Chapter 1All four boys I'd grown up with had picked the same college. More than 3,000 miles from home.
Jake slid a form across the table and smiled at me.
"Come north with us. Once we're there, I'll mark you."
I agreed.
Then I accidentally found a group chat I was never supposed to see.
Operation Laila
[She sign yet?]
[Yep. Lmao. Four fake forms and she fell for it. She's really going to Alaska.]
[Perfect. Once she leaves, Laila can take her place.]
[Jake really put in the work. Pretending to be into her until move-in day!]
Turns out, all four of them had actually applied to Crescent Bay Academy.
Right here in our territory, less than ten miles from home.
Laila was the girl our pack had only recently found and brought home.
She had just returned, and they couldn't bear the thought of sending her all the way to Alaska.
Me?
I'd been taking care of myself since I was a kid.
So, to them, it didn't matter where I went. They thought I was tough enough to be fine anywhere.
They figured I'd cry for a few days, get angry, and eventually move on.
But they had no idea.
I hadn't just signed a college application.
I'd signed a five-year pack transfer agreement.
In forty-eight hours, I'd be completely cut off from the pack.
No mental link. No scent. No bond.
They'd worked so hard to erase me from their lives for eighteen years.
Well, I'll give them that.
...
The door swung open behind me.
Jake, George, Brady, and Alan stood frozen in the doorway. Laila was with them.
They were holding champagne bottles—probably for celebrating their Crescent Bay acceptances.
I pulled out my phone and photographed every message still glowing on the screen.
Jake recovered first.
Being the Alpha's son meant he was used to making calls for everyone else.
"Alright. You saw it."
His voice was steady. No apology in it.
"Laila just got back to the pack. She's been through hell already, and she's not strong enough for the North. The winters alone would destroy her."
He looked straight at me.
"You're different. You've always been able to handle yourself."
Laila grabbed his sleeve. Her eyes were already red.
I didn't look at her. Pointed at the screen instead.
"Who made the fake Northridge applications?"
Jake didn't hesitate. "I did."
"Whose idea?"
Laila's tears spilled over.
George stepped in front of her immediately.
He was training to be Beta—protection was his instinct.
"We all decided together. Don't look at her like that."
I nodded.
Turned back to Jake.
"And the part about giving me your mark once we got north? Was that in the plan too?"
Jake's jaw tightened.
He looked away.
"You told me you'd never choose someone who'd leave you alone in another territory."
"If I hadn't promised to mark you, you wouldn't have signed."
Yeah. He knew how I felt about him.
He knew exactly which lie would get me to do what they wanted.
Laila suddenly lunged for Brady's phone.
"This is my fault. I'm calling Northridge right now."
"I'll go north with her. You four can stay."
All four of them moved at once.
Alan—our future head of security—snatched the phone out of her hand.
"We already got our Crescent Bay letters. What's calling Northridge gonna do?"
"But what about her?"
Laila's voice cracked.
"She'll be all alone up there. She's going to hate it."
Jake pulled a tissue from his pocket and wiped her face.
"She'll manage."
"You just got back to the pack. Don't throw away your future because you feel guilty."
I stood maybe six feet away.
Watched all four of them circle around her like she was the one who'd been lied to.
That told me everything.
They couldn't stomach sending Laila north.
But lying to ship me off alone?
No problem at all.
Brady adjusted his glasses.
He used that same calm tone he always did when he was breaking down strategy.
"Look, I'll admit we didn't handle this perfectly. But it works for everyone."
"Northridge is still top-tier. With your grades, you'll crush it anywhere. It's just school. You can come home for holidays."
"We stay with Laila, you go to Northridge, nobody's future gets wrecked."
"Except my right to choose."
Silence.
George's expression darkened.
"You already wanted Northridge. Their recruiters contacted you twice. You turned them down but couldn't stop thinking about it. We just helped you decide."
"Wanting something and getting tricked by the people you trust most aren't the same thing."
My voice stayed level.
"You didn't help me decide."
"You made sure my choice worked for Laila."
George opened his mouth. Closed it again.
Because I had wanted Northridge.
My mom was a wolf-core geneticist.
I'd grown up in her lab.
Northridge's program had been my dream since I was ten.
But I couldn't stand leaving them.
So I'd turned it down twice.
I'd even thought about giving up the research I loved just to stay local with them at Crescent Bay.
I'd been so stupid.
Nearly gave up everything for four people who couldn't care less what I wanted.
I turned toward the door.
Jake blocked my path on instinct.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"What about us?"
His face went rigid.
"Yeah, I promised to mark you because I needed you to sign. That doesn't mean everything else was fake."
He frowned.
Like he was offering me something generous.
"I can keep seeing you until school starts. And I'll visit when I have time."
"You've always wanted to be with me. Now I'm saying yes. What else do you want?"
So two months of pretending made up for the whole betrayal.
Laila spoke softly.
"He really does care about you."
"This morning he got up early just to make you hot chocolate."
I almost laughed.
He manipulated me into signing away my future.
Then made me hot chocolate this morning.
Guess that makes us even.
"Hope you five are happy together."
