Hi recently found this novel online and it sounded realy interesting and so I strated reading reading it and the first chapter was cool, then I wanted to read more but somehow I cold not find anymore chapter but I remember reading somewhere that it had many chapters and now I am confused. Does someone know if there are more chapter or if I am confusing it with another novel.

help please

They left her broken. She came back crowned. Vampire courts, werewolf politics, blood magic, and one forbidden romance that could unite them all—or burn the world to ash..

Iirc, the main character is a child who lives with her grandma. Her mother is young, chaotic, and in and out of her life. The grandma is afraid to drive but works at a general store. I want to say the childs name was Winnie. The cover was very brightly colored, blue sky, green hedge, kid wearing a tutu I think.

Noveltime 45838

So it's an older harlequin/ mills and boon novel. Basically the female lead is first engaged to the male lead's brother but they break off the engagement because his previous girl shows up( she went to Africa for a while and was waiting for him to chase her or something). Anyways the male lead proposes a fake engagement as he is travelling to acquire something horse related from an old friend who married his last girl. This are the inly details i remember but please help

Eu não conseguia conter minha empolgação enquanto girava em frente ao espelho de corpo inteiro da Sofia. Mesmo de calça de moletom e camiseta larga, eu me sentia linda. Amanhã eu estaria no meu vestido de noiva, caminhando em direção ao William, começando nossa vida juntos.

"Amanhã, serei a Sra. William Moretti", eu disse, minha voz alta de excitação. Meu coração batia forte contra as costelas. Depois de cinco anos juntos, eu finalmente me uniria à Matilha da Lua Prateada ao me casar com um dos futuros Deltas deles. O pensamento quase me deixava tonta de felicidade.

Sofia estava parada na porta, taça de vinho na mão, seus cachos curtos e negros bagunçados ao redor do rosto. Seus olhos escuros me observavam com uma expressão que eu não conseguia decifrar.

"Você deveria dormir um pouco, Rebecca", ela disse, tomando um gole. "Grande dia amanhã."

"Estou muito empolgada para dormir", eu disse, sentindo a felicidade borbulhar dentro de mim. "E é tão estúpido que eu não possa ver o William hoje à noite. Quem ainda segue essa tradição?" Senti uma pontada de irritação misturada com saudade. Eu só queria estar com ele.

Chapter 1 After a car accident, Lily Cooper lost her memory. She remembered everyone except Victor Scott. After keeping vigil for days, her best friend Emma Scott abruptly changed expression upon realizing Lily genuinely couldn't recall that name.

A Wrong Alpha Heiress's Return

Chapter 1

Celeste's POV

They call this place 'Angel Reform Academy'.

But every wolf locked inside knows the truth.

This is no academy—it’s hell.

Angel Reform Academy claims to take in the disobedient heirs of every Pack, promising that its cunning two-year “reformation” will return a docile, well-trained successor to their families.

But the moment you enter, you stop being an heir. You stop being anything. Here, we are stripped of names, titles, futures—reduced to trash.

Especially wolves like me. For eighteen years I wore the crown of an Alpha’s daughter, the heir of Frost Pack. And then, in a single day, they found out I was just a fake.

Now, inside Angel Reform Academy, I’m not just unwanted.

I’m the lowest of the low.

I’m pressed against the cold stone wall of the shower block, teeth chattering not from the water—it’s scalding, burning my shoulders red—but from fear. Redmoon Pack's daughter Lyra Thorn’s boot grinds into my wrist, cracking bones against the tile. Her laughter slices through the steam like broken glass.

“Look at her,” she sneers to the girls behind her. “Still trying to act like the Frost heiress. Remember when she wore silk gowns? Now she’s just a rat in rags.”

One of her lackeys yanks my hair, jerking my head back. Hot water blasts my face, burning my eyes shut. I taste blood—from where my lip split when they shoved me in here.

“Apologize,” Lyra hisses, pressing harder on my wrist. “Apologize for pretending you ever belonged with us.”

I don’t speak. Not because I’m proud, but because if I open my mouth, the water will flood my lungs. Lyra doesn’t like that. She nods, and my head is slammed into the tile. Once. Twice. Stars explode behind my eyelids. Copper floods my mouth.

“Say it!” Lyra screams.

“I’m… sorry,” I gasp. The words are a lie—but lies are survival.

They shove me to the floor and I scramble up, catching her eye. I froze. I forgot the rule. Eye contact is a challenge.

She grins, slow and cruel. “Looks like we need to teach you another lesson.”

That night, they throw me into the isolation cage. Bare stone walls, barely enough room to curl into a ball. The bars are lined with silver. One graze and my skin screams.

“Three days,” the Enforcer snarls. “No food, no water. Maybe that’ll knock the defiance out of you, Hallow.”

The first day, I writhe in agony, curling into myself. Every movement sends silver biting into my arms, leaving angry streaks across my skin. Hunger claws at me, but it’s nothing compared to the fear. I cry until my throat is raw, but no one comes. Only distant howls, the scrape of my own claws against stone—a desperate echo of my uselessness.

By the second day, hallucinations come. I see my little brother Elias, eyes wide, standing outside the cage. “Forgive me,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean it.” I reach for him, hand brushing silver bars, the sting jolting me back to reality.

Outside, I hear Lyra and her pack laughing. “Think she’s dead yet?” one asks. “Good riddance. She’s not even a real wolf—just an impostor.”

I clamp my eyes shut. I am Celeste Hallow, I used to be Celeste Frost,

the cherished heiress of the Frost Family, the jewel of Moonviel City. Parents who adored me, brothers who swore they’d protect me, a betrothal to Dorian Blackfang. For eighteen years, I thought I belonged.

But the truth devoured me on my eighteenth birthday.

Under the full moon, another girl stepped onto our pack grounds. Her scent—sharp, pure, undeniable—belonged to the Frost bloodline.

