Cassandra is twenty when she loses everything—her pack, her mate, her future. She had been warned, of course. The magician had tried to change her mind countless times since she was a child, but three days ago she returned to that small, dark shop, desperate and determined. She made her wish with her eyes wide open.
She just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much afterward. It hurt to leave home, to say goodbye to her brother, to the pack she was meant to lead. Now, because of her wish, and because of Sebastian, she is nothing at all. Cass is eight when she decides she will dedicate her life to making Sebastian Sax’s existence a living nightmare.
She takes great pride in her long, thick wheat-colored curls, a hairstyle generally forbidden among pack members who are destined to be fighters. So when Sebastian spits his chewed gum into her beautiful hair after she cheated to win a tree-climbing competition, Cass is furious. He smirks, claiming it slipped. She throws herself at him, smacking his jaw, and all hell breaks loose.
A month after her ninth birthday, Cass visits the magician for the first time. It won’t be the last. Cass is eleven when she finally gets her revenge. Her attempts before that—stealing her own hedgehog and sending a fake kidnapping note signed by Sebastian—were nullified when Sebastian retaliated with an even better lie, convincing everyone she was behind a series of troubles plaguing the packs.
On her eleventh birthday, with Sebastian turning thirteen, he is set to compete in the region’s annual hunt, expected to bring back the biggest bounty. Cass is too young to participate, but she visits the magician anyway. She plans, tracks, and trains for weeks. She memorizes the hunting grounds and observes a bear from a distance, learning its habits.
On the day of the hunt, she goes in early, follows her prepared trail, and fights the massive beast. After a long, brutal struggle, she drags the bear’s body into the clearing. The stunned silence gives way to roaring applause, and the head elder places the garland meant for Sebastian around Cass’s neck. She is crowned the victor.
The look of pure shock on Sebastian’s face is the only reward she truly cares about. There’s something in his eyes—resentment, anger, but underneath it, a hint of something dangerously close to admiration. By thirteen, Cass is an aggressive fighter, a force to be reckoned with. Her father has started pitting her against her twin brother Ronan, testing who will become alpha.
Cass intends to win. Across the woods, Sebastian is also set to become his pack’s alpha, and if he is to be one, then so is she. They have taken to sneaking into the woods at night to fight, just the two of them now. But Sebastian is a teenager, taller, broader, and stronger.
He’s getting easier to pin her down, and Cass fears he will soon grow bored of her. During one fight, she manages to straddle him, pinning him to the ground. He blinks up at her, a faint blush spreading across his cheekbones. His gaze darkens with something she can’t name, and his scent thickens.
She sways forward, and then he flips her, using his mass to keep her still. “Stop moving,” he groans against her neck. She grabs his hair and pushes him off when she feels the graze of his teeth. “Get off me.
” He complies swiftly, and she snaps at him when he looks regretful. “Shut up. ” She runs off, and they don’t see much of each other for a while. At fifteen, Cass still sees Sebastian in passing, but there are no words exchanged, only muttered insults.
His absence and growing indifference drive her mad. She starts dreaming of him at night—dreams of fighting him, of besting him, of finding that admiration in his eyes again. And in almost every dream, Sebastian bites her neck, and she wakes up gasping. She visits the magician, asking him to take her dreams away.
“Unconscious feelings are best confronted,” he tells her. The thought of confronting Sebastian about what almost happened terrifies her. At a gathering by a lake, Cass sees Sebastian again. He’s almost eighteen now, taller and broader, and apparently attractive, given the girls staring at him.
Cass decides it isn’t his looks. It’s his confidence, the way he carries himself with an effortless authority. That night she dreams she is the center of attention, and Sebastian is the one subjugated to her dominance. She wakes feeling powerful.
She needs to match his social skills as a teen, just as she matched his strategic skills as a child. Cass is about to turn sixteen when she enacts her plan. She gets into a club and dances with two boys, making sure she’s positioned right in front of Sebastian’s booth. She flirts with one of his friends, Peter, and starts kissing him.