I reached up and unclasped the silver bracelet from my wrist.
Set it down in front of Laila.
Five wolf charms dangled from it—one for each of us from when we'd first shifted together at ten.
"You always said you wished you'd been there when we were kids."
"You can have this too."
Laila hesitated.
Then picked it up.
Jake's frown deepened.
"What's wrong with you today? You always said the five of us were forever."
"That was before."
I stepped around him. Headed for the door.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
[Northridge Institute transport arrives in 48 hours.]
[Confirming early entry into the five-year classified research program will initiate your pack transfer simultaneously.]
[Upon completion, your name will be removed from Flint Pack's mental link and all territorial records.]
[Confirm?]
Northridge wasn't just a school.
Its wolf-core genetics division operated a classified research facility deep in Northern Pack territory.
Regular students took classes and went home for breaks.
Classified researchers were different.
We had to transfer our pack status.
And for five years, we couldn't leave or transfer out.
Jake and the others had forged regular Northridge applications.
The contract I'd signed had the same seal.
But mine was for the classified program.
They'd never asked about the difference.
They just assumed I'd come home every break.
They'd used one lie to control my choice.
This time, I'd make my own.
I pressed Confirm.
They thought this would be like every other fight we'd had.
Thought I'd blow up, cool down, come back.
They'd worked so hard to erase me from eighteen years of their lives?
Well.
I'd give them that.
Chapter 2
I had forty-eight hours left in Flint Pack.
Forty-eight hours to return everything that had never really been mine.
George's combat medal was first.
He'd won it at twelve—his first junior tournament victory.
Handed it to me right after, still sweating from the fight, and said he couldn't risk losing something that important. Future Beta and all.
So I'd kept it safe for six years.
Found him in the training hall that morning.
He was putting together a bed.
Laila's bed.
Boxes everywhere. New sheets. A lamp still in its packaging. Blankets folded in neat stacks.
He grinned when he saw me.
"Knew you'd get over it. We're good, right?"
I held out the medal.
He stared at it.
"What are you doing?"
"Giving it back."
"Just keep it. You always have."
"I'm leaving tomorrow. This is your last chance to take it."
He grabbed it. Tossed it into a box of spare screws like it didn't matter.
"You're going to Northridge early, not disappearing off the planet. Stop being so dramatic."
Then he pointed at the pile of luggage near the door.
"Actually—help Laila move this stuff upstairs."
"No."
His smile vanished.
Like I'd just spoken a language he didn't understand.
Laila rushed over.
"It's fine, George. I can handle it. She's still mad at us."
I looked at him.
"You packed it. You carry it."
Then I walked out.
His voice followed me down the hall.
"What's her problem? It's just a few boxes."
That afternoon, I found Brady buried in the pack archives.
Dropped the stack of tactical notebooks he'd been storing at my house onto his desk.
He looked at them. Didn't touch them.
"George said you returned his medal."
"I did."
"Now these."
He leaned back in his chair. Studied me.
"What's going on, Kate?"
"Just getting rid of things that don't belong to me."
His eyes narrowed.
For half a second, he looked like he was starting to understand something was actually wrong.
Then Laila appeared with a handful of forms.
"Brady? Can you check my class schedule? I don't want to mess it up."
He turned to her immediately.
"Yeah. Let me see."
She sat down beside him.
He glanced at me one last time before opening her paperwork.
"Stop doing this. Whatever point you're trying to make, we'll talk about it when you're thinking clearly."
He knew I was saying goodbye.
He just refused to believe it.
Alan stopped me outside the manor. He was Flint Pack's future head of security.
He was always the most direct.
He shoved a hard drive into my hands.
"Birthday video for Laila. All our old footage is on there. Edit it together by tomorrow."
"No."
"Why? You're the only one who knows how to edit."
"That's not my problem."
His jaw tightened.
"Just cut yourself out of the shots, add some pictures of Laila, and finish it. It's not complicated."
"She wasn't there."
"That's the whole point. She needs to feel like she was."
They wanted to keep all eighteen years intact.
They just didn't care that the person who'd actually lived those years with them was me.
I pushed the hard drive back toward him.
"Let her build her own memories."
He didn't take it.
"Keep it. Have it done by tomorrow."
He walked away before I could argue.
Jake texted me that evening. Asked me to meet him at the place we used to go.
Said we could finally have that real first date we'd been putting off.
I went because I had one thing left to return.
He spent most of the meal on his phone. Texting Laila.
I pulled the obsidian ring off my finger. The one I'd worn for two years.
Set it on the table between us.
He'd given it to me after passing his Alpha Heir Trial when we were sixteen.
Told me one day he'd replace it with a Luna signet.
"Take it."
He finally looked up. His face changed.
"Kate. One fight doesn't mean you have to give this back."
"I'm leaving tomorrow. Northridge. Early move-in."
He picked up the ring. Turned it over in his hand.
Still didn't understand.
"I'll give it back to you when you come home for Thanksgiving."
He paused. Smiled a little.
"Once everyone's settled at Crescent Bay, we'll all come visit you. The five of us."
Jake. George. Brady. Alan.
And Laila.
