Chapter 8: Severed Bonds
“Do I have to accept your apology?”
I met Rafe’s eyes, my voice low but heavy enough to make him flinch.
The courtyard outside my dorm, usually alive with the chatter of young wolves, had gone eerily quiet. The tension between us had drawn curious glances. They couldn’t understand our words, but the weight of it was palpable–something was breaking.
I hated the idea of being on display. But there was no hiding this.
All those years of silence, of shrinking away from my own emotions, came rushing out.
“You say you redirected your love to Sera,
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like that makes everything okay. But why did she get your protection, while I got nothing but your dismissal?”
“You hated it when I fought her. Said I was loud, too rebellious. But if I hadn’t fought, you wouldn’t have even seen me. You would’ve let me fade into the background.”
“I found something better when I left. I went to the outpost. At least here, I earned my place. There, I wasn’t just some quiet shadow of the golden child. There, I had power. I was seen.”
I felt my mother flinch beside me. Her breath hitched, and she swallowed down the sobs.
“Kiera, you’re our daughter. You can’t just- cut yourself off from us.”
I didn’t meet her eyes.
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“Then I don’t want to be your daughter anymore.”
The words cut through the air, and I could see it–the crack in their faces. But I didn’t linger. I turned and walked away.
They didn’t follow.
Maybe it was the finality in my voice that froze them. Or maybe they didn’t know what to say when everything they thought they could rely on crumbled in front of them.
They gave me space. For a while.
But eventually, the attempts started again.
Sometimes, I found packages outside my door–venison stew, wild berries, bundles of herbs wrapped with care.
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There were no notes, just their scent.
I never took them.
I passed the food to others in the den–those who hadn’t yet turned their backs on second chances.
I didn’t need to give them a chance. Not anymore.
A few months passed, and then the rumors started.
A scandal had rocked the international werewolf community.
One of my closest allies from the outpost sent me a report. I opened it without much thought–until I saw her name.
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Sera.
She’d gone back to the Wolfsbane Academy for the Alpha training.
But she’d spiraled into a wild existence, chasing freedom without care for the consequences. Her time at Wolfsbane Academy had been nothing but a lie. All those stories about her having the talent to be a great Alpha, about her powerful wolf that could lead a pack–they were all part of the farce she’d created.
She even faked a sickness to squeeze more money out of our parents.
When they arrived to check on her, the Ashveil Pack walked into chaos.
“You always loved me!” Sera had shouted at them. “So why did you send all your money
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to that bitch, Kiera?!”
Then she grabbed a blade.
She stabbed Rafe.
He survived–but his healing was forever damaged. His wolf form slowed. His strength, dulled.
That was when everything broke.
Finally, my parents had to see her for who she really was. They cut her off.
But Sera didn’t disappear. She found someone new to feed off.
Tristan.
HE
He took her in. Despite everything, despite what he’d promised me.
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But she never told him she’d caught an STD from her reckless flings at Wolfsbane Academy.
And she gave him her disease.
In a fit of rage, Tristan killed her.
Sera–once the darling of the family–died in blood. Rafe was left broken. And Tristan… imprisoned.
I stared at the names in the report, but I felt nothing.
I closed the file and turned back to my work.
I didn’t return to Ashveil Pack. I stayed at the outpost–where my strength was earned, not inherited.
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Here, I wasn’t just a shadow. I was Kiera. The warrior they respected. The wolf who didn’t need to rely on anyone else.
They gave me the space to grow, to rise as I always should have. They respected me- not because of my bloodline, but because of what I could do.
When my name appeared in the trade reports, my family came to find me.
They couldn’t even get past the gates.
The guards turned them away.
And so, they mourned.
The daughter they had tried to silence.
The sister who had once begged for their love.
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The wolf they thought they controlled.
They would mourn me forever-
The one who no longer needed their name to
rise.
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