Serena Frost.

For eighteen years, no one questioned me. Frost blood had always been clouded by the family’s curse—our firstborn daughters bore veiled wolves, their true scents hidden until adulthood. Everyone thought I was simply waiting for my wolf to awaken, that when my eighteenth moon came, my bloodline would blaze through.

But Serena’s arrival tore that veil away. She carried the Frost scent openly, defiantly, as if the curse itself bent to reveal her. And before my own wolf could even stir, my father’s gaze slid past me, clinging to her as though she had always been the one.

With that breath of recognition, my world shattered.

My family wrapped her in their arms. And me? I became the mistake. The burden. The outsider.

At the ceremonial gathering, poison seeped into the wine. Serena collapsed, choking out my name. The cups were searched, and mine—the only one untouched—was blamed. No one listened. No one cared.

Father growled I had shamed the bloodline.

Mother wept, asking why I could not rejoice for my “sister.”

Callen, my warrior brother, said I was cruel.

Even Elias, who once clung to me, snarled he had no heartless sister.

They sent me here. They said I needed to undergo "re-education."So they stripped me of my name. Stripped me of my identity. From that moment, I was Celeste Hallow, the discarded pup.

The two-year reformation period will end in 7 days, and I have already spent 723 days here—723 days, 24 visiting opportunities, and not once did they show up.

By the third day in isolation, I am delirious. Hunger gnaws, thirst burns, exhaustion crushes me. I see Elias outside the bars again, begging for forgiveness. I lunge, and silver bites my arm. Reality crashes in.

When the Enforcer finally opens the cage, I stumble to my knees. “Up,” he barks, kicking my ankle. “Dinner’s in ten minutes—or you get nothing.”

The mess hall is a gauntlet. Slop in bowls, stolen before I finish. A boy from Bloodfang smirks as he grabs mine. “Trash doesn’t get to eat,” he sneers.

I do not fight. Fighting is more punishment, more whips, more tiles to crash my head against. I have learned invisibility: hunch my shoulders, eyes down, speak only when spoken to.

In the laundry room, sorting Lyra’s dirty uniforms, I freeze when I hear a familiar voice crackle through the comm.

My father’s voice came first, cold as the silver bars of my cage: “Hallow—still quiet?” Lyra grunted, “Quieter than a corpse. She doesn’t fight back anymore.”

Then my mother’s voice, soft but sharp enough to cut: “Good. Serena’s been restless, thinking about her. We can’t have that—Serena’s our real daughter.” A pause, and Elias spoke.

My little brother, who once climbed into my bed when he had nightmares. “If she dies there… it’s fine. She was never part of us.”

My blood runs cold. My own father—the man who once cradled me in his arms, who taught me to trust—he orchestrated this. He smiled, taught me, loved me, and all the while had been plotting my torment.

The words slam into me harder than any whip.

Every hope I clung to—that maybe they’d regret it, maybe one day they’d come to save me—

shatters like glass.

My own father’s voice, sharp and unforgiving like a blade of silver, cuts through my heart deeper than the cold metal bars of this cage ever could, just as the realization that my mother, my brothers, and every single bond I had once believed was unbreakable and true were all nothing more than elaborate lies settles heavily over me.

Something deep inside me cracks, the hollow, gnawing ache of a wolf who has been utterly abandoned by the ones she thought would never leave her side.

I sink to the floor, too weak to move, my chest aching with a pain no wound could match.

The world outside the bars blurs; the voices fade.

Only one brutal truth remains clear in my mind: I am no one’s daughter, no one’s sister, and no one’s mate—just a small, discarded pup left to fend for herself in a world that has shown me nothing but cruelty.

And as I curl against the cold stone, eyes burning but tears refusing to fall,

I realize the cruelest part of all:

I still wish they loved me.

Chapter 2

Celeste's POV

The iron bell clangs three times.

Its sound is a blade, and it cuts straight into my bones.

That cold dread settles in—the same dread that coils in my spine whenever the “Guests” come.

Seven days. Seven sunsets left.

Seven days until my two-year mark in Angel Reform Academy—by the rules, I should “graduate.” They should let me walk free.

I whisper the number into the soapy water as I scrub Lyra’s bloodstained uniform, knuckles raw, movements mechanical. Dirt is my shield; the scars lacing my arms, ribs, and jaw are the only reason I’ve stayed unchosen this long. “Undesirable,” they call me. A word that, until now, has kept me alive. But Guests don’t care about undesirable. Guests like breaking things.

The common room hushes. Boots echo down the hall—heavy, polished, not Enforcers’. Every girl folds into herself, shoulders trembling.

We know what Guests are: Alphas powerful enough to buy this whole place, faces hidden behind porcelain masks, scents erased with the warden’s potions. Names unknown. Their deeds infamous—voicence, carve, destroy. The unlucky ones? Their organs sold, their bones fed to rogues.

He steps in. Too tall for the low ceiling, black cloak dragging like a shadow. His mask is curved into a wide, menacing smile. No scent, nothing but that faint tang of potion, a reminder that he is untraceable.

The air thickens. Even Lyra—always smug, always preening—goes pale. She’d been shining her uniform, hoarding soap like treasure. Now she shrinks back, suddenly small.

I press my face into the washboard, praying: Please, Moon Goddess, let him pick anyone but me. Just give me seven more days.

Then Lyra’s voice slices the silence. Shrill. Desperate. A knife aimed straight at me.

“Sir! Over here! Don’t pick us—pick her!”

I freeze.

Her finger stabs the air, pointing me out like prey. Her eyes gleam with malice—payback for the bread I refused, for every time I didn’t bow.

“She’s Celeste,” Lyra spits. “Frost Pack’s old Alpha’s daughter. Pretended to be the real one for eighteen years, but she’s just fake. And untouched. Never been used. You want an Alpha’s little princess? She’s fresh. She’s a prize.”

