Chapter 1 The Wolfless Daughter

Arielle's POV

The stone floors of Silvercrest Keep never stayed clean.

Not when they had me to scrub them.

I knelt in the servants' corridor the morning after my twenty-second birthday. Knees raw against the freezing flagstones.

Gray mop water soaked through my thin dress and bit into my skin.

Yesterday had been my last chance.

Every Alpha daughter shifted before twenty-two. My stepsister Elara shifted at fifteen into a rare silver-white wolf. The pack called her the blessed daughter.

I stood alone in the Moon Temple under the full moon, humiliated in front of three hundred wolves, while my father, Alpha Lucas, watched with crossed arms. My stepmother Valeria pretended to pray.

Elara smiled.

I waited until my throat was raw.

Nothing.

No snap of bone.

No fur.

No wolf answering inside me.

Just a girl, shaking, while the elders announced that I had failed to awaken.

This morning I was back where they said I belonged. The leaking room behind the kitchen. Eating after the omegas. Scrubbing floors while Elara shone upstairs.

"Move."

A boot kicked my bucket. Dirty water slapped across my face.

Lira, the Beta's daughter, and her friends laughed.

"My mother says the Keep smells because you breathe in it," Lira spat. "Go back to the servant quarters where you belong."

As they walked away, another girl whispered loud enough for me to hear.

"Her mother was the same before she died. Witch blood. The grandmother was a real forest witch. That's why she'll never shift."

My mother's blood. My grandmother's legacy. They turned both into a curse.

My mother had been wolfless, yes - but she was a healer. She learned herbs from my grandmother's book and saved pups when the pack healers failed. She was the only one who ever truly loved me.

My father had loved her more than anyone. He used to tell me so when I was small. Now when he looked at me, he only saw the mistake.

"Oh, Arielle. You missed a spot."

Valeria and Elara stood over me. Valeria wore a red gown worth more than a year's servant wages. Elara's silver silk matched her perfect wolf. Her hair was done, her lips painted.

I kept my head down and scrubbed harder.

"Don't scrub too hard," Elara said sweetly, loud enough for the passing warriors. "Father said you were never really an Alpha daughter. Just something we have to feed. Twenty-two and still nothing. Even the pups shifted before you."

Valeria's smile was cold. "Your father doesn't want you in the great hall, you embarrass him. Elara is his only true daughter. Remember your place." She kicked the bucket. Freezing water soaked my front. "Clean it."

They left, perfume lingering like a slap.

I pressed bleeding palms over my mouth so I wouldn't sob out loud.

But I had a secret that kept me breathing.

Kael Blackthorn.

For six months we had been meeting in secret. It started the night Valeria tore my mother's healing book. I was crying behind the rose bushes when he found me - warm amber eyes, a voice that somehow made the shame quieter.

"You are not a failure to me," he whispered, tucking wet hair behind my ear. "My wolf is calm around you. Your scent - herbs and roses - I like it."

Secret notes hidden in my mother's book. Midnight meetings by the old well. A silver hairpin from Blackthorn, cold and beautiful in my hand.

Last week, before he left, he held my hands in the garden and said, "Wait for me, Arielle. Next time I come to Silvercrest, I am coming to propose. I will make you my Luna, I don't care if you never shift. Just wait for me."

I waited.

This morning the news tore through the servant quarters.

"Blackthorn convoy is on the road! Kael Blackthorn is coming tonight! He's coming to propose!"

Mara, the only omega who still spoke to me, grabbed my arm in the laundry room, eyes wide.

"Arielle - did you hear? Alpha Kael is coming to propose! Alpha Lucas ordered the great hall decorated. Elara's silver dress is being pressed."

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would break. He kept his promise.

The study door stood open a crack.

"-hide her, Lucas," Valeria was saying, voice sharp. "Kael is coming to propose to Elara. We cannot have Arielle crawling around."

My father's tired Alpha voice sighed. "I know. Yesterday was her twenty-second birthday and she didn't shift. She was never an Alpha daughter, she he is my biggest shame, my  biggest mistake - because she is like her mother. I loved her mother more than anyone... but this witch blood, her grandmother's legacy - it ruined her."

My biggest shame.

My biggest mistake.

The bucket slipped and clanged.

"Who is there?" Valeria snapped.

I ran. Barefoot, wet dress slapping my legs, clutching Kael's hairpin like a promise.

Then the horn blew. The long, deep, royal horn that only sounded for an Alpha proposal.

"BLACKTHORN AT THE GATES! ALPHA KAEL BLACKTHORN HAS ARRIVED! HE HAS COME TO PROPOSE!"

The Keep exploded.

I crept to the dark upper banister overlooking the great hall, still in my wet, dirty servant dress, bleeding and shaking - but holding the silver hairpin up like a vow.

Below, the massive doors crashed open. Snow and cold wind swept in.

Kael Blackthorn walked through, tall, broad shoulders, black hair tied back, A scar cutting through one eyebrow, amber eyes glowing.

Elara stepped forward in her shining silver dress, hand extended, blushing like a bride.

My father opened his arms, beaming. "Kael, my boy! We have been waiting for your proposal!"

Kael did not look at Elara. His amber eyes scanned the hall - past the Beta, past the warriors, past Elara's outstretched hand. Straight to the dark shadow on the banister where I hid.

Our eyes met. I smiled through my tears, lifting the silver hairpin he had given me, thinking, You came for me.

Kael's eyes locked on the hairpin. And his face twisted.

Not with love.

With disgust.

Then his voice, cold enough to freeze the hall: "Who gave you that, theif?"