RA'

Janice echoed like a deat

leaving behind the pale, ugly terror of a cornered parasite. She threw herself across Kirt's unconscious chest. "Stay bac

bers. An Omega driven mad by an Alpha's rejection was an eas

down at her frantic squirming. A col

g into slits. "You flatter yourself, Janice. O

e speed of an uncoiling viper. I did not strike her flesh. My fingers

kward with v

n

llic ping. Janice shrieked, clutching her neck as th

my arm, dangling the teardrop-shaped blac

oid of fear. "Then perhaps the council would care to explain why my mother's dying legacy-the Weeks family Hearth-

of breath rippled

isman was an abomination punishable by the stripping of pack status. The suspicious g

ching desperately for a shield. "I... Kirt gave it to me!" she stammered, abandoning him without a second

was still matting his hair to his brow. He heard her words, his expression twisting in sheer, humilia

of an unchained Healer. "Yesterday morning, when I overturned my family's quarters searching for it, you sat on my bed. You drank my tea

ng certainty in my gaze paralyzed her tongue. The scent of her guilt hung in the

uppressed malice. "A simple misunderstanding over a trinket does not excuse treas

e around my own neck, feeling the familiar, warm thrum of my mot

ers, raising my right hand high toward the

nging clarity. "I, Kiera of the House of Weeks, declare the betrothal contract between myself and Kirt of the House of Hod

hread snapped, but there was no soul-rending agony. We were never mates. We had nev

as if the sky had fallen. To be publicly dumped, stripped of Healer inheritance, and

nse, squeezed her eyes shut. She clutched her heart, let out a high-pitched, theatri

p body, a cruel, mocking

ispered, loud enough for the front