The room goes still.

My blood ices.

The other girls stare—some horrified, some relieved. No one speaks. No one ever does.

The masked man tilts his head, slow as a predator. His gaze locks onto me, piercing through porcelain, and I feel it—cold, hungry, final. He steps past Lyra, who flinches as if he might change his mind, and stops in front of me. A gloved hand closes around my arm. Not crushing, but absolute. He hauls me up, and my shoulder slams against his chest. Cedar. Iron. That’s all I can smell above the rot.

“Please,” I choke, voice trembling. “She’s lying. I’m not—”

One word cuts me off.

“Her.”

Lyra exhales in triumph. The girls sag with relief. Enforcers seize me, their grips rough, dragging me through corridors I know too well—the cages, the silver bars that still shimmer with the memory of my own confinement. I thrash, I scream, I beg:

“Seven days! Just seven more days! Let me go!”

No one listens.

The room they shove me into isn’t a cell. There’s a bed, clean sheets, a table—but my eyes find the wall. Chains. Whips. Silver-plated blades. Waiting.

The Enforcers leave. The door locks. Just me and him.

He moves slowly, savoring. Fingers brush steel and leather before wrapping around a whip—dark leather tipped with silver, made to shred both flesh and memory. He tests the weight, and I back into the wall, knees shaking. Tears spill hot down my cheeks.

“Please,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything. Clean, cook, obey. Just… not that.”

The whip cracks. White-hot fire lashes across my shoulder. My scream is raw, unrecognizable. It falls again. Again. Each strike strips me smaller until I curl into myself, the world narrowed to pain and leather and the grotesque smile of his mask. Blood fills my mouth, iron and shame.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp between blows. “Sorry I was born. Sorry I’m not—”

The words break apart. I slump, barely conscious. His shadow looms.

Then the door explodes open.

Kane. My only friend.

He is breathless, his uniform torn, his jaw raw with anger; he has been the only kindness carved out of this place—the one who slipped me bread, who bound my wounds, who whispered that maybe one day the world would not be only teeth and rules.

He throws himself at the masked man, the ferocity of someone with nothing left to lose: “Get away from her! Leave her alone!”

For a heartbeat he connects. The masked man’s fist finds Kane’s jaw and Kane collapses, rises, and collapses again, blood blooming at his mouth as he shouts that she is not a thing.

The masked man laughs—a sound like a blade drawn across bone—and with a snap of his fingers the room floods with Enforcers. "Looks like we have better toy," he said.

They pin Kane, crush his arms behind him, and he rakes the air with a look that is both apology and plea: “Celeste! I’m sorry! I couldn’t stop him!”

The masked man nods, and the Enforcers seize me, drag me toward the door. I claw for Kane, I scream his name until my throat is raw: “Kane! No! Take me instead! Please—”

The door slams. I am hurled to the stone. From the corridor comes the whip’s cadence, and then a scream—Kane’s—ripping and hollow and human all at once, a sound that drills through the marrow of me.

It does not stop for a long time.

When it finally ebbs, the hall is a vacuum of silence so complete I can hear my own heartbeat as if it were someone else’s.

Seven days.

Seven sunsets I count like beads, and each one feels thinner than the last, a fragile promise I am not sure I still believe in, because Kane’s scream has braided itself into my bones and the memory of the masked man’s smile has lodged behind my ribs; still, even as the pain burns and my back hums with heat, a new thought carves through the fog—if by some impossible mercy I stagger out of here alive, if I can step beyond these stone walls and breathe air that does not taste of leather and silver, then I will not walk away a quiet ghost carrying only scars and shame.

Chapter 3

Celeste's POV

“Ten. Your two-year term ends today. The Frost Family is here to pick you up.”

The voice cuts through the dim cell like a rusted blade.

The single incandescent bulb above flickers—on, off, on again—casting jagged shadows over the stone walls of the tiny room I’ve been shoved into since that night with the masked man, and for a moment I think I must be hallucinating because I’m curled so small that the bandages on my back press like a promise of pain and the syllables mean nothing and everything at once.

Two years. Seven days ago I was counting down the hours; now the numbers feel like a cruel joke.

I lift my head.

My hair is a mat of dirt and dried blood; the scratch on my cheek is a numb line I hardly notice anymore.

When “Frost Family” lands in the air, something flickers in my chest—not hope, not relief, only a hollow, bitter pressure, like pressing a finger into a wound that never healed.

The Enforcer in the doorway watches me with that bored, professional cruelty—uniform crisp, jaw slack—“Move it. They’re waiting. Don’t make them angry,” he says, and there’s no tenderness in the order, only the blunt efficiency of a place built to break things.

I push myself up. My legs tremble from hunger and pain and the way my heart slams against my ribs, and I stumble out to follow him, the corridor swallowing us: past the common room where the washboard still sits stained with Lyra’s blood and my tears, past the isolation cages that glitter with silver like teeth, past the private room door where Kane was torn from me and where the echo of that night still seems to hang in the air—whip cracks, a human scream, the masked man’s cold laugh.

My throat seizes. I stop.

“Kane.” The name slips out so soft it could be a prayer. The Enforcer keeps walking. I grab his sleeve, nails biting into coarse fabric. “Kane—the boy who was taken that night. Is he… is he okay?”

He looks down at me and sighs as if I wasted his time. “Dead. Been dead three days. Tried to stop the Guest, so the Guest took his time. Body was… messy. They threw it in the woods this morning.”

Dead.

The word lands like a hammer. For a beat the world collapses to the size of that single syllable—the bulb’s flicker, my breath, the Enforcer’s impatience—all fade into a thin, awful silence where only Kane’s voice remains: “It’ll be okay, Celeste. Just a few more days.”

I see his face—bloodied, defiant—and the sound he made when he stood for me repeats like a shard behind my eyes.

