Chapter One

"Tomorrow, you live." Angie shut the heavy door behind her. No surprise she was in my room so late at night. She'd been everything a mother should be to me and more. She'd been my nanny. My teacher. My caregiver. My best friend.

And now, she was my way out of here.

"Tomorrow? How do you know?" I asked, stepping closer to her. Her form was out of sight, even with my enhanced shifter vision, but I moved forward, using her voice as my guide. She was probably behind a curtain in case the wrong person came in.

"Rohan is going on his long run in the afternoon. He only told the staff tonight while you were out hunting." She spoke in whispers, but there was no real need to. My father wasn't really the tuck you into bed and kiss your forehead type.

Plus, I was grown now and no longer wanted him to be.

Once a year, he went on a long journey and wouldn't come back for weeks. He put more guards around the house and grounds, but they were often lax, and I'd tested the boundaries more than once to not only find them penetrable, but easy to manipulate. But where would I go?

Angie and I had been planning my escape since I turned thirteen. My first shift.

Maybe before that.

Angie snuck books and movies in for me to watch and from that exposure, I realized that what I thought was a lush, princess life was actually a gilded cage.

A cage I wanted nothing more than to be free of.

My heart began to beat fast, thrumming between my temples. My stomach did the swoop of nervousness I was so used to.

I loved my father for who he was, but the emotion that prioritized the love was cold and all-consuming fear.

He was not only one of the original shifters. He was the original shifter.

"Are you sure? Not just house gossip?" I asked as she stepped out of the shadow in the corner. The staff were a chatty bunch, and even a whisper of scandal would be passed through the entire grounds in less than a minute.

"I'm very sure. He had his servants pack up a bag for his man to carry. He made arrangements for everything, including you, to be taken care of while he was gone. He may come in the morning to tell you himself and goodbye."

I nodded. My dad usually came to my wing before these excursions and gave me an icy goodbye and a glare that told me to behave myself.

At least I didn't have cameras in my room any longer. Once I hit puberty, he had them removed.

"Cleo, my girl, we need to make preparations."

I had stood there, trembling inside, for who knew how long, weighing my options and going over the mental lists of whys.

The only thing I would miss about this place would be Angie.

I hated leaving her behind.

"I don't. I can't."

She walked over and gripped my biceps with her hands. "You can and you will. There's a whole life out there you are missing out on. People. Places. Experiences. The whole world isn't out to get you like your father would have you believe."

I snorted. "Don't forget the imbeciles and the lowly weak-blood shifters."

A scowl took over her face. Her eyebrows bunched and she raised one side of her top lip, mimicking my father. His sneer was villain-worthy. "So-called shifters, you mean, child. Most of them can only turn on the full moon or when there is danger. They should flow between their forms without pain, without a second thought. And don't get me started on those books romanticizing werewolves."

She actually did a perfect impersonation of my father. It always made me laugh.

My laughter died off quickly as the reality of what I had to do and what sacrifices would be made to achieve my goals blanketed over me. "I don't want to leave you," I whimpered.

Angie wiped a tear from my cheek with her thumb. "I will always be there if you need me. No matter what. But tomorrow you do this on your own. And I will go my separate way. There is no use in me being here if I don't have you."

The other reason was that if I was caught, or even if I wasn't caught and actually managed to get away, Angie would be punished for my absence. For letting me get away.

And my father's punishments sometimes meant the offender didn't breathe again.

"You will run too, then?" I asked. We had talked about all of this before, of course, in whispers at night and the rare times when my father left the estate. "You will get away from here?"

She nodded. "Yes. Now, let's get your bag. It's already packed. Only the essentials. Easy to carry. You have the folders from the Shifter Registration?"

How Angie had managed to get my DNA tested by the Shifter Registration without my father finding out was a mystery, but I didn't dare ask how she did it.

Less information to give up if I was caught.

"I already put them in the bag," I stammered as the anvil of what-ifs slammed down on my shoulders.

My caregiver, the only person I'd known love from, forced a smile. "You're going to be great, Cleo."