Chapter 2

The memory of the fall was still so fresh, a cold dread that lived in my bones. I remembered everything with perfect, horrifying clarity. Molly' s failure with the wolf-kin. Her desperation. She had tried to seduce Ryan after my children made him powerful, but he was fiercely protective of his new status. He publicly shamed her, calling her a barren woman with a weak spirit.

Abandoned and disgraced, her own children had perished from the harshness of the wild, one by one, from sickness and neglect. I, stupid with pity, had taken her in. I gave her food and shelter.

And she repaid me by murdering my children and then me.

"Gabrielle Jones."

The council leader's voice snapped me back to the present. "Your sister has made her choice. Now, it is your turn."

Molly gave me a smug look from Ryan's side. She thought she had already won. She believed her advice to me last time was a masterstroke of manipulation-she knew Ryan' s snake totem made childbirth less physically taxing, a small mercy she thought would keep me content in a mediocre life. She never imagined our union would produce ten Betas. She had underestimated my spirit.

I forced myself to be calm, to push down the rage that threatened to choke me. I scanned the remaining men. My eyes landed on the community's top wolf-kin, the very man who had cast Molly out in our last life. He was strong, respected. A safe choice. A powerful choice.

Before I could even open my mouth to speak, a hand cracked across my face. The slap was so hard my head whipped to the side, my cheek stinging.

"You slut! How dare you try to steal my man!"

A woman I barely knew, the partner of a Gamma-ranked bear-kin named Duncan, was screaming at me. Her face was twisted with rage. She threw a clump of white fur onto the ground at my feet. My fur. Snowshoe hare fur.

"I found this in my bed this morning!" she shrieked. "She' s been sleeping with my Duncan!"

I was stunned, completely blindsided. Then, Molly' s voice, dripping with false sympathy, cut through the noise.

"Oh, Gabby! I saw you... I saw you sneaking off with Duncan the other night. I didn' t want to believe it. I can't believe you'd do something so shameful!"

Her words were the final nail in my coffin. It was a lie, a perfectly crafted trap. I remembered it now, a forgotten detail from my past life: Molly had a secret, sordid affair with this very bear-kin. She was using her own sin to frame me.

The men who had been looking at me with interest moments before now stared with open disgust. The wolf-kin turned away, his expression cold. In this community, loyalty was everything. Adultery was the deepest stain.

"Show us!" someone yelled. "Transform and show us!"

My heart pounded. I knew what they would find, but I had no choice. I closed my eyes and let my totem spirit take over. My bones shifted, my skin prickled, and in a moment, I was a snowshoe hare, small and trembling in the center of the great hall. I turned, trying to show them I was whole, but it was useless. There, on my right thigh, was a raw, bald patch of skin where the fur had been torn out.

The evidence was irrefutable.

The council leader didn't hesitate. "Gabrielle Jones, you have broken our most sacred law. You are exiled. Leave this community now and never return."

As I was forced toward the gate, Molly, nestled smugly against Ryan's side, whispered to me, her voice a venomous caress.

"Don't worry, Gabby. Maybe you'll find some strong rogue out in the wilderness to take you in."

She was sending me to my death. The lands outside our territory were filled with violent, feral Totem-Kin who had been cast out for their crimes.

I stopped and looked her dead in the eye, my voice as cold as the winter to come. "You'd better worry about yourself, Molly. Ryan has needs. A lot of them. I hope you can keep up."

Ryan was notoriously insatiable, his appetites as aggressive and venomous as his totem. It was a dark secret I had kept and managed for years in our last life. He was also deeply insecure, paranoid about his status. Molly thought she' d stolen a treasure, but she' d chained herself to a monster.

"You're just jealous, Gabby!" she sneered.

Their crude laughter echoed behind me as I was shoved out of the gate, the heavy wooden bars slamming shut, sealing my fate. I was alone.