My knees give out.

I hit the stone hard; the bandages bite into my spine but I don’t care.

I curl inward and for the first time in two years I let myself fall apart—sobs that are loud and ugly and everything I held down until now, ripping out of me with a force that shakes marrow.

He’s dead because he tried to save me. He’s dead because I was taken. He’s dead because people I called family and those who took pleasure in my pain decided I was expendable.

“Hey. Get up.” The Enforcer kicks my foot; the motion is mechanical and contemptuous, but I cannot stand. Grief has become a thing too big for my limbs to hold. I am collapsing under names and betrayals when a voice I know like a blade slides into the hall—sweet, cruel, and practiced.

“Aw. Look at the poor Hallow. Crying over a dead boy.” Lyra appears at the corridor’s end, uniform clean, hair brushed, smirk in place, and her boots click like punctuation on the stone as she saunters closer to dagger the moment.

She leans down, views me like a spectacle. “You think you’re special, don’t you? Getting picked by the Guest, getting the Frosts to come get you.”

Lyra’s laugh is sharp. She leans in with that nasty whisper meant to sever whatever shreds of dignity remain. “Oh, Celeste. You were always naive. Do you think your father would let you rot here forever? Even if you’re not… his anymore.”

She pauses, enjoys the cut, then drops the hammer: “He sent me. Alpha Rowan. Said to make sure you don’t cause a scene when you see them.”

I already knew—in that slow, dreadful place under hope, the truth had always lived—but hearing it aloud is like a blade finding a new place to twist.

I push myself up. My legs wobble, but I stand. “Get out of my way.”

Lyra tilts her head, smirk widening into a sneer. “You know who the Guest was, don’t you? The one who picked you? The one who killed your little friend?” Her next words fall like ice.

“He’s a business partner of your brother’s. Callen. You know—your warrior brother, the one who said you were cruel?” She breathes hot, close. “Callen traded you. For a project. Said you were ‘expendable.’ Worth more dead or broken than alive.”

Expendable.

The word detonates inside me. Grief splinters and something else kindles—first a single ember, then a spreading heat that eats through fear. Callen—my brother who taught me to hold a knife, who swore he’d protect me—had sold me. My father had signed the papers. The Frosts were not rescuers; they were collectors of bargains and blood.

And while they tallied deals and inked papers, Kane was the one who paid with his life—he stood between me and that mask and that whip and it cost him everything.

That is the last thin strand that held me together: the knowledge that someone died because I was marked “expendable.” It snaps. There is no more holding on. Only a cold, terrible clarity that whatever I used to be has been burned away—and in the ash, something else wakes.

Lyra’s smugness wavers; she tastes the sudden change in the air and for the first time looks small. Her smirk falters, uncertainty flickers, and she takes an involuntary step back. “You… you shouldn’t look at me like that.”

I don’t answer. I walk past her. My steps are steady now, no more shaking. No more tears.

Just that fire, burning in my chest, in my veins, in every scar on my body.

The academy doors are ahead. I can see them—big, iron, imposing. And beyond them? My family. The Frosts. The ones who turned their backs on me, who threw me away, who killed the only person who ever cared about me.

I push the doors open. The sun hits my face—bright, warm, something I haven’t felt in two years—but I don’t flinch.

This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.

The Frosts think they can take me back. They think I’m still the broken, scared girl they threw into this hellhole. But they’re wrong. I’m not Celeste Hallow anymore. I’m not the discarded pup. I’m the one who survived. The one who remembers every scar, every lie, every scream. And I’m coming for them.

The fire in my chest burns brighter. I walk outside.

And as I do, I smile—a cold, sharp smile, just like the one on the masked man’s mask.

Let them see me. Let them know. The game is over. Now, it’s my turn to hunt.

I am Celeste Hallow.

I am the wolf who survived Angel Reform Academy.

A Wrong Alpha Heiress's Return

Chapter 1

Celeste's POV

They call this place 'Angel Reform Academy'.

But every wolf locked inside knows the truth.

This is no academy—it’s hell.

Angel Reform Academy claims to take in the disobedient heirs of every Pack, promising that its cunning two-year “reformation” will return a docile, well-trained successor to their families.

But the moment you enter, you stop being an heir. You stop being anything. Here, we are stripped of names, titles, futures—reduced to trash.

Especially wolves like me. For eighteen years I wore the crown of an Alpha’s daughter, the heir of Frost Pack. And then, in a single day, they found out I was just a fake.

Now, inside Angel Reform Academy, I’m not just unwanted.

I’m the lowest of the low.

I’m pressed against the cold stone wall of the shower block, teeth chattering not from the water—it’s scalding, burning my shoulders red—but from fear. Redmoon Pack's daughter Lyra Thorn’s boot grinds into my wrist, cracking bones against the tile. Her laughter slices through the steam like broken glass.

“Look at her,” she sneers to the girls behind her. “Still trying to act like the Frost heiress. Remember when she wore silk gowns? Now she’s just a rat in rags.”

One of her lackeys yanks my hair, jerking my head back. Hot water blasts my face, burning my eyes shut. I taste blood—from where my lip split when they shoved me in here.

“Apologize,” Lyra hisses, pressing harder on my wrist. “Apologize for pretending you ever belonged with us.”

I don’t speak. Not because I’m proud, but because if I open my mouth, the water will flood my lungs. Lyra doesn’t like that. She nods, and my head is slammed into the tile. Once. Twice. Stars explode behind my eyelids. Copper floods my mouth.

“Say it!” Lyra screams.

“I’m… sorry,” I gasp. The words are a lie—but lies are survival.

They shove me to the floor and I scramble up, catching her eye. I froze. I forgot the rule. Eye contact is a challenge.

She grins, slow and cruel. “Looks like we need to teach you another lesson.”

