Chapter 1 The Girl No One Wanted

QUINN'S POV 

The dishwater was freezing, but I didn’t stop scrubbing. My hands were red, raw, and completely numb, yet I kept dragging the rough wooden brush over the cold floorboards. 

My back throbbed with a dull, steady ache from bending over for hours. If the main kitchen wasn’t spotless before sunrise, Alpha Garrick would take away my food again, and I was already too weak to skip another meal.

I paused for a second and wiped a wet hand over my forehead. As I did, I quickly adjusted my pale, silver hair so it fell forward, completely covering the side of my neck. I did it without even thinking. 

Beneath my hair sat a faint crescent-shaped birthmark. It was a habit born from years of fear—in the Ashby house, anything different about me brought nothing but trouble, extra work, or a slap across the face.

"Still scrubbing, trash?" I froze. I didn't turn around right away. I forced my breathing to stay slow and calm as Mara walked into the kitchen. 

She was dressed in a thick, warm wool dress with fur along the collar, her dark hair pinned back neatly without a single strand out of place. 

She stood right over me, looking down like I was something rotten stuck to the bottom of her expensive leather shoe.

"I am almost finished, Lady Mara," I said softly, staring straight down at the wet floor. My voice sounded thin, small, and raspy from disuse.

"You're slow. You've always been slow," Mara sneered. She raised her boot and kicked the side of my heavy wooden bucket.

Dirty gray water splashed over the side, soaking the front of my thin dress. The icy liquid hit my skin, making me shudder violently. I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the wooden brush until my knuckles turned white.

"Look at you," she laughed, folding her arms across her chest. "My father was right about you. You really are completely useless."

"I will clean the splash, Lady Mara," I whispered, keeping my head down.

"You better," she said, her voice dropping into a harsh spit. "Your mother was a filthy, nameless wanderer who died and dumped you on our doorstep like trash. You ought to be on your knees every day thanking my father for keeping a roof over your pathetic head."

I swallowed the dry, tight lump in my throat and kept my gaze locked on the wet wood. Don't look up. Don't answer back. Don't let her see you cry. I had survived eighteen years in this house by remembering those simple rules.

"When you finish this, my father wants the stables swept," Mara added, her tone turning bored. She reached into her dress pocket, pulled out a stale, hard crust of bread, and tossed it onto the dirty floor right next to my knee. "Eat fast. The horses won't wait for you, and neither will I."

"Yes, Lady Mara." She turned on her heel and walked out, her boots clicking loudly against the dry stone corridor outside until the sound completely died away.

I waited in silence until I was sure she was far gone. My stomach gave a sharp, painful twist, reminding me how empty it was. 

I looked down at the piece of bread sitting in the dirty puddle on the floor. It was soaked through and gray, but I was so hungry my hands shook as I reached out for it anyway.

"Don't eat that, child." I pulled my hand back fast and looked up toward the pantry door. Nell, the oldest kitchen servant in the estate, was stepping out from the dark shadows. 

She looked down the empty hallway nervously, her chest rising and falling fast, before she hurried over to where I was kneeling. She reached into her deep apron pocket, pulled out a warm, boiled egg, and pushed it into my cold fingers.

"Here," Nell whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "Eat this instead."

"Nell, no," I said, trying to push it back toward her. "If Alpha Garrick sees you giving me real food—"

"Garrick is fast asleep upstairs," Nell cut in quickly, waving her hand. She knelt right beside me on the wet floor, completely ignoring the dirty water soaking into her clean apron. 

Her dark eyes were full of a heavy, painful sadness. Every time Nell looked at me, she looked like she was carrying a terrible secret, like she wanted to cry for me, but she had never told me why.

"You need to eat," Nell urged, closing my thin fingers firmly over the warm egg. "You need your strength today more than any other day."

"Why today?" I asked softly, peeling a tiny piece of shell off the top with my thumb.

"Because tonight is your birthday," Nell said, her voice barely louder than a breath of wind. "You turn eighteen at midnight, Quinn."

My chest tightened, and my heart gave a sudden, hard thud. The eighteenth birthday. In our world, eighteen was the night the mate bond finally ignited. 

It was the single moment a wolf was pulled toward the person meant to keep them safe, love them, and take them far away from their old life.

"Do you really think... do you think someone will actually come for me, Nell?" I asked, looking up at her face. My voice sounded smaller and more desperate than I wanted it to. 

"What if I don't have anyone? What if Garrick was right about my mother, and I'm just broken?"

Nell reached out and touched my pale cheek with her rough, calloused thumb, gently wiping away a stray drop of dirty water.

"Your mother was not what Garrick says she was," Nell whispered fiercely, her eyes shining with sudden anger. "She was strong, Quinn. And you will have a mate. The moon doesn't forget people like you, no matter how hard this household tries to hide you."

"I just want to leave," I whispered back, staring down at the warm egg resting in my hands. "I don't care where it is. I just want to go somewhere where I don't have to hide my face, where I don't have to starve."

"It won't be long now," Nell murmured, looking past me toward the small, dark kitchen window. "Just hold on until midnight. Promise me you'll hold on and stay strong."

"I promise," I said, nodding slowly.

"Good girl. Now hide that egg in your pocket and finish this floor before the house guards wake up and come down here."

Nell stood up quickly, checking the dark hallway one more time before slipping back into the shadows of the pantry.

I stuffed the warm egg deep into my dress pocket. I pulled my long silver hair even further down over the side of my neck to hide my mark, picked up the rough wooden brush, and went back to scrubbing the floor.

As the quiet hours crept by, I slipped away to my tiny storage room beneath the stairs, holding my breath as the shadow of the clock tower stretched long across the stone.

I sat on the edge of my straw mattress, pulling my knees tight against my chest as the hands of the clock crept closer to twelve. My palms were slick with sweat, my eyes fixed on the pale moon outside.

I closed my eyes and prayed for a kind mate, someone who would finally take me away from this house.

Then, the heavy chimes upstairs began to ring.