In the middle of the night, screams and crying woke me. My wolf hearing picked up panicked footsteps downstairs.

I sat up just as my door was kicked open.

My stepmother, Karen, rushed in wailing. Before I could react, she slapped me hard across the face multiple times.

"How can you be so cruel? Do you have no conscience?"

"Hurting her during the day wasn't enough? You want to kill her?"

Karen collapsed into my father's arms, sobbing. "She knows Lila is weak! She knows Lila is severely allergic to Moonflower pollen! Yet she deliberately sprinkled it all over her bed and pillow!"

"She wants to kill our daughter! This is murder! Just because Lila's dog accidentally broke a flower, she retaliates like this!"

"Alright, stop crying. Luckily Lila took the antidote in time. She's fine."

Father comforted her softly, then looked at me with disgust. "Ivy, I am so disappointed in you."

"Move out of the Manor tomorrow."

"Keeping you here will only destroy the peace of this family. I can't let a dangerous element like you hurt the future Luna."

Karen stopped crying instantly.

I looked at the man in front of me. He used to be my closest kin, an Elder of the Frostfang family.

He used to love me. I was his only pureblood child, the apple of his eye.

But everything changed.

I was like a protagonist in a tragedy, stripped of everything.

At first, I didn't understand. I cried, I fought, I argued.

But now, I finally woke up.

The blood tie between father and daughter was completely severed.

The day I moved out of Frostfang Manor.

My father said to me, "After your mother's death anniversary, I'll bring you home. Reflect on your actions outside. Learn to control your wolf nature."

I didn't answer.

After they left, I took all the photos of Caleb and me, and all the photos of my father.

I cut them to shreds and threw them into the fireplace.

Finally, I burned that moon-white robe.

It was made of the finest moon silk. I had ordered it three years ago when Caleb's family proposed the mating.

I had imagined wearing it for the marking ceremony countless times since I was a girl.

Now, I burned it with my own hands, along with my last lingering attachment to this Pack.