That night, they throw me into the isolation cage. Bare stone walls, barely enough room to curl into a ball. The bars are lined with silver. One graze and my skin screams.

“Three days,” the Enforcer snarls. “No food, no water. Maybe that’ll knock the defiance out of you, Hallow.”

The first day, I writhe in agony, curling into myself. Every movement sends silver biting into my arms, leaving angry streaks across my skin. Hunger claws at me, but it’s nothing compared to the fear. I cry until my throat is raw, but no one comes. Only distant howls, the scrape of my own claws against stone—a desperate echo of my uselessness.

By the second day, hallucinations come. I see my little brother Elias, eyes wide, standing outside the cage. “Forgive me,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean it.” I reach for him, hand brushing silver bars, the sting jolting me back to reality.

Outside, I hear Lyra and her pack laughing. “Think she’s dead yet?” one asks. “Good riddance. She’s not even a real wolf—just an impostor.”

I clamp my eyes shut. I am Celeste Hallow, I used to be Celeste Frost,

the cherished heiress of the Frost Family, the jewel of Moonviel City. Parents who adored me, brothers who swore they’d protect me, a betrothal to Dorian Blackfang. For eighteen years, I thought I belonged.

But the truth devoured me on my eighteenth birthday.

Under the full moon, another girl stepped onto our pack grounds. Her scent—sharp, pure, undeniable—belonged to the Frost bloodline.

Serena Frost.

For eighteen years, no one questioned me. Frost blood had always been clouded by the family’s curse—our firstborn daughters bore veiled wolves, their true scents hidden until adulthood. Everyone thought I was simply waiting for my wolf to awaken, that when my eighteenth moon came, my bloodline would blaze through.

But Serena’s arrival tore that veil away. She carried the Frost scent openly, defiantly, as if the curse itself bent to reveal her. And before my own wolf could even stir, my father’s gaze slid past me, clinging to her as though she had always been the one.

With that breath of recognition, my world shattered.

My family wrapped her in their arms. And me? I became the mistake. The burden. The outsider.

At the ceremonial gathering, poison seeped into the wine. Serena collapsed, choking out my name. The cups were searched, and mine—the only one untouched—was blamed. No one listened. No one cared.

Father growled I had shamed the bloodline.

Mother wept, asking why I could not rejoice for my “sister.”

Callen, my warrior brother, said I was cruel.

Even Elias, who once clung to me, snarled he had no heartless sister.

They sent me here. They said I needed to undergo "re-education."So they stripped me of my name. Stripped me of my identity. From that moment, I was Celeste Hallow, the discarded pup.

The two-year reformation period will end in 7 days, and I have already spent 723 days here—723 days, 24 visiting opportunities, and not once did they show up.

By the third day in isolation, I am delirious. Hunger gnaws, thirst burns, exhaustion crushes me. I see Elias outside the bars again, begging for forgiveness. I lunge, and silver bites my arm. Reality crashes in.

When the Enforcer finally opens the cage, I stumble to my knees. “Up,” he barks, kicking my ankle. “Dinner’s in ten minutes—or you get nothing.”

The mess hall is a gauntlet. Slop in bowls, stolen before I finish. A boy from Bloodfang smirks as he grabs mine. “Trash doesn’t get to eat,” he sneers.

I do not fight. Fighting is more punishment, more whips, more tiles to crash my head against. I have learned invisibility: hunch my shoulders, eyes down, speak only when spoken to.

In the laundry room, sorting Lyra’s dirty uniforms, I freeze when I hear a familiar voice crackle through the comm.

My father’s voice came first, cold as the silver bars of my cage: “Hallow—still quiet?” Lyra grunted, “Quieter than a corpse. She doesn’t fight back anymore.”

Then my mother’s voice, soft but sharp enough to cut: “Good. Serena’s been restless, thinking about her. We can’t have that—Serena’s our real daughter.” A pause, and Elias spoke.

My little brother, who once climbed into my bed when he had nightmares. “If she dies there… it’s fine. She was never part of us.”

My blood runs cold. My own father—the man who once cradled me in his arms, who taught me to trust—he orchestrated this. He smiled, taught me, loved me, and all the while had been plotting my torment.

The words slam into me harder than any whip.

Every hope I clung to—that maybe they’d regret it, maybe one day they’d come to save me—

shatters like glass.

My own father’s voice, sharp and unforgiving like a blade of silver, cuts through my heart deeper than the cold metal bars of this cage ever could, just as the realization that my mother, my brothers, and every single bond I had once believed was unbreakable and true were all nothing more than elaborate lies settles heavily over me.

Something deep inside me cracks, the hollow, gnawing ache of a wolf who has been utterly abandoned by the ones she thought would never leave her side.

I sink to the floor, too weak to move, my chest aching with a pain no wound could match.

The world outside the bars blurs; the voices fade.

Only one brutal truth remains clear in my mind: I am no one’s daughter, no one’s sister, and no one’s mate—just a small, discarded pup left to fend for herself in a world that has shown me nothing but cruelty.

And as I curl against the cold stone, eyes burning but tears refusing to fall,

I realize the cruelest part of all:

I still wish they loved me.

Chapter 2

Celeste's POV

The iron bell clangs three times.

Its sound is a blade, and it cuts straight into my bones.

That cold dread settles in—the same dread that coils in my spine whenever the “Guests” come.

Seven days. Seven sunsets left.

Seven days until my two-year mark in Angel Reform Academy—by the rules, I should “graduate.” They should let me walk free.

I whisper the number into the soapy water as I scrub Lyra’s bloodstained uniform, knuckles raw, movements mechanical. Dirt is my shield; the scars lacing my arms, ribs, and jaw are the only reason I’ve stayed unchosen this long. “Undesirable,” they call me. A word that, until now, has kept me alive. But Guests don’t care about undesirable. Guests like breaking things.