The surge of anger in Sebastian’s scent is unmistakable. He storms over, pulling Peter off her with a snarl. “Get off her. ” He’s furious, but she loves having his full attention again.
“I wanted him to kiss me,” she says. Sebastian’s eyes are dark and brooding, his scent going right to her head. She’d missed this. He finally barks, “Our place in the woods, tomorrow night.
” Triumph washes over her. When Cass is seventeen, their meetings in the woods take a different turn. They barely speak before coming to blows. He’s furious with her for flirting with his friend.
She wants him to know she could divert anyone’s attention from him. Their fight is even, but then Sebastian says, “I think we’re finished here,” with tired resignation in his eyes. Cass growls, throwing herself at him, enraged that he’s still treating her like a youngling. They topple to the ground, and then they’re kissing—forceful, angry, a reclaiming.
She grabs his hair, deepening the kiss. He tears at her clothes, and she helps him remove his. She encourages him as a sharp pain courses through her, but she doesn’t protest. He looks at her like she’s everything.
That night, regret tightens her throat. What they did is something that should be kept between mates, not natural enemies. Will he still respect her as a rival now? He comes back the next night.
They fight, but it doesn’t last long with their bodies pressed together, her scent still on his skin. Their pretense of a fight grows shorter each night until they don’t pretend at all. They are consumed by each other, and Cass tells herself each night that this must be the last time. But the next day, she runs back to him.
Cass is eighteen when a fight breaks out between members of her pack and Sebastian’s. She’d been at a bar with her brother and friends. One of her packmates, Finn, puts his arm around her shoulder, a familiar gesture. Later, she hears a crash and sees Finn gripping Sebastian’s shirt, backing him against a wall.
“He smells like you,” Finn snarls. Cass is horrified, quickly covering, “We had a little squabble behind the bar. ” Her brother Ronan, protective and furious, throws himself at Sebastian. A full brawl erupts until Sebastian, as alpha, commands his pack to stop.
Later, alone with Sebastian, he accuses her, “You panicked at the idea of everyone finding out about us. ” Then he grabs her jaw, his eyes gold. “You’re mine. ” Cass snaps, “I’m not.
” He pulls her closer, gentler. “You could be. I want you to be. ” Cass’s heart does something complicated.
“We’re nothing to each other,” she says, pulling away, throat tight. “You’re nothing to me. ” Sebastian pales and spits, “Fine,” before walking away. The next day, he answers her father’s call, apologizes for approaching Cass, and swears it won’t happen again.
It doesn’t. At twenty, Cass’s father tells her and Ronan he has chosen Cass to be the next Alpha. It’s everything she’s worked for her entire life, but she feels nothing. She’s been numb and empty since Sebastian walked away.
That very morning, she’d learned of his engagement to a girl from another pack. At the engagement party, Cass wears her most beautiful dress and arranges her hair to expose her neck, hoping Sebastian might think back on their time together. But he dances with his fiancée, makes speeches, and never looks at her once. Something dies inside her.
Finally, she forces herself to greet the happy couple. The fiancée smiles warmly. Sebastian only curtly thanks her before leading his fiancée away for a dance. Cass can’t bear it and runs into a library to hide.
Sebastian follows her alone. They exchange bitter words. “Do you love her? ” Cass blurts out.
Sebastian sneers, “Isn’t that obvious? I’m marrying her, aren’t I? ” He tells her they were never anything to each other, that she made that clear. She argues back, desperate.
Then Sebastian growls, “I’ve watched, seen, and thought only of you for as long as I can remember. But I’m done now. It’s over. ” Cass is crying.
She grabs his face and kisses him brutally. He responds hungrily, burying his nose in her hair. “I want nothing to do with you,” he sighs. “I love you,” she chokes out.
He flinches like she’s hurt him. “No,” he steps back and flees the room. Later, Cass goes to the magician’s shop, but it’s closed. She’ll make her wish the very next day.
