It's a name taste bitter than wolfsbane.

If someone told me that one day I would be associated with suicide when I was eight, I would have laughed at him.

But Mason would punch him.

Though it's sheepish to say that, I guess I was lovely…seriously speaking maybe quite lovely before all those things happened.

I was always on the way doing all sorts of crazy things at that age. And of course had always been up for trouble, But in that way, Mason had been my best friend, even though he was two years older than me. Well, he and Shawn. And Giselle.

Once it started, the past came flooding back

There's one time that we planned to dye our nanny's hair black. Mason and I prepared a pail of black ink stolen from Alpha's office and put it on the top of the door. So when nanny opened the door, a full well of black ink would toppled off the top and landed in her gray–streaked hair.

A long shadow fell over us when soaked nanny heaved a sigh of relief, and Mason and I both turned around.

Alpha James Hale was looking down at us with his arms folded.

"Father," Mason squeaked.

"So," Alpha James asked, looking from one of us to the other, "whose idea was this?"

"Mine!" I popped up, wanting to protect Mason from his father's wrath. Not that Alpha James was particularly wrathful. I'd just never seen him so… mad.

Alpha James raised an eyebrow and turned to Mason. "Mason?"

"It was mine," Mason blew out in a long breath.

"I thought so." Alpha James turned to Nanny Roberta. "You can go ahead and go get yourself cleaned up, Mrs. Jones. I'll handle these two."

James, did you see?!" the loud chortle of my father echoed down the hall. "The two little miscreants got ink all over Nanny Robertal Remember when we put worms in Nanny Clara's bed? I swear these two are almost rising to our level of gen-" "Oswald," Alpha James coughed as my father approached. "I was just thinking of how to punish our two miscreants right

My father also coughed and put on a stern expression "Yes, of course. Of course, yes, punishment."

"It's bad, this young lady," he cleared his throat, "I mean it's very very bad…."

But everything changed then.

Life was not easy to a traitor's descendent, I didn't believe much after that, except one. I believe I don't deserve any forgiveness.

Even now, I could vividly remember the day that we'd been sent to the Traitor's Cave. Everyone is pale, skinny, and emotionless. Chains shackled our feet. And that's when I saw Mason from the corner of my eyes.

He was wearing all black, stood in the crowd with his mother who coldly eyed the traitors' line. The boy yesterday seemed to have grown up as a man overnight.

Fierce and intense. I could feel his gaze fixed on me. I stood in the traitors' line and looked straight ahead, pretended that I

didn't notice

But just then, a woman's gasp sounded first, then came the rapid footsteps of a boy. Mason wrenched himself from his mother's grasp and ran in my direction.

"MOVE! NOW!" It's Mason's mother, Luma's hysterical squeal, "Put all those traitors into the CAVE!"

The guards, looking uneasy, began to push the line of traitors forward, urging us to move more quickly. Mason tried to push his

way through the crowd, desperate to reach us.

The way he looked at me was as if I was never coming back. I was, indeed. I was going to be sent away, far, from our normal life, and away from the happy past. What's meaning of chasing a traitor's daughter now? Our lives had been different, though I did nothing. Pathetic. Kora. Pathetic

far

away, away

He stretched his hand, trying to reach out to me- and he caught my wrist.

Almost instinctively.

I stapped his hand away.

The last thing I saw was Mason's eyes widened in pain.

PRESENT TIME

I held Hale's eyes or he held mine I wasn't sure which. The look he gave me was so intense, I didn't notice the maids

wander into our room until I was summarily pushed away from my suitcase.

"Excuse me." I furrowed, tried to figure out what's going on.

The maids ignored me, as did the butler. But Hale still had his intense gaze focused on me.

"Alpha What is..?" 1 began, fearing the worst. He couldn't exile me tonight. He just couldn't. I didn't have the truth I sought. I couldn't just

Hale raised an eyebrow at me.

"You will eat, live, and work by my side until the Rejection Ceremony takes place in a week. I won't have the Moon Goddess frown on me or this pack because you take your life before I can properly reject you."

He made the announcement nonchalantly as if he was talking about what the dinner menu was today.

Not that he was going to take a traitor by his side.

"Wh-?" I stuttered in disbelief

I was relieved not to be exiled, of course, but…live with who?

But hold on. My eyes slightly widened

If I were in the packhouse, I would be closer to places I could search for information on my father's betrayal. Like Hale's office and the confidential files kept there.

Perhaps this was actually good fortune thrown my way at last?

I was too distracted by my own thoughts to see the maids had packed up more than just a suitcase. Startled as they passed me with all of my meager belongings, I looked back at Hale.

"Alpha, I only need a suitcase. I'm coming back here after the ceremony, after all," I emphasized 'coming back' deliberately. If he was not going to exile me after the ceremony, I would probably get a positive response here.

There was a long pause. I couldn't read the emotion in Hale's eyes. But I could feel that something had shifted. Something I didn't understand.

And the last cold gaze he landed on me sent shivers down my spine in an instant.

"You are not coming back here again."