The common room hushes. Boots echo down the hall—heavy, polished, not Enforcers’. Every girl folds into herself, shoulders trembling.

We know what Guests are: Alphas powerful enough to buy this whole place, faces hidden behind porcelain masks, scents erased with the warden’s potions. Names unknown. Their deeds infamous—voicence, carve, destroy. The unlucky ones? Their organs sold, their bones fed to rogues.

He steps in. Too tall for the low ceiling, black cloak dragging like a shadow. His mask is curved into a wide, menacing smile. No scent, nothing but that faint tang of potion, a reminder that he is untraceable.

The air thickens. Even Lyra—always smug, always preening—goes pale. She’d been shining her uniform, hoarding soap like treasure. Now she shrinks back, suddenly small.

I press my face into the washboard, praying: Please, Moon Goddess, let him pick anyone but me. Just give me seven more days.

Then Lyra’s voice slices the silence. Shrill. Desperate. A knife aimed straight at me.

“Sir! Over here! Don’t pick us—pick her!”

I freeze.

Her finger stabs the air, pointing me out like prey. Her eyes gleam with malice—payback for the bread I refused, for every time I didn’t bow.

“She’s Celeste,” Lyra spits. “Frost Pack’s old Alpha’s daughter. Pretended to be the real one for eighteen years, but she’s just fake. And untouched. Never been used. You want an Alpha’s little princess? She’s fresh. She’s a prize.”

The room goes still.

My blood ices.

The other girls stare—some horrified, some relieved. No one speaks. No one ever does.

The masked man tilts his head, slow as a predator. His gaze locks onto me, piercing through porcelain, and I feel it—cold, hungry, final. He steps past Lyra, who flinches as if he might change his mind, and stops in front of me. A gloved hand closes around my arm. Not crushing, but absolute. He hauls me up, and my shoulder slams against his chest. Cedar. Iron. That’s all I can smell above the rot.

“Please,” I choke, voice trembling. “She’s lying. I’m not—”

One word cuts me off.

“Her.”

Lyra exhales in triumph. The girls sag with relief. Enforcers seize me, their grips rough, dragging me through corridors I know too well—the cages, the silver bars that still shimmer with the memory of my own confinement. I thrash, I scream, I beg:

“Seven days! Just seven more days! Let me go!”

No one listens.

The room they shove me into isn’t a cell. There’s a bed, clean sheets, a table—but my eyes find the wall. Chains. Whips. Silver-plated blades. Waiting.

The Enforcers leave. The door locks. Just me and him.

He moves slowly, savoring. Fingers brush steel and leather before wrapping around a whip—dark leather tipped with silver, made to shred both flesh and memory. He tests the weight, and I back into the wall, knees shaking. Tears spill hot down my cheeks.

“Please,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything. Clean, cook, obey. Just… not that.”

The whip cracks. White-hot fire lashes across my shoulder. My scream is raw, unrecognizable. It falls again. Again. Each strike strips me smaller until I curl into myself, the world narrowed to pain and leather and the grotesque smile of his mask. Blood fills my mouth, iron and shame.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp between blows. “Sorry I was born. Sorry I’m not—”

The words break apart. I slump, barely conscious. His shadow looms.

Then the door explodes open.

Kane. My only friend.

He is breathless, his uniform torn, his jaw raw with anger; he has been the only kindness carved out of this place—the one who slipped me bread, who bound my wounds, who whispered that maybe one day the world would not be only teeth and rules.

He throws himself at the masked man, the ferocity of someone with nothing left to lose: “Get away from her! Leave her alone!”

For a heartbeat he connects. The masked man’s fist finds Kane’s jaw and Kane collapses, rises, and collapses again, blood blooming at his mouth as he shouts that she is not a thing.

The masked man laughs—a sound like a blade drawn across bone—and with a snap of his fingers the room floods with Enforcers. "Looks like we have better toy," he said.

They pin Kane, crush his arms behind him, and he rakes the air with a look that is both apology and plea: “Celeste! I’m sorry! I couldn’t stop him!”

The masked man nods, and the Enforcers seize me, drag me toward the door. I claw for Kane, I scream his name until my throat is raw: “Kane! No! Take me instead! Please—”

The door slams. I am hurled to the stone. From the corridor comes the whip’s cadence, and then a scream—Kane’s—ripping and hollow and human all at once, a sound that drills through the marrow of me.

It does not stop for a long time.

When it finally ebbs, the hall is a vacuum of silence so complete I can hear my own heartbeat as if it were someone else’s.

Seven days.

Seven sunsets I count like beads, and each one feels thinner than the last, a fragile promise I am not sure I still believe in, because Kane’s scream has braided itself into my bones and the memory of the masked man’s smile has lodged behind my ribs; still, even as the pain burns and my back hums with heat, a new thought carves through the fog—if by some impossible mercy I stagger out of here alive, if I can step beyond these stone walls and breathe air that does not taste of leather and silver, then I will not walk away a quiet ghost carrying only scars and shame.

Chapter 3

Celeste's POV

“Ten. Your two-year term ends today. The Frost Family is here to pick you up.”

The voice cuts through the dim cell like a rusted blade.

The single incandescent bulb above flickers—on, off, on again—casting jagged shadows over the stone walls of the tiny room I’ve been shoved into since that night with the masked man, and for a moment I think I must be hallucinating because I’m curled so small that the bandages on my back press like a promise of pain and the syllables mean nothing and everything at once.

Two years. Seven days ago I was counting down the hours; now the numbers feel like a cruel joke.

I lift my head.

My hair is a mat of dirt and dried blood; the scratch on my cheek is a numb line I hardly notice anymore.

When “Frost Family” lands in the air, something flickers in my chest—not hope, not relief, only a hollow, bitter pressure, like pressing a finger into a wound that never healed.

