I jolted awake to the explosive shatter of a liquor bottle against the wall. More effective than any goddamn phone alarm—my mother’s signature “death wake-up call.”

“Amelia! Get your ass down here, you disgusting green-eyed freak!”

And so it begins. I dragged myself up, slowly pulling on the faded gray-black hoodie, deliberately letting my hair fall to cover half my face. These eyes—the “precious inheritance” from my werewolf father, and the main reason my mother despises me.

Before I turned thirteen, she at least pretended to be a normal mother. Until that one full moon night, when I first felt the sensation of bones breaking and reshaping beneath my skin. Ever since, she’s looked at me like I’m a piece of walking trash.

The cruelest irony? It’s precisely this witch identity she loathes that forces her to cast that damn concealment spell every single month. We live on the edge of werewolf territory, and the Alpha of that pack—Luke Jones—is supposedly my destined mate.

Of course, he doesn’t know. Right now, he’s busy playing the lead in some teen romance with the cheer captain, Tabitha Amota, right on school grounds. Every time I see them kiss, it feels like a rusty knife twisting in my gut.

Amelia. It means “industrious.” What a fucking perfect joke. To my mother, the only thing I’m industrious about is reminding her of the bastard who ruined her life.

I always gun my motorcycle’s throttle all the way. The wind slaps my face like a physical blow, but at least it lets me forget the mess at home for a little while. The thoughtful students at Duskvale High have graciously nicknamed me—“the junkie.” All because I always smell like whiskey and my hair looks like it’s been through a tornado.

They’d never know the whiskey scent is a souvenir from my mother washing me with Jack Daniel’s. They’d *really* never know that if I’m late, what’s waiting for me at home is far worse than just yelling. Sometimes, having hair that looks like a bird’s nest can actually save your life.

Parking my bike, I spotted Luke immediately. He always carried that scent of sea breeze and mint. He was leaning against the football goalpost, the sun turning his brown hair the color of honey. Tabitha was draped over his arm like a human accessory, smiling like an angel who’d just gotten everything she wanted for Christmas.

*He should be ours.* Alicia growled in my mind.

“Save it,” I muttered under my breath, shoving my helmet into my locker with a loud clang.

English was the only class where I bothered keeping my eyes open. Here, at least, I could pretend I wasn’t some freak trapped in a witch-werewolf hybrid tragedy.

“Miss Marsh.” Mr. Harris’s voice sliced through the air like a razor blade. “Your thoughts on the prophecies of the three witches in *Macbeth*?”

The entire class’s gaze instantly pinned me to my seat, including that bastard in the front row who made my heart clench.

“A prank of fate,” I heard myself say. “Like how some are born wearing crowns, and others are born to rot in the gutter.”

The classroom fell so silent you could hear dust settling. Mr. Harris adjusted his glasses. “Interesting. Elaborate?”

“What’s there to say?” A sudden, inexplicable anger flared in my throat. “Macbeth believed the witches’ lies and ended up with his head on a spike. It tells us one thing—anything that claims to be ‘fate’ is a goddamn liar!”

My voice trembled. Something was thrashing against its cage inside my ribcage. It was Alicia, scratching at my bones with her claws.

“Control your emotions, Miss Marsh.”

“Control?” I shot to my feet, my chair crashing to the floor like a gunshot. “Just because you wear a suit, you get to define what ‘proper’ pain looks like? Have you ever felt your bones breaking and mending under your skin? Do you know what it’s like to wake up every day smelling your own blood?”

My teeth were sharpening. The edges of my vision tinged with gold. Shit.

“Her eyes…” a girl beside me whispered, pointing as if she’d seen a ghost.

I grabbed my backpack and bolted. The hushed whispers in the hallway chased me. “Did you see that? Her eyes… like an animal’s…”

The bathroom stall door slammed shut behind me with a deafening bang. In the mirror, the golden wolf’s eyes were fading, revealing the nauseating emerald green I despised.

“Goddammit.” I drove my fist into the glass. Seventeen fractured versions of me stared back from the cracked surface.

I counted the seconds inside the stall until the bell for second period rang. Pushing the door open, I walked straight into a familiar, solid chest—of course, everyone in this damn school had a sixth sense for finding me at my worst.

“Hey, Psycho.” Jim Miller’s voice felt like a dull blade scraping against my skin. As the pack’s Beta, he had a talent for showing up at the worst possible moments. “That little performance this morning was… memorable.”

“Get lost, Miller.”

“Afraid I can’t.” He blocked my path like a brick wall. “Harris wants you prepped for the Shakespeare project. Guess who’s unlucky enough to be your partner?”

My heart sank. This godforsaken school would never give me a moment’s peace.

“Your dear Quarterback,” he said, the curve of his smile sharp as a crescent moon. “Good luck—though we both know you don’t have any.”

As he turned, I grabbed his arm. “Get me someone else.”

“Why?” The light in his green eyes was suffocating. “Afraid you’ll lose control?”

I let go, the contact burning like fire. Jim’s eyes always reminded me of my own—both of us trapped in bodies we never asked for.

During lunch, I curled up in the darkest corner of the library, but fate wasn’t done with me yet. When the scent of sea breeze and mint washed over me, I almost laughed—the universe’s mockery never ceased.