Chapter 1 The Girl They Forgot to Break

Rosalind's POV

My tray hits the table before I even sit down, because my hands are shaking and I need them empty.

Nobody looks up. That's the trick to being invisible. You walk fast, you sit fast, and you never let your face ask for anything. I've had three years of practice. Long sleeve on the left arm, hair pulled forward on the left side of my jaw, eyes down. Nobody at Fenwick-Caldwell Prep has seen my scars since freshman year, and I plan on keeping it that way until graduation.

Then Odette laughs, loud and bright, three tables over, and my whole body goes stiff like someone snapped a leash.

I don't look. I don't need to. I already know what I'll see if I do: my sister with her hand out, palm up, showing off a ring that costs more than our father's entire pack budget, while Emrys Caldwell stands there not really looking at it. Not really looking at her either. He's got that face he always wears in public, calm as a locked door.

I hate that I know his face that well. I hate it more that I looked up anyway.

Our eyes catch for half a second across the courtyard.

It shouldn't feel like anything. He's my sister's fiancé. He's the heir to the company that swallowed our pack whole and calls it a rescue. He has never once, in four years of sharing hallways with me, said my name out loud.

But my scars burn.

Not itch. Not ache. Burn, hot and sudden, like someone pressed a coal against my jaw, and I flinch so hard I knock my fork off the tray. It clatters on the floor, and three people finally look at me, which is the exact opposite of what I wanted.

"You okay?" Marlowe drops into the seat across from me, already reaching to grab my fork before a teacher can make it a whole thing.

"Fine," I say, because that's always the answer.

"You're touching your jaw."

I didn't realize I was. I pull my hand down fast, but Marlowe's already seen, and Marlowe doesn't miss things. Her family served my family for four generations. She knows the shape of every lie I've ever told her.

"It's nothing," I say again, and this time I almost believe it, because the burning is already fading, like it was never there at all.

Except across the courtyard, Emrys Caldwell has stopped smiling at whatever Odette just said. He's staring at me now. Really staring, the kind of look that makes my stomach drop straight through the floor, like he felt something too and doesn't know what to do with it.

I look away first. I always look away first.

"So," Marlowe says, deciding to save me from myself, "are you dying inside, or just a normal amount of miserable?"

"Normal amount."

"Liar." She steals a fry off my tray like she's owed it. "You've been weird all week. Weirder than usual weird."

She's not wrong. I haven't told her about the dream. The one that comes almost every night now, where I'm drowning in silver water, and someone's hands are the last warm thing I feel before everything goes dark. I haven't told anyone. Saying it out loud makes it real, and I already have enough real problems, like being the Alpha's daughter who's never once shifted into her wolf, not even a little, not even by accident.

Everyone else changed years ago. I'm the only senior at this school who still walks around fully human, and everyone knows it, and everyone has an opinion about what's wrong with me.

I'm still trying to swallow that thought down when the intercom crackles overhead, and the whole cafeteria goes quiet in that fast, nervous way that means something big is coming.

"Attention, seniors." The voice is Headmaster Ashford's, flat and official. "As required under the Fenwick-Caldwell Founding Charter, all senior pack members will complete the annual Founding Trial in three days. Attendance is mandatory. There are no exceptions."

The room erupts into whispers. The Founding Trial. I've heard about it since I was a kid: the shift-and-run test every senior has to pass in front of both bloodlines, proving they're strong enough to stand for their pack. Odette did hers last year without even trying. Half this cafeteria has already shifted a hundred times by now. It's nothing to them. A formality.

To me, it's a countdown to the worst day of my life.

"No exceptions," I say out loud, my voice smaller than I want it to be. "That means me too."

Marlowe's face does something complicated. "Ros,"

"I've never shifted," I say, like she doesn't already know, like saying it plain might make it less true. "Not once. Not ever. What happens when I stand out there in front of everyone, and nothing comes?"

She doesn't answer, because there isn't a good answer. We both know what happens to wolves who can't shift. We've both heard the whispers about what the Combine does with pack members who turn out to be nothing.

I make myself look up, just once, across the cafeteria, and my whole body goes cold.

Emrys is still watching me. But it's not pity on his face, and it's not curiosity either. It's something closer to recognition, like he's looking at someone he already knows, someone he's terrified of and can't stop looking at anyway.

Then his eyes drop, straight to my jaw, straight to the scars I keep hidden under my hair, and his face goes white like he's seen a ghost.

I press my hand flat against my jaw before I can stop myself, because it's happening again. The burning. Stronger this time. So strong my vision blurs at the edges and the noise of the cafeteria goes thin and far away, like I'm hearing it from underwater.

And for one impossible second, I don't see the cafeteria at all.

I see silver water. I see antlers cutting through moonlight. I see a man's hands closing around my throat, and the man has Emrys Caldwell's exact face, and he is crying while he does it.

Then it's gone, and I'm back at the table, and Marlowe is gripping my arm and saying my name like she's said it three times already, and across the courtyard Emrys Caldwell has gone completely still, one hand pressed flat against his own chest like something inside it just tried to claw its way out.

Three days until the Trial.

I don't think I'm going to make it that long before whatever is waking up inside me finds him first.