KENDRA

My hand hovers over the door as I prepare to knock. Dad hates being interrupted, and he especially hates me when I'm the one who does it.

I exhale a long sigh and knock on the door. Her harsh, annoyed voice answers me instantly.

"Come in."

Swallowing hard, I push open the enormous door frame of his studio and enter.

"Sorry to interrupt, Dad. It's just that..."

Her impatient tone cuts off whatever she was about to say. "You're not sorry. Let's stop this nonsense and tell me what you want."

Tears sting behind my eyelashes at the way he speaks to me. The sheer contempt he feels for me makes my heart clench painfully in my chest. Seventeen years have done nothing to soothe the sting of his rejection. A rejection that is in no way my fault.

I pull a chair out from behind his enormous desk and sit down in front of him.

"I overheard the maids talking about your decision to postpone the ceremony."

"What does that have to do with you?" He doesn't even look up from the screen in front of him.

It's my birthday! I'm supposed to turn eighteen and celebrate the Heritage Festival on the night of the full moon. It's a tradition. Every wolf pack around the world keeps the same tradition.

I'm not saying this. Instead, I take a deep breath before returning to the topic.

"I'm supposed to be eighteen in three weeks, Dad. Postponing Heritage Festival by two months takes me too far away from the day it's supposed to happen."

If my words carry any weight, he doesn't show it. "In two months there will be another full moon; and, with luck, an heir to the Hemingway name."

The air suddenly escapes me, the pain a storm swirling in my heart.

"What do you mean by that, Dad? I'm the heir to the Hemingway name."

His laughter is all mockery and no humor. "You really think you're so great, Kendra. This is my pack, built on years of battles and strength. Do you really think I'd hand it over to a woman just because she shares my name?"

"I don't just share your name, Father! I share your blood. Your soul. We are one and the same."

His palm falls hard on the surface of the desk, making me shudder with surprise.

"You are nothing to me. All you remind me of is exactly what you are: the scum who took my mate from me." His voice rises with anger. "My mate, my other half, died without giving me an heir... but you. The weakest link in the wolf bond. If you were going to kill her, you should at least have come as a useful addition to my pack."

"I had no control over any of those moments"—tears now stream down my face, and my strength to hold them back breaks down.

"Maybe not." She runs a hand through her hair. "I should have listened to the shaman when he said you were going to ruin my pack. I shouldn't have let you be born."

What remains of my heart collapses, shattering into fragments that fall down my chest until they settle between my feet.

"Dad…"

"Go away, Kendra. I've made my decision, you can't change it."

As I run out of the studio, the first sob escapes my throat. I can't hold it back any longer; I run to my room, close the door, and give in to the tears.

I don't know how long I stay like that, but eventually I hear the roar of my father's engine. He was going to meet the Blaises. Maybe my heart would heal if he didn't come back.

---

I don't remember falling asleep, but I am awakened by the sounds of several cars entering the pack's house, noises that seep through my still open window while hurried footsteps finally make their presence felt in my confusion.

A glance out my window shows it's already night. Huh. I guess Dad's back. But what's with all the commotion down there?

I put on a sweatshirt and hurry downstairs. A guard bursts into the house, pale and breathless.

"Tim, what's wrong?" I asked.

Her eyes rest on me and then close. "My lady, I..." She breaks off and bows her head. "If you'll excuse me."

Without waiting for my answer, she runs to the kitchen. What?

I continue down and emerge just in time to see the deplorable state of our group of cars. Their once pristine surfaces are now riddled with bullet holes.

Oh my God! They have attacked my father.

My feet move on autopilot, carrying me swiftly toward my father's jeep. The windows roll down just as I arrive.

"Dad? Are you okay?"

His Beta, Alec, opens the door and gets out. I step back to give him space, and there I see him. He's bleeding.

"What the hell happened?" I yelled at him.

His body remains rigid, but he makes no movement to respond.

"If you don't answer me right now, Alec, I swear..."

"The Alpha is wounded."

My world suddenly stops. "What?"

"We were ambushed on the way back from the Blaises. He was hit with silver, and it seems that…" —he swallows, unable to finish the sentence—.

I push him aside and get into the car. Dad leans back against the seat, eyes closed and head tilted to one side. He's in serious condition. Very serious.

"Dad?" I swallow nervously, my fingers searching for his forehead. "He's on fire!" I tell Alec. "Help me get him down."

Getting him out was harder than we were prepared for, but we managed. Dad seems unconscious, his eyelids squeezed shut with a pain I can't describe.

I put my arm around his shoulder and, with Alec's help, dragged him to the house.

"Bring Everest here immediately!" —my voice is firm as I give the order—.

I help my father to bed, guilt pounding inside me. Maybe if I hadn't wished he wouldn't come back, then…

"Shut up!" my wolf howls in my head. "It's not your fault."

I ignore her, and myself, and clean her wounds, changing her clothes while I wait for her Beta and the healer.

They knock on the door thirty minutes later.

"I came as fast as I could, my lady," Everesta, the pack's healer, looks at me with kindness and apologies in her expression.

"Check it out."

I silently step aside as she begins to work, healing all the superficial wounds and locating the main source of her discomfort.

Eventually, her hands stop, her back tenses from the shock of what she discovers.

"What's happening?" I asked, my heart in my throat.

"He... The Alpha was struck with poisoned silver."