Chapter 43

Lorelei The flower crown felt light on my head, but the emotions weighing on my heart were anything but. Twenty years old today—a milestone I'd never expected anyone to acknowledge, let alone celebrate. I ran my fingers over the woven stems, feeling the texture of each petal. "How did you know it was my birthday?" I asked Jinny softly between bites of the perfectly roasted meat. Her amber eyes crinkled at the corners—a wolf's playfulness shining through her human form. "You mentioned it yesterday, remember? That today you'd be turning twenty." Such a simple thing—to remember someone's birthday. Yet after being dragged back to Frostfang Pack, I'd experienced nothing but rejection. My biological mother Luna Judy had made it painfully clear I was unwanted. And yet these virtual strangers had gathered wild berries and crafted a flower crown for me. The irony wasn't lost on me—people I'd known for barely forty-eight hours showed more genuine care than my "family" had in years. The realizati