Chapter 1

1.

The night Vanessa turned eighteen and shifted for the first time, my mother Grace stripped me of my family name. The entire pack watched.

My brother Caleb's hand cracked across my face. The force whited out my vision.

"Listen close. From today, this family has one daughter. I have one sister."

Vanessa stood at the center of the crowd. Mom held her close. She was crying like a shattered porcelain doll, but her eyes landed exactly where they always did.

The wolf inside me went quiet. Not a whimper. Something deeper. A cord snapped. The pack bond that had tied me to this family disappeared from my chest without a sound.

I finally understood something with absolute clarity. To this wolf family, I had never been anything but the extra one.

So I left.

Commander Vance had been asking me to join the Vanguard Corps closed training program for months. That night, I signed the papers.

Mom and Caleb thought I was throwing a tantrum. They waited for me to crawl back and beg forgiveness.

A month later, when my bedroom had gathered a thick layer of dust, they finally went to the Preparatory Academy looking for me.

The Academy told them my file had been completely sealed and destroyed by the Werewolf Council. Classified. No access.

Sitting in the back of Commander Vance's armored vehicle, I had endured the tearing pain and severed that bond with my own hands.

That was the moment they finally panicked.

***

"Aurora, have you thought this through? Once the Vanguard Corps closed training begins, all contact with the outside world is cut off. Not temporarily. Completely. No phones. No messages. No pack bonds. This is not a joke."

Commander Vance's voice was heavy with warning.

I didn't hesitate.

"Commander, train me into your best soldier. I won't let you walk into that program alone."

He looked at me for a long time. Something in his eyes gave way. The kind of pride that comes from seeing too much and knowing better.

He stood and put his hand on my shoulder.

"That's my soldier." He exhaled slowly. "But you need to truly understand what this means. The Vanguard Corps is five years minimum. The training there is brutal enough to break Alpha-level wolves. I've seen it with my own eyes."

My father Arthur had told me the same thing once. I was ready then. I'm even more ready now.

"My father made it through," I said. "So will I."

The muscle in his jaw tightened. It always did whenever I mentioned Dad. They had been comrades in the same trench. He knew better than anyone why I was choosing this path, and he had never tried to talk me out of it.

He was silent for a moment. Then he asked the question I had been waiting for.

"Does Grace know? Does Caleb?"

Two faces flickered through my mind. The way Mom's eyes went flat the moment she looked at me. The way Caleb had always looked through me instead of at me.

My wolf made a low sound. Not a whimper. More like a goodbye.

"They won't care," I said. "Honestly? They'll probably open a bottle of champagne."

The Commander studied me for a long moment. His expression was complicated. The one he only wore occasionally. Half guilt. Half helplessness.

Then I picked up the classified confidentiality agreement and signed my full name. Every stroke deliberate.

Aurora Miller. Every letter clear.

"Go pack," he said. "Tomorrow. Three in the afternoon. I'll send a car."

When I stepped onto the lawn of that house, laughter spilled through the windows. The kind of loose, easy laughter that only exists when people have forgotten there's anyone outside their circle.

I pressed my lips together and pushed the door open.

The laughter stopped instantly. Three pairs of eyes landed on me.

Caleb set down the apple pie he'd been cutting halfway through. He swept that look over me. The one that had already convicted me before I opened my mouth.

"Go apologize to Vanessa. Now. You ruined her coming-of-age ceremony. The entire thing. Disappearing without a word after what happened. What exactly did you learn in human society?"

My hands curled into fists at my sides.

I knew they wouldn't believe me. They never did. But something inside me that hadn't completely died yet made me say it one last time.

"I didn't push her."

That sentence ignited something in Caleb. His eyes flooded with that deep red Alphas get when they lose control. The pressure of it hit like a wall.

"We all saw it with our own eyes."

Mom turned to Vanessa first. Her voice was thick with tenderness as she tucked a strand of hair behind Vanessa's ear.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. Mommy will make her apologize."

Then those eyes turned to me. Every trace of warmth erased.

"Bad luck follows you. Lies follow you. I saw it with my own eyes and you still dare to deny it. God, I don't know how I ended up with a daughter like you."