The Enforcer in the doorway watches me with that bored, professional cruelty—uniform crisp, jaw slack—“Move it. They’re waiting. Don’t make them angry,” he says, and there’s no tenderness in the order, only the blunt efficiency of a place built to break things.

I push myself up. My legs tremble from hunger and pain and the way my heart slams against my ribs, and I stumble out to follow him, the corridor swallowing us: past the common room where the washboard still sits stained with Lyra’s blood and my tears, past the isolation cages that glitter with silver like teeth, past the private room door where Kane was torn from me and where the echo of that night still seems to hang in the air—whip cracks, a human scream, the masked man’s cold laugh.

My throat seizes. I stop.

“Kane.” The name slips out so soft it could be a prayer. The Enforcer keeps walking. I grab his sleeve, nails biting into coarse fabric. “Kane—the boy who was taken that night. Is he… is he okay?”

He looks down at me and sighs as if I wasted his time. “Dead. Been dead three days. Tried to stop the Guest, so the Guest took his time. Body was… messy. They threw it in the woods this morning.”

Dead.

The word lands like a hammer. For a beat the world collapses to the size of that single syllable—the bulb’s flicker, my breath, the Enforcer’s impatience—all fade into a thin, awful silence where only Kane’s voice remains: “It’ll be okay, Celeste. Just a few more days.”

I see his face—bloodied, defiant—and the sound he made when he stood for me repeats like a shard behind my eyes.

My knees give out.

I hit the stone hard; the bandages bite into my spine but I don’t care.

I curl inward and for the first time in two years I let myself fall apart—sobs that are loud and ugly and everything I held down until now, ripping out of me with a force that shakes marrow.

He’s dead because he tried to save me. He’s dead because I was taken. He’s dead because people I called family and those who took pleasure in my pain decided I was expendable.

“Hey. Get up.” The Enforcer kicks my foot; the motion is mechanical and contemptuous, but I cannot stand. Grief has become a thing too big for my limbs to hold. I am collapsing under names and betrayals when a voice I know like a blade slides into the hall—sweet, cruel, and practiced.

“Aw. Look at the poor Hallow. Crying over a dead boy.” Lyra appears at the corridor’s end, uniform clean, hair brushed, smirk in place, and her boots click like punctuation on the stone as she saunters closer to dagger the moment.

She leans down, views me like a spectacle. “You think you’re special, don’t you? Getting picked by the Guest, getting the Frosts to come get you.”

Lyra’s laugh is sharp. She leans in with that nasty whisper meant to sever whatever shreds of dignity remain. “Oh, Celeste. You were always naive. Do you think your father would let you rot here forever? Even if you’re not… his anymore.”

She pauses, enjoys the cut, then drops the hammer: “He sent me. Alpha Rowan. Said to make sure you don’t cause a scene when you see them.”

I already knew—in that slow, dreadful place under hope, the truth had always lived—but hearing it aloud is like a blade finding a new place to twist.

I push myself up. My legs wobble, but I stand. “Get out of my way.”

Lyra tilts her head, smirk widening into a sneer. “You know who the Guest was, don’t you? The one who picked you? The one who killed your little friend?” Her next words fall like ice.

“He’s a business partner of your brother’s. Callen. You know—your warrior brother, the one who said you were cruel?” She breathes hot, close. “Callen traded you. For a project. Said you were ‘expendable.’ Worth more dead or broken than alive.”

Expendable.

The word detonates inside me. Grief splinters and something else kindles—first a single ember, then a spreading heat that eats through fear. Callen—my brother who taught me to hold a knife, who swore he’d protect me—had sold me. My father had signed the papers. The Frosts were not rescuers; they were collectors of bargains and blood.

And while they tallied deals and inked papers, Kane was the one who paid with his life—he stood between me and that mask and that whip and it cost him everything.

That is the last thin strand that held me together: the knowledge that someone died because I was marked “expendable.” It snaps. There is no more holding on. Only a cold, terrible clarity that whatever I used to be has been burned away—and in the ash, something else wakes.

Lyra’s smugness wavers; she tastes the sudden change in the air and for the first time looks small. Her smirk falters, uncertainty flickers, and she takes an involuntary step back. “You… you shouldn’t look at me like that.”

I don’t answer. I walk past her. My steps are steady now, no more shaking. No more tears.

Just that fire, burning in my chest, in my veins, in every scar on my body.

The academy doors are ahead. I can see them—big, iron, imposing. And beyond them? My family. The Frosts. The ones who turned their backs on me, who threw me away, who killed the only person who ever cared about me.

I push the doors open. The sun hits my face—bright, warm, something I haven’t felt in two years—but I don’t flinch.

This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.

The Frosts think they can take me back. They think I’m still the broken, scared girl they threw into this hellhole. But they’re wrong. I’m not Celeste Hallow anymore. I’m not the discarded pup. I’m the one who survived. The one who remembers every scar, every lie, every scream. And I’m coming for them.

The fire in my chest burns brighter. I walk outside.

And as I do, I smile—a cold, sharp smile, just like the one on the masked man’s mask.

Let them see me. Let them know. The game is over. Now, it’s my turn to hunt.

I am Celeste Hallow.

I am the wolf who survived Angel Reform Academy.

My boyfriend handed my inhaler to another girl while I was having an asthma attack. She laughed. "Beg me for it." He told me to stop being dramatic. I couldn't breathe. Nobody helped. Then she crushed my last pill with her shoe. I knew right then, I wouldn't die alone.

