The others turned their gazes toward me, anticipation gleaming in their eyes. I could sense their eagerness—they were all waiting to watch me be humiliated.
After all, in their minds, I was still that pathetic, lovesick wolf Selene had cruelly abandoned.
Back then, I had been willing to defy my father for her sake. I had walked away from my birthright and ended up running errands across the city like a common packless wanderer, just to prove I could make my own way.
And after I had cleared seventy thousand in debts she had accumulated—resources I had scraped together through endless labor—she had crawled into the bed of Darius Ashford, heir to the Ashford Pack.
Heartbroken and hollow, I had returned home to accept my place in the Nightcrest succession. I had sworn I would never lay eyes on Selene Frostveil again.
Yet here I was at this gathering of old acquaintances, not only facing this treacherous, status-hungry she-wolf once more, but being publicly humiliated by her. She had used the very debt I had paid on her behalf to grind my dignity into the dirt before everyone present.
This insult I could not swallow.