Chapter 2: The Name I Refused

"Well," my father said. "Isn't this a surprise." Alpha Dorian Blackthorn didn't come down the stairs to meet me. He spoke over me, to the room, the way men like him do. "A girl raised in the woods." A dry laugh. "She wouldn't recognize refinement if it slapped her across the face." He swirled his drink. "I don't expect her to make me proud. I'd settle for her not making me ashamed." Eighteen years. That was my welcome home. I walked into the center of the hall, planted my bare feet on their imported marble, and looked each of them in the eye. "Grandfather. Grandmother. Father. Mother." A beat. "I'm Sienna." My grandmother Rosalind came down fast, hands out, eyes wet. "My darling girl. They stole you the night you were born." Her fingers closed around mine like a trap made of velvet. "And now you're home. The Blackthorns are whole again." "Thank the Goddess," I said. The reunion had a price tag. I could smell it on her. Then she turned, and gestured to the girl in pink. "You remember we told you about Vivienne." My grandfather, Elder Augustus, spoke from his chair. Every word laid a brick in a wall. "She's been with us since she was three. She may not carry our blood." A pause with teeth in it. "But in this family's heart? She is ours." Vivienne floated toward me. Beautiful. Practiced. Her eyes dropped straight to my feet. "Oh, Sienna." A soft, horrified laugh. "You're not wearing shoes." "The earth keeps me connected to what's real," I said. "Vivienne." "You grew up out there in the wild. All of this must be so overwhelming for you." She squeezed my arm. "Don't worry. I'll teach you how things work here." Sweet voice. Sharp edge. She hadn't welcomed me. She'd reminded every person in that room where I came from, and planted the rot before I could grow a single root. I smiled back at her, and let her see nothing. "Don't stand there like a servant, child," my grandfather said. "Sit. Be comfortable." The trap came ten minutes later, wrapped in silk. "Tomorrow," Rosalind announced, "we'll present you to the pack. You'll stand before the family and take the Blackthorn name. Officially." Every head turned. "No," I said. The room went very still. "The woman who raised me saved my life," I said. "She fed me, taught me, buried herself in a mountain for me. I'll carry her name. Wilder." I met my grandmother's eyes. "That isn't negotiable." Rosalind's face changed like weather over water. "Fine," she said, and her voice had frost in it. "Call yourself whatever you like." She turned to the housekeeper without looking at me again. "Put her in the west wing." "Yes, Lady Rosalind." The west wing. Damp, unheated, three corridors from anyone who mattered. A soundless exile, and a very loud message. Vivienne was already at her elbow, arm threaded through hers. "Grandmother, let me walk you up." A perfect, wounded little sigh. "Don't let ungrateful people ruin your evening." "At least someone in this house knows how to be a granddaughter," Rosalind said. "Unlike others who only give me headaches." Vivienne's smile was radiant. She thought she'd already won. She thought that by refusing the name, I'd disqualified myself — that she'd stay the only daughter this family would ever brag about. Then my mother spoke. Camille Blackthorn, who hadn't said a single word to me since I walked in. "Blood doesn't change because of a surname," she said coldly, to no one. "She'll learn." "I have my own way of earning respect," I said. I didn't move. I didn't shrink. Not one inch. That night I lay in a cracked, freezing room, my mother's pendant warm against my sternum, and listened to the sounds a mansion makes when it's plotting. Two floors up, through the vents, I heard Vivienne laughing on the phone. "She refused the name," she said. "Do you understand what that means? She just handed me everything. She'll never be a real Blackthorn now." A pause. Then, sweetly: "And by the time she figures out what I've already put in motion, that little jungle rat will be begging to go back to her mountain."