This Time, I Would Not Save Her

In my first life, I was a good daughter.

That was my greatest mistake.

I cooked before dawn. I chopped wood until my palms split. I washed bloody linens, soothed crying pups, carried water from the frozen well, and mended every torn shirt in the house.

My mother did none of it.

Selene Thorn was not meant for work.

That was what my father said.

A Moon-Blessed mate should rest, smile, and remain soft.

So I became her hands.

Her feet.

Her spine.

Her servant.

That morning, I lit the stove while my six younger brothers screamed behind me. The youngest had soiled himself. The twins were biting each other. The eldest had shifted halfway into wolf form and was clawing at the table leg.

In my last life, I would have panicked.

This time, I let them scream.

My mother called from the bedroom.

“Aveline! Why are they crying?”

“Because they are hungry,” I said calmly.

“Then feed them!”

I looked at the empty pot.

“With what?”

Silence.

Then she snapped, “Do not speak to me like that. Your father will hear of it.”

Before I could answer, someone knocked on the door.

Martha Vale stepped inside, shaking snow from her cloak. She was a plump human woman with sharp eyes and sharper business sense. She managed the outer-town orders for Vale House, the richest vampire trading family within three territories.

In my last life, she had been the first person to tell me my embroidery was worth money.

Real money.

“Aveline,” she said warmly, “there you are. I brought more silk.”

My mother’s expression tightened.

Martha placed a wrapped bundle on the table and lowered her voice. “The city ladies are fighting over your handkerchiefs. I told you, child, you are wasted in this house.”

My fingers paused over the stove.

There it was.

The door I had refused to open before.

In my last life, Martha had offered to take me to the Vale weaving house for five gold coins a month.

I had wanted to go.

But my mother cried. She clutched her belly and said she could not manage the children without me. She said a daughter who abandoned her pregnant mother would be cursed by the Moon.

So I stayed.

I stayed until she killed me.

This time, I wiped my hands on my apron and looked at Martha.

“Do you have a new order?”

My mother sat up so fast the bedframe creaked.

“Aveline.”

I ignored her.

Martha’s eyes brightened.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

She unfolded a piece of black velvet.

On it was drawn a crest of impossible detail: a blood rose blooming between the jaws of a moon wolf.

“The Countess of Blackmere wants this stitched onto a ceremonial veil,” Martha said. “Silver thread, blood silk, shadow pearls. Every embroiderer in town refused it.”

I touched the pattern.

The magic inside it trembled against my skin.

Dangerous.

Expensive.

Perfect.

“How much?” I asked.

Martha studied me.

“How much do you want?”

Behind me, my mother’s voice turned cold.

“Enough. Go make breakfast.”

I looked at the blood rose again.

Then I said, “Twenty gold coins.”

The room went silent.

Even the pups stopped crying.

My mother laughed first.

“Twenty? For needlework? Have you lost your mind?”

The door opened before I could answer.

My father stepped inside.

Alpha Kael Thorn filled the doorway like a storm. Snow clung to his dark hair. His wolf pelt cloak dragged mud across the floor.

“What is this noise?” he growled.

My mother’s face changed at once.

Her eyes filled with tears. Her voice softened into sugar.

“Kael, look at your daughter. She refuses to cook. She talks back to me. Now she wants to make some foolish contract with outsiders.”

My father’s gaze snapped to me.

In my last life, that look would have made me shake.

This time, I only met his eyes.

Martha cleared her throat.

“The girl’s work is valuable, Alpha Thorn. Vale House is willing to pay twenty gold coins for one completed piece.”

My father froze.

Twenty gold coins was more than his forge earned in a year.

The anger drained from his face.

Slowly, he smiled.

“Well,” he said, “if Vale House values my daughter’s little hobby, who am I to stand in the way?”

My mother stared at him.

“Kael?”

He did not look at her.

Martha placed five gold coins on the table.

“A deposit,” she said. “But there is a condition. If the work is not completed by the next full moon, the signer must repay ten times the amount.”

My father’s hand, which had already reached for the coins, stopped.

His eyes shifted to me.

A familiar calculation moved behind them.

If I succeeded, he would take the money.

If I failed, he would say the debt was mine.

I picked up the contract before he could speak.

The blood-ink quill pricked my thumb.

I pressed my bloodprint onto the parchment.

“I accept the risk myself,” I said.

Martha looked at me for a long moment.

Then she smiled.

My father relaxed.

My mother’s face darkened.

And I lowered my eyes to hide my smile.

The risk was mine.

So was the reward.