Cass is still twenty when she wakes in the early hours to wet lips sucking bruises on her neck. She is surprised, but warmth and hazy pleasure build. She recognizes Sebastian’s scent. “What are you doing here?
” she asks breathlessly. He’s drunk, claiming he broke off his engagement. “I love you,” he murmurs against her lips. “Say it again, Cass.
” She cradles his face, telling him she loves him. He pulls at her nightgown urgently, and as she feels his teeth against her neck, she pushes his head down harder. She wants this. She wants to be his mate.
But just as his teeth sink into her skin, her brother Ronan bursts in, screaming, and stabs Sebastian in the back with their father’s poisoned dagger. Cass is horrified. Ronan had heard her say, “Don’t, please stop,” not knowing she was telling him to continue. Sebastian collapses, gasping and losing consciousness.
Cass screams at Ronan, explaining, “He wasn’t hurting me. I love him. We’ve been lovers for years. ” Ronan goes to get their father.
Their father is furious, planning to spin the story to protect their pack’s reputation. “He forced himself on you and claimed you,” their father decides. “I wanted him to claim me! ” Cass protests.
“You’ll keep that to yourself if you want to live,” her father barks, using his alpha command. He and Ronan leave. Sebastian is dying, pale and breathing laboriously. Cass holds him, begging him to stay with her.
She promises, “I’m going to fix this. You’re going to be okay. ”
As the sun rises, Cass bangs on the magician’s door. The magician, Adrien, grants her an audience.
“You’re going to grant me a wish. I don’t care what it costs. ” Adrien warns her he must take what matters most to her. He grasps her hand and tells her, “What matters most to you is being Sebastian’s mate… I’ll be taking away the very thing that makes it possible.
Your wolf. I’ll make you human. ” Horns of a deeper truth, he reveals, “You’re with child. ” He warns her she likely won’t be able to raise her child.
Cass, stunned and heartbroken, places a hand on her stomach. Her eyes brim with tears, but she closes them and says, “Do it. Grant my wish. ”
Cass hasn’t aged a day when she returns to the pack headquarters, but she feels like an old woman.
Her body is sore and slow. Colors, smells, and sounds are all dulled. She feels empty and alone. Her brother runs out, excited.
“Sebastian’s awake! He’s fine! ” Cass knows, of course, because that was her wish. But when she says, “He isn’t my mate,” her mother and brother realize something is terribly wrong.
Cass explains tonelessly, “The magician. I asked him to. ” Sebastian appears, his smile falling as he meets her gaze. “What’s wrong?
” He takes her face in his hands, begging her to look at him. She pulls away. “I’d like to be alone now,” she says, fleeing. A week later, at twenty-one, Sebastian insists on seeing her.
He bursts into her room. She asks him to leave, but he drops to his knees, pulling her into his arms. They talk. Cass tells him, “I’m not your mate.
I’m a human now. ” Sebastian confesses he already renounced his title as Alpha. “I’m barely giving anything up. You gave your wolf for me.
” Cass interrupts him, her voice breaking, “I’m pregnant. I may not survive the birth. ” Sebastian’s eyes widen with disbelief and hope. “Is it mine?
” Cass groans. “Who else’s would it be, you fool? There’s never been any others. ” He vows to stay with her no matter what, and they decide to give up their child to her brother for safety, far from the packs who might harm them for what has happened.
Epilogue: When Cass is twenty-two, Adrien sends me to deliver a baby gift to her. She is thinner, more frail, but she holds a healthy four-month-old baby, and Sebastian is beside her. She seems happy. The gift is a promise from Adrien—a ring that will bring help should she or her family ever need it, no wish required.
Sebastian asks if it can make Cass a wolf again, but they decided not to risk it, and I tell them that kind of request would require a wish anyway. As I leave, Cassandra catches my gaze. “Thank you,” she says. “Tell him thank you.
”
On my way back, I wonder if I could ever love someone that much, to the point where I’d sacrifice everything. Later, while closing the shop, I ask Adrien if he has ever been in love. He doesn’t reply.