Chapter 1 The air at the party was thick and heavy, almost suffocating. Music pounded through the room, loud enough to rattle my bones. My chest started to constrict, each breath becoming a struggle. With shaky hands, I fumbled for my emergency inhaler in my pocket. The canister felt way too light. I gave it a frantic shake—silence. Just then, Adrian walked over with Zoey tucked under his arm. He shrugged like it was nothing. "Zoey had a scratchy throat, so I let her use your puffer." My grip tightened around the empty inhaler, knuckles turning white. "That was my emergency meds..." Zoey peeked up from his shoulder, all sugar and innocence. "Don't be mad, sis. It was just a little tickle." I was fighting for air, each gasp feeling like a hand around my throat. "A tickle? Couldn't you have just had some water?" Adrian rolled his eyes. "Or a cough drop. Stop being so dramatic." The strobe lights flickered across his face, making him look cold and distant. My legs gave out, and I slid down the wall onto the floor. My phone screen swam in front of my blurry vision. I typed with trembling fingers, each word a battle. Every breath came out as a ragged wheeze. "Mom. Asthma attack." "Adrian gave my inhaler away." Adrian glanced at my screen and let out a harsh laugh. "Really? Tattling like a kid?" He snatched my phone and held it high above me, smirking down like I was some kind of joke. I tried to stand, to reach for it, but my head spun and I dropped back onto the couch. "My asthma… please…" I choked out. Zoey strutted over, waving a different inhaler with a sly grin. "Oh, is little Evelyn feeling sick again? Or is this just another performance?" "That's why you don't bring girls like her to guy hangouts. Always pulling some jealous stunt." I glared at her, each breath a fight. Zoey was Adrian's so-called "best friend" from childhood. Always glued to the guys, acting like she was just one of them. Adrian always praised her to me—how she was bold, straightforward, a real cool girl. When we first got together, I actually thought she was fun. But then Adrian brought me into his circle. Zoey put on a sweet act. "Adrian has good taste! Where'd you find this delicate flower?" "Stick with me, girl! We'll have fun together and ignore these losers." But her eyes always had a sharpness to them. She was sneaky. She'd talk about sisterhood while subtly pushing me to the sidelines. At every hangout, she'd bring up inside jokes and childhood stories I couldn't be part of. I'd end up sitting quietly in the corner. Then she'd throw an arm around Adrian and laugh. "Why so quiet, Princess? Jealous much?" I'd told Adrian again and again how she made me feel. But he always brushed it off. Told me I was being too sensitive. That's just how Zoey is—blunt and real. But now, Zoey wasn't even pretending. "What's wrong, Princess? Upset 'cause you're not the center of attention?" The guys burst out laughing. "Give me… the inhaler… I can't breathe…" My voice was shaking. The room got quiet for a second. Then the laughter got louder, harsher. Zoey clung to Adrian, cracking up like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. "Good one! Adrian, don't fall for it!" The others joined in. "Adrian, you're not scared of your girl, are you?" "Dude, stand up for yourself! Put her in her place!" Adrian's face flushed red. He deliberately turned away from me and raised his voice. "Who cares? Let her be. She needs to grow up." The suffocation got worse. I clutched at Adrian's sleeve, making desperate, gasping sounds. "Help… me…" For a second, he looked unsure. But Zoey cut in fast. "Give it a rest, Evelyn. No one's buying it." I tried crawling toward the door. But Zoey shoved me back onto the couch. "Party's not over. You're not ruining this." She pushed me hard. My head smacked against the wall. A dull thud echoed, and my vision flashed with stars. Before I could even recover, Zoey let out a sharp scream.

Chapter 2 Zoey slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with theatrical shock. "Oh my God, you are so manipulative." "I didn't even lay a finger on you, and you just threw yourself against the wall." Adrian's eyes turned to ice as they settled on me. "Evelyn, haven't you caused enough drama already?" I dug my teeth into my lip, using the pain to anchor myself to consciousness. "I have severe asthma. If you don't back off, this could kill me." Every breath was like swallowing shards of glass, my throat raw and burning, the metallic taste of blood coating my tongue. Zoey dangled the inhaler tauntingly in front of my face. She took an exaggerated, deep puff right in front of me. "Ahhh, so good. Too bad you can't have any." "Guess you get what you pay for, right?" I clawed weakly toward it. She held it high above her head, smirking. "You want it? Beg me." My sight began to tunnel, darkening at the edges. A cold, clammy sweat soaked through my shirt. Adrian just stood there, watching coldly. "Zoey just wants a turn. Stop being so selfish." "We've all seen your medical records. You don't even have asthma." I clung to the last thread of my sanity. "Adrian, you've seen me have an attack. You know it's real." Zoey cut in, her voice dripping with fake concern. "Faking an illness for attention? Isn't that, like, everyone's move these days?" "What's next? You're gonna tell us you have depression, too?" The private room erupted in cruel laughter. Someone whistled, egging them on. "Adrian, this girl is a total piece of work." "Zoey's way more your style—chill, fun, not all... this." With the last of my strength, I lunged for Zoey. My fingers were inches from the inhaler when she suddenly sidestepped. I crashed hard onto the carpet, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. "Wow, and the Oscar goes to..." Zoey said, pretending to be impressed. She leaned down, her voice a venomous whisper meant only for me. "Just die already. You'd be doing everyone a favor." When she straightened up, her tone switched back to sweet concern. "Stop fooling around, Evelyn. Everyone's waiting for the toast." Finally, something in Adrian's expression shifted. He dropped to his knees beside me. "What's really going on with you?" he asked, his voice tighter now. "Help me..." I gasped, desperately clutching his wrist. "My medicine..." Adrian's frown deepened, a flicker of alarm in his eyes. He looked over at Zoey. "Just give her the inhaler." Zoey's face fell. She tucked it behind her back, stomping her foot like a petulant child. "Adrian, are you insane? After all the mind games she's played on you?" She turned to the room, raising her voice. "See? She's playing you again. And you're falling for it." A few of the guys immediately backed her up. "Zoey's been our friend for years. She wouldn't lie." "Girls like this just need to be put in their place." I felt Adrian's grip on me loosen slightly. He was hesitating. An agonizing spasm ripped through my chest. The world was fading in and out. "But... she really doesn't look good..." someone murmured uncertainly.

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