Skylar carries a secret her own family weaponized against her: a trace of wolf blood her stepfather's household pretends doesn't exist, branding her a Half-Wolf outcast in a society that runs on pack status. No seat at the table, no recognition, no future—unless she can pass the Elite Warrior Trials, which officially bar anyone with her classification from entering. So she doesn't enter officially.
Every pre-dawn session in the frozen tundra is stolen. Every scar is hidden. The uniform she trains in was salvaged from the garbage, and she smooths it flat each morning like a promise to herself. The trials are thirty-two days out, and the gap between who the pack thinks she is and what she is capable of is the only weapon she has.
