Aurora POV:
The taxi dropped me at the gates of the Beaumont mansion. I paid the driver, the smell of cheap air freshener clinging to my clothes as I stepped out. Before me stood the house I was supposed to call home—a cold, opulent cage.
I took a deep breath. I had to be here for the matriarch's birthday celebration tonight. It was part of the deal. Play the part of the dutiful daughter.
My hand brushed against my bag. Inside, beneath the herbs and silk pouches, was the envelope. The rejection papers. I'd come back to deliver them. That was the whole point.
And yet.
I hadn't touched the envelope since last night.
I pushed open the heavy front door. As if on cue, my stepmother, Carol, and my stepsister, Isabelle, were seated on the velvet sofa in the living room, sipping tea. They looked like vultures waiting for a meal.
Isabelle's face lit up with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Sister, you're back. We were starting to think the outside world had swallowed you whole."
Carol's eyes raked over me, her lip curled in disdain. "Look at what you're wearing. Like some kind of vagrant. You're an embarrassment to the Beaumont name."
I ignored them, my gaze fixed on the staircase. I just wanted to get to my room.
"Ma'am, Miss," the housekeeper, Maria, said, walking in with a beautifully wrapped box. "A package just arrived. It's addressed to Miss Aurora."
Isabelle's eyes flashed. She shot up from the sofa, intercepting Maria before I could move.
"For my sister?" she cooed, her voice dripping with false curiosity. "Let me see who it's from." She reached for the box.
Carol chimed in, her tone laced with suspicion. "Who would be sending Aurora packages? We should check it, make sure she hasn't gotten involved with the wrong sort of people."
I caught the glance that passed between them—a flicker of something unspoken. Carol's brow furrowed, just slightly, as if Isabelle's eagerness had crossed a line even she hadn't authorized. Did Carol know what her daughter had done last night? The doubt prickled at the edge of my thoughts. Maybe not. Maybe Isabelle was playing her own mother, too.
"I'm sure my sister won't mind," Isabelle said, her fingers about to close around the package.
"Get your hand off it."
My voice was quiet, but it cut through the air like a shard of ice. Isabelle froze.
I walked until I was standing directly in front of her. My eyes were cold. "The package says 'Aurora Beaumont.' Under federal law, opening someone else's mail is a felony."
I turned to the housekeeper. "Maria, please give me the package."
Maria hesitated, glancing nervously at Carol.
Isabelle's face crumpled into a mask of wounded innocence. "Mother, look at her... I was only trying to help."
Before Carol could launch into a tirade, I spoke again, my voice deliberately louder so the other servants in the hall could hear. "Or perhaps you believe a 'wolfless' isn't entitled to privacy? That we don't have the same rights to property?"
I had weaponized their favorite insult. The accusation of discriminating against a wolfless, a sensitive topic in Pack politics, made Carol's face tighten.
The standoff was broken by the delivery man, who was still waiting at the open door. "Excuse me, is there an Aurora Beaumont here to sign? I need a signature for this delivery."
The timing was perfect. Isabelle's face flushed a deep, blotchy red.
I walked calmly to the door, signed the electronic pad, and took the box. Holding it, I walked back and paused in front of Isabelle, giving it a slight, deliberate shake.
Then, right in front of them, I tore open the wrapping paper.
Inside was an exquisite antique music box. Its brass gears gleamed under the chandelier light. It was clearly valuable, a piece of delicate, old-world art. Isabelle and Carol had obviously expected some cheap trinket.
I wound the small key on the bottom. A haunting, ethereal melody filled the room.
A small, sharp smile touched my lips. I looked directly at Isabelle. "It seems some people appreciate true artistry," I said, my voice soft. "Instead of just focusing on bloodlines."
The barb hit its mark. Isabelle's greatest insecurity was that she was not a Beaumont by blood—a secret I'd pieced together years ago, watching the way her father's relatives looked at her, the way certain documents were kept locked away. She had no claim to this family except through Carol's marriage. And she knew it.
Her face went white with fury. She couldn't say a word.
I didn't give her another glance. Holding my music box, I turned and ascended the grand staircase, leaving my fuming stepmother and stepsister in my wake.
As I reached the landing, the memory hit me—following Alexander into the east study last night, thinking I was walking toward a divorce. I'd walked straight into a trap instead. Isabelle's trap. She'd handed him that glass. I'd seen her smile. She wanted him to lose control, humiliated, and me caught in the fallout. What she didn't know was what she'd actually set in motion.
