened.

A few wolves laughed.

My stepmother sighed as if my failure had personally inconvenienced her, Linda lowered her eyes to hide the smile pulling at her lips, and my father turned away before the elder even announced what everyone already knew.

That would be the worst pain of the night.

But I was wrong.

As I stepped out of the ritual circle, something sharp split through my skull, and a flood of voices crashed into me all at once.

[What a waste of moonlight.]

[I knew she wouldn't shift.]

[Brandon must be tired of pretending by now.]

I froze.

No one's mouth had moved.

The wolves around me were still laughing, whispering, staring, but beneath their spoken words came another layer of sound-clearer, uglier, impossible to ignore.

Their thoughts.

Panic tightened around my throat as I stumbled back, pressing a hand against my temple while the pack's hidden cruelty poured into me without mercy. Every smile had a second voice. Every pitying glance carried a knife. They had hated me more deeply than I had ever allowed myself to imagine.

I needed Brandon.

I needed the one person who had always made the noise of the pack feel far away.