Raising the Wolves

My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Caspian Vance, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through. That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Lyra—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister. But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Ashworth Fellows talking in the library. They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Caspian. Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Lyra. I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen. This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Caspian over. "No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Silas Blackwood."

Chapters

Chapter 12

The look of pure, undiluted disgust in my eyes finally hit him. I saw it land, saw the impact ripple through him.

His mind seemed to short-circuit. I could see the confusion warring with the pain on his face. He was remembering the girl who had followed him around for years, the girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, the girl who had proudly declared her love for him to anyone who would listen.

That girl was gone. My love was a light he had taken for granted, and now, he had extinguished it himself.

He didn't understand. He couldn't comprehend how a love so bright could just... disappear.

He clutched his chest, a pained gasp escaping his lips. He looked lost, like a child who had just realized he was completely alone in the world. He stared at me, searching my face for a sign, any sign, of the girl who used to love him.

He found nothing.

"I don't believe you," he whispered, his voice trembling.

"Believe what you want," I said, turning my back on him. My focus was now singular.

I walked toward Lyra.

"You bitch," I said, my voice low and venomous.

I slapped her. Hard. Then again.

"You ate our food, you wore our clothes, you lived in our house," I hissed, my hand striking her cheek with each word. "And this is how you repay us? By trying to destroy me?"

Her face was already swollen, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. She started to cry, to beg.

"Please, Seraphina, stop! I didn't do anything!"

I didn't believe her for a second. I kicked her knee, and she crumpled to the ground.

She immediately turned her tear-streaked face to my father. "Mr. Ashworth, please! It wasn't me! I don't even know how to use a computer! Someone is framing me! They're framing both of us!"

My father hesitated. He was a kind man, and he had always had a soft spot for Lyra's perceived fragility. "Seraphina," he said, his voice uncertain. "Are you sure? She doesn't have the skills to pull something like this off."

I didn't answer him. I turned my cold gaze back to Caspian.

"This is your last chance," I said. "Are you going to tell them the truth, or am I?" I held up a small, silver USB drive. "I have proof, Caspian. Proof that will not only ruin her, but will make what she did to me look like a child's prank. If I show this, she's finished."

I gave him a chilling smile. "Confess now, and maybe she can have a clean death."

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