Chapter 5

Cayla POV:

I was forced to wear a maid's uniform that was two sizes too small.

The ballroom glittered. I walked through the crowd with a tray of champagne, feeling Grafton's eyes burning holes in my back.

"Toast to the birthday girl!" Cherrelle announced, standing by a pyramid of glass.

She gestured wildly. Her elbow clipped the table.

The tower came down.

Shards exploded.

Cherrelle screamed. A large piece of glass had sliced her forearm open. Blood sprayed.

"My arm! I'm bleeding out!"

Grafton was there instantly. "Medic!"

The pack doctor rushed over. "She hit an artery. We need a transfusion, now. But she's AB negative. We're out of stock."

"Find a donor!" Grafton roared.

I stood in the shadows. I knew Cherrelle was O positive-the most common blood type. She was lying for drama.

But if Grafton thought she was dying, he'd burn the world down.

And... I was AB negative.

I stepped forward. "Hook me up."

Grafton looked at me with suspicion. "You?"

"Do you want her to live or not?"

The doctor didn't wait.

As my blood left my body, I felt the familiar drain. My White Wolf blood was potent. It didn't just replace volume; it knit flesh.

I watched the color return to Cherrelle's cheeks.

When it was over, I could barely sit up.

Cherrelle looked at her arm. The wound was already a faint scar.

Panic flashed in her eyes. She realized I had healed her too fast. She realized I had exposed myself.

"You!" she shrieked, clutching her chest. "It burns! She poisoned me!"

"What?" Grafton asked.

"She put silver powder in the line!" Cherrelle lied. "I saw her! She wants to kill me from the inside!"

It was medically impossible. Silver powder doesn't dissolve in blood; it clots. But Cherrelle knew Grafton's blind spot.

Grafton ripped the IV out of my arm. Blood sprayed onto the floor.

"You tried to kill her?" he growled.

"I saved her!" I cried out. "Look at the wound! It's gone!"

"She's in pain!" Grafton didn't look at the evidence.

He grabbed me by the hair.

"You want to hurt what's mine?"

He dragged me out of the ballroom.

He didn't take me to the pool this time. He took me to the kennel.

He threw me into the dog run.

"Since you act like a rabid animal," he said, tossing a rusted iron box onto the dirt-my keepsake box from my apartment. "You can live like one."

He stomped on the box. The metal crunched.

"This is your new home, Cayla. Until you learn."

He locked the gate.

I crawled to the crushed box. The photo of Justen was torn. I held the pieces to my chest and finally, finally let myself break.