His Cold Heart, My Broken Fate

3

Chapter 3 — Mira

The whole kitchen went silent the moment he walked in.

Every maid stopped moving. Someone even set down a knife mid-chop. When my father entered a room, the air changed. Everyone felt it.

He looked at me like I was something he had stepped in.

"What are you wearing?!"

I looked down at my dress. Still damp. Still stained from what Celia had done to me not an hour ago.

"I... I..." The words wouldn't come. My brain went blank the way it always did when he looked at me like that.

"The pack contest is tonight and you're participating!" he shouted, and I flinched back without meaning to. "You are not going to disgrace this family by showing up late!"

"I wasn't told," I said. It came out small. It came out honest.

His hand connected with my face before I finished the sentence. The back of his palm, hard and fast. I yelped and grabbed the sink behind me to keep from going down.

"Never talk back to me!"

He seized my arm and dragged me out of the kitchen. Not walking. Dragging. Like I weighed nothing. Like I was nothing. At the doorway he let go with a shove and I hit the floor.

The pain shot straight up my spine and I pressed my lips together to keep quiet.

"Two minutes," he said, standing over me, chest heaving. "Get dressed and meet me downstairs in two minutes or I will make tonight worse than today already was."

He stomped away.

I sat on the floor for a moment.

*When was my day ever not miserable.*

---

I stared out the car window as we drove to the pack square. The streetlights moved past in a blur.

Two days. It had only been two days since Celia stripped my powers. She did it every full moon, drained them out before they could fully build, so I never got to keep them long enough to feel strong. By the time I started to recover she would do it again.

I could feel the weakness sitting heavy in my bones right now. Like my body was full of wet sand.

In the front seat, my father and Celia talked about her college plans. Her voice was bright and easy. He laughed at something she said.

The car stopped.

I got out and looked around the square. It was already filling up with people from the pack. Noise and movement everywhere.

Then I spotted them. Nate and Nyla, sitting together with two empty seats beside them. We used to be close in high school. After I graduated my father stopped letting me leave the house and I lost track of most people.

Nyla looked up and her face opened into a real smile. "Hi Mira."

"Hi." I sat down next to her and felt something loosen slightly in my chest.

"You fighting tonight?" Nate asked.

I nodded. I was eighteen now. I had to.

"Good luck," Nyla said warmly, and she was about to say something else when her voice cut off.

I looked up. Celia was walking past, looking at the three of us with a flat contempt that didn't even bother to hide itself. Nate and Nyla went still and sank a little in their seats. Everyone knew who our father was. Nobody wanted to be on his side of things.

---

I watched Celia fight.

She was fast. Mean in the way that enjoyed itself. She grabbed the man she was matched with, swung him over and drove him into the ground so hard I heard something c***k. The crowd erupted.

Celia stood over him soaking it in, chin up, smiling the way she always smiled when people were watching.

Then my name was called.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Of course. Of course it was her.

Celia turned to look at me and the smile changed into something sharp and private. Just for me.

Nyla's hand found my shoulder. "You can do this."

I stood up. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.

We faced each other on the fighting ground. She looked at me the way a cat looks at something it's already decided about.

The whistle blew.

She came at me screaming, fist swinging wide. I bent low and ducked under it, felt the air move above my head. She stumbled with the momentum and I kicked the back of her leg hard. She went down and the crowd made a noise, surprised.

For one second I thought. *Maybe.*

Then she got up.

She crossed the space between us before I could reset and her fist came up under my jaw with everything behind it. I heard the c***k before I felt it. The ground tilted and I was airborne and then I hit the dirt with my palms out, just barely catching myself.

I was trying to get upright when she was already there again. The kick to my chest sent me skidding across the ground. My palms tore open on the dirt. I lay there for a second, ribs screaming, vision blurring at the edges.

The crowd was cheering for her.

I got up.

I always got up.

She was watching me from across the ground. Waiting. Enjoying it.

Something inside me stopped trying to be careful.

I had one thing they could never strip from me no matter how many full moons came and went. Where other wolves needed the moon to shift, I didn't. I could call the change whenever I chose. I could hold it, control it, stop it at any point. It was mine in a way nothing else in my life was.

I unclenched my fists.

She charged.

When she got close enough I swung and let the claws come out.

They caught her across the arm and chest. She shrieked, a real sound of pain, and stumbled back. Blood soaked through her shirt immediately.

I felt the claws pull back. I was too weak to hold them any longer.

The square went completely silent.

Everyone knew what I could do. They had just never seen me use it in a fight. And now they were all looking at Celia.

Her eyes went bright yellow.

She screamed and closed the distance in one movement and her hands wrapped around my throat. She lifted me off the ground. I hit her arms and pulled at her fingers. Nothing. My vision started going dark at the edges.

Then she screamed again and threw me.

I hit the ground flat on my back and the pain wiped everything out for a moment. Just white and noise.

The crowd roared. I could hear them cheering her name.

When I could see again, Celia was standing over me with her hand out.

I was too broken to get up on my own. I reached up and took it.

She pulled me halfway to my feet and then drove her knee straight up into my jaw.

The ground came back to meet me hard and fast and the crowd loved it.

I lay there and stared up at the sky.

I hate my life.