I didn't say anything.
Just stood up and left before the food arrived.
Back home, I plugged Alan's hard drive into my laptop.
Copied every file. Every video.
Every photo from the last eighteen years.
Backed it all up to my private cloud.
Then closed the drive without changing a single thing.
Tomorrow, I'd give it back exactly as it was.
I didn't owe Laila a rewritten version of my childhood.
And I sure as hell wasn't erasing myself from my own life just so she could pretend she'd always been there.
Chapter 3
Seven a.m.
I went back to the academy to pick up my final graduation paperwork.
Barely made it through the door before someone laughed behind me.
"Look who it is. Kate. Top of the class."
A group of girls blocked the stairs.
The one in front was someone Laila had befriended recently.
She looked me over.
Then reached for the camera hanging from my neck.
"This the thing you used to record all those precious memories?"
My dad gave me that camera when I turned ten.
Our first shift together. First run through the woods. Every birthday after that.
Everything Alan had on that hard drive came from this camera originally.
I grabbed her wrist.
"Fuck. Off."
"What's your problem?"
She raised her voice.
"You grew up with the four heirs and thought that made you special? Thought you'd be Luna one day?"
The others laughed.
"They picked Laila!"
"Jake dated her for like one day and already dumped her. If that were me, I'd leave the pack."
People started slowing down and watching.
I looked down the hall.
George was carrying Laila's files.
Brady was checking her enrollment forms.
Alan had her breakfast.
Jake stood in the middle of them.
As future Alpha, one word from him would've cleared the hallway.
He didn't move.
Once, someone spread a rumor that I only did well in school because the four of them helped me cheat.
Jake made that person apologize in front of the entire academy.
Told me no one would ever humiliate me again.
Now he just stood there.
Laila rushed over.
"Stop! Kate's only upset with me."
The girl holding my camera laughed.
"You're too nice, Laila. Alan asked her to edit one video for your birthday and she acted like you were stealing her entire life."
Laila's eyes filled with tears.
Jake finally walked over. Pulled Laila behind him.
"Kate, if you're mad, take it out on us."
"Leave Laila alone."
I hadn't even said anything to her.
Whatever. Didn't matter.
In a few hours, I'd be gone.
Wasn't about to waste my last morning here in some disciplinary hearing run by the future Alpha.
Jake looked at me.
"Go home and change. Stop making scenes."
I took my camera and left.
Half an hour later, someone started pounding on my door.
I opened it.
Jake and the others walked straight in. Laila followed.
"Where's the bracelet?"
George didn't waste time.
"Laila noticed it was missing after she left the academy."
I blocked the hallway.
"This is my house. You don't get to search it without permission."
Alan's expression went cold.
"She lost it right after running into you. Who else would've taken it?"
"Get out."
No one moved.
Alan walked into my bedroom and yanked open a drawer.
The others started going through my closet.
For wolves, a bedroom is the most private part of someone's space.
For eighteen years, these four had walked into mine without knocking.
I used to think that meant we were close.
Now I understood.
They'd just never thought my boundaries mattered.
George opened the closet. Stared at the empty hangers.
"Why is everything packed?"
Brady glanced at my suitcase and answered in that flat tone of his.
"She's trying to make us think she's actually leaving."
Alan scoffed.
"Kate, you're eighteen. You're really pulling the runaway act right now?"
Jake's eyes landed on my Northridge contract sitting on the desk.
"Northridge doesn't start till fall."
He looked at me.
"What, you planning to vanish today?"
That's when I saw Laila slip the moonstone bracelet out of her sleeve.
Quietly pushed it into the gap between my desk and the wall.
Then bent down.
"Found it."
She picked it up. Looked at me.
Her eyes going red.
"Kate, if you regretted giving it to me, you could've just said so. I would've given it back."
"You didn't have to steal it and make everyone search for it."
"You just put it there yourself."
Her tears spilled over immediately.
Jake stepped in front of her. Didn't even ask if I was telling the truth.
I was about to tell them to leave when Laila looked past him toward my laptop.
Still open.
Alan's hard drive still plugged in.
Eighteen years of footage on the screen.
"Can I use these for my video?"
"No."
I closed the laptop.
George stepped in front of me.
"Alan already gave you the drive."
Laila looked down.
"Forget it. I don't want you all fighting over me again."
Turned like she was going to leave.
Jake's face darkened.
He reopened the laptop. Took the mouse from me.
"If you don't want to be in it, delete yourself."
"Don't touch my stuff!"
He ignored me. Started selecting every clip I was in.
And then, he hit delete.
I reached for the mouse.
Alan grabbed my arm before I could stop him.
"They're just videos. Don't make us force you."
"You won't be in any of Flint Pack's records from now on."
Jake pulled out the hard drive. Tossed it at me.
"Finish the rest tonight."
Then he left with Laila.
Jake. In one hour, your threat would be true.
After they left, my phone buzzed.
[Northridge Institute transport arrives in one hour.]
I tightened my grip on my suitcase handle.
And the four people who thought they knew me better than anyone—
right up until they walked out—
still hadn't realized I'd been saying goodbye the whole time.
