My stomach drops. “Jesus.”
“They killed Silas’s entire family right in front of him. When he tried to fight back, they made him watch.”
I look at Silas again. His eyes are closed. Every tendon in his neck stands out like rope. The scar on his face seems deeper in this light, and I wonder for the first time if that’s where it came from. If someone gave him that scar the same night they took everything else.
“We had to get smart and fast,” Archer says. “We were just kids. Elias was only eleven. Darius, sixteen. Silas and I, barely eighteen.”
“Fuck,” I breathe. Because what else do you say to that?
“The bastards took over. Terrorized the females, tortured some of the betas. We were outnumbered and outgunned, but we outsmarted them. Darius—” Archer hesitates, glancing at the head of the table.
Darius stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. Without a word, he stalks out. The door slams behind him, and the sound reverberates through the room like a punctuation mark. Nobody goes after him.
Archer’s voice drops even lower. “Darius took care of most of them. Killed some and exiled the rest. He was sixteen years old, and he had to make calls that would have broken most grown men. He did what had to be done to protect what was left of our people.”
The room is silent for a moment. Then Archer continues.
“We merged what was left of both packs. Became one. Built this.” He gestures vaguely at the cabin, the compound, the life beyond the walls. “But the scars run deep, Blue. We had to do terrible things to protect what family we had left. All of us.”
I swallow hard. My appetite is gone.
“I get it,” I say softly. “More than you know.”
Silas opens his eyes. They find mine across the table, and what I see in them is something I recognize. Pain. The same kind I carry. Different circumstances, different nightmares, but the same heavy, permanent weight of having lost the people who were supposed to keep you safe.
We look at each other for a long time. Nobody speaks. The silence isn’t uncomfortable. It’s the opposite—the silence of people who’ve said the hard thing and are sitting with it together.
I don’t know when it happened. Somewhere between the dandelion joke and this moment, something changed.
I pick up my fork and resume eating. The potatoes are cold now, but I eat them anyway. Because leaving the table rightnow feels wrong. And for the first time since I got here, staying doesn’t feel wrong either.
20
Mo
Five years ago
Iwake up with Sophie’s soft snores coming from the bunk below me. I stretch my muscles, still aching from yesterday’s punishment.
Outside our window, pack members are milling about and starting their daily chores. I’m not part of that; I never have been.
The other teens tend to avoid me. They say I’m too rough, too loud, too dirty. Sophie, however, fits in seamlessly with her gentle ways and her sweet smile. She is always perfectly put together and ready to offer a helping hand or a kind word. People say they don’t understand how she could have such a feral younger sister. They aren’t wrong; I would always rather be out exploring the woods than making small talk with people who only tolerate me because I’m Sophie’s little sister and an omega.
I slip out of bed and pull on my clothes as quietly as I can, but then my stomach growls, reminding me I skipped dinner last night after Alpha Mark called me “unruly” in front of everyone, then made me clean the entire hall by myself.Fuck him.I’d rather starve than go back to that dining hall right now.
“Mo?” Sophie’s sleepy voice comes from above. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” I say. “I’ll bring you back some berries.”
She sits up, blonde hair a tangled mess around her face. Even like this, she’s prettier than I’ll ever be. “Don’t go too far, okay? Alpha Mark was really angry yesterday.”
I snort. “When isn’t he?”
“I mean it, Mo. He was talking about more discipline.”
A chill runs through me. I know what kind of discipline Alpha Mark believes in. I’ve got the scars to prove it.
“I’ll be careful,” I promise. “Go back to sleep.”