Sorry, Dad. Who Are You Again?

On my eighteenth birthday, my family dragged me to the pack seer, the old woman who could read a wolf's memories.

No party. No first shift under the full moon. No chance to catch my mate's scent for the first time.

They'd brought me here to have my memories pulled out of my head and played back for them, one by one.

Silver chains held me to the chair. They didn't even burn. My wolf still hadn't come in.

My adopted sister, Bianca, had been missing for five days. My family was sure I was the reason.

"Last chance." The voice filled the den. "Where is she?"

My father, Alpha Roland Hale, was looking at me like he wished he'd never found me.

He shoved a leather notebook in my face. Bianca's diary.

"Read it."

When I didn't move, he flipped it open and read it out loud himself. "'If anything happens to me, it was Ivy. She's getting worse. Some nights I'm scared to fall asleep.'"

He dropped it at my feet.

I didn't need to read it. I'd seen that diary months ago. I knew every lie in it.

"I never—"

"Five days ago, she mind-linked me." His jaw went tight. "Three words. 'Dad, help me.' Then nothing. I can't feel her through the pack bond. I can't track her."

He bent down until we were eye to eye.

"You did something to her. You hid her somewhere. And you're going to tell me where."

I almost laughed.

Bianca had set this up perfectly. The diary. The mind-link. Vanishing without a trace.

She'd built the trap, and I'd walked right into it.

"I don't know where she is," I said. "How many times do I have to—"

"Liar."

My brother Garrett was on me before I saw him move. His hand cracked across my face, and the chair went over with me still chained to it. I hit the stone floor tasting blood.

"Still doing the poor-little-me act?" He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me back up, chair and all. "You trailer-trash stray."

I'd bitten my tongue. Blood filled my mouth.

Garrett had hated me from the day I came home.

Three years ago, my parents finally tracked me down. Their real daughter, stolen as a baby and raised by humans who had no clue what I was. They brought me back to the pack, and Bianca, the girl they'd adopted after I was gone, threw her arms around me like we'd always been sisters.

That was the version everyone else saw.

"Three years." Garrett held up three fingers. "Three years of you making her life hell. Your first day here, you made a disgusting mess of my car and then screamed at her when she tried to help. When Mom got hurt, Bianca sat up all night with her while you slept like a rock. And now—"

He grabbed my jaw and forced my face up.

"Now she's gone. And that's on you."

I'd tried to explain all of it. Dozens of times.

Nobody ever listened.

"Garrett." My mother sounded thin and worn out. "Not so hard. It could mess up the reading."

Elaine Hale crossed the room and wiped the blood off my lip with her sleeve. Her touch was gentle.

But her eyes were swollen from crying. For Bianca.

"Just tell us where she is," she whispered. "Please, Ivy. I haven't slept in five days. I can't keep food down. If something's happened to her..."

Her voice cracked.

I looked at her.

This was more attention than she'd given me in months.

"I don't know," I said quietly.

My father let out a hard breath.

"Fine." He turned to the shadows at the back of the den. "Start. I want to see everything she's hiding."

The seer stepped into the candlelight.

"Alpha." Her voice was dry and cracked with age. "You should know the risk. She turned eighteen today, and her wolf hasn't come in. Her spirit is still weak."

"And?"

"A reading takes a strong mind. Hers can only take so much." She held up three bony fingers. "Three readings. Four at the very most. Push past that, and she could lose her memories for good. Maybe her wolf too."

"I don't care about her wolf." His voice was ice. "I care about finding my daughter."

"Alpha, the damage could be permanent. She might never—"

"Did I ask for your opinion?"

Silence.

"No, Alpha."

The seer turned to me. Her eyes were so pale they were almost white.

"Breathe, child. Fight it, and it'll only hurt more."

I didn't fight.

What was the point?

Bianca had won. Bianca always won.

The seer started chanting. On the table in front of me, a bowl of moonwater began to glow.

"One more thing." My father stepped in close, blocking the candlelight. "Cooperate. Tell us where Bianca is, and I'll pay you. Name your number. Then you can go back to the human world, and we never have to see each other again."

The human world.

My whole body locked up. White crept in at the edges of my vision.

"No." It came out before I could stop it. "Not there. Please. Anywhere but there—"

"See?" Garrett sneered. "She'd rather stay here playing princess than help find Bianca. Greedy little—"

"Enough." My father waved a hand. "Start."

The chanting got louder. Light rose off the moonwater and wrapped around me.

Pain stabbed through my skull.

And the den was gone.

Colors ran together. Sounds stretched and warped.

When everything settled, I was in the back seat of a car. A shiny black SUV that still had that new-car smell.

Garrett's car.

Next to me, holding my hand with a big smile, was a girl with golden hair and big, bright eyes.

Bianca.

"Welcome home, Ivy!" she said. "I made you a welcome-home drink. I was up all morning on it. Try it, try it!"

I watched my younger self take the cup.

I watched myself smile at her, grateful and trusting.

And I knew exactly what came next.