Chapter 1

My father was the Pack's bravest Warrior. The day he fell defending our borders against a rogue attack, half the territory came to honor him.

The burial rites weren't even cold before my mother collected the settlement — sixty thousand gold pieces — and bonded herself to the wealthiest Elite in the pack.

I was left with my grandparents, just another forgotten pup no one bothered to claim.

Three years later, the Alpha Council granted one sponsored placement into the Elite Guard to the bloodline of a fallen hero. My father had bled for that honor. It was mine.

My stepfather gave it to his own son instead.

That afternoon, he blocked the doorway and looked me over with the flat contempt of a wolf surveying something already dead.

"Elara." He held out a small pouch of coin. "Five hundred gold. Take it and go."

"And sign this." He dropped a folded parchment at my feet. Voluntary Relinquishment of Bloodline Placement Rights. "After that, don't let me see your face again."

I looked past him to my mother, Clara. A jade bracelet caught the light on her wrist — bright, expensive, blinding.

Her eyes slid away from mine.

"Elara, listen to your stepfather. Your brother Marcus is a better fit for the Guard."

I glanced at the sleek horses tethered in their courtyard, then down at my own tunic, washed so many times the color had given up entirely.

So this is what my father's life was worth. Five hundred gold.

---

My stepfather, Roland, went cold when I didn't reach for the coin.

He snatched the relinquishment parchment off the ground and snapped it against my cheek — the paper edge sharp enough to sting.

"Don't push me, girl."

His voice climbed. "You think you belong in the Elite Guard? A worthless pup like you?"

My mother Clara stepped forward, catching his sleeve. "Darling, not in front of her."

Then she turned to me, her voice soft now, coaxing. "Elara, sweetheart. Roland's only thinking of you. The Guard's training is brutal. It's no place for a girl."

Sweetheart. Three years of silence, and now sweetheart.

The warmth of it almost reached me — until she kept talking.

"Take the five hundred now. I'll send you fifty gold a month after that."

My eyes dropped to the jade bracelet again. Green as envy, purchased with my father's settlement.

The memory surfaced without warning: the burial chamber, my father's ash-box on the stone plinth, my mother weeping so hard her whole body shook — one hand pressed to her chest, the other quietly slipping his bank seal into her cloak pocket.

I had thought she was overcome with grief.

Now I wondered what, exactly, she had been mourning.

"Elara." Clara's voice pulled me back. There was a flicker of something — guilt, maybe — in her eyes.

"Do you remember what Father said to me before his last patrol?" My voice came out steadier than I expected.

She stiffened.

"He said if anything happened to him, I was to study hard and take the placement." I held her gaze. "He said the Guard seat was mine. That he'd bought it with his own blood."

Roland waved a dismissive hand. "A dead wolf's words. I'm the one keeping you fed now. I decide."

Clara's expression closed like a shutter. When she looked at me again, the softness was gone.

"Elara. Things are different now. Marcus has better scores. He's more suitable."

Marcus. Her son. Her real child.

The realization landed without drama, the way truths do when part of you already knew: I had never been her daughter. Not really.

"Are you going to sign or not?" Roland's brow furrowed.

I didn't look at the parchment. I didn't look at the coin.

I looked directly at him.

"I'll sign." Clara's eyes lit up. "The moment you return every coin of my father's settlement. All sixty thousand. Not a piece short."