The Halfblood They Threw Away

I died on my wedding night. My fiancé Viktor drained me dry while moaning my sister's name. When I opened my eyes again, I was seventeen — standing outside the Bloodstone Coven's gates with a rejection letter crumpled in my fist.

This time, I smoothed the letter out, read it once, and smiled.

Not the desperate, broken smile of a halfblood begging to be accepted. A real smile. Because I finally knew the truth: the Bloodstone Coven was never going to love me, and I was done bleeding for people who wouldn't spare me a single drop.

I walked through the iron doors of the Ashworth estate. Crystal chandeliers. Velvet curtains. The scent of rare O-negative in heated goblets.

And there, at the dining table — Father, Mother, and my younger sister Celeste, laughing over a meal I wasn't invited to.

The warmth evaporated the second I entered.

Father's jaw tightened. Mother set down her goblet a little too carefully. Celeste's ruby lips curled into that perfect, pitying smile I knew so well.

In my previous life, I would have hovered at the doorway, waiting to be acknowledged. I would have pulled out a chair and tried to join in, only to be met with silence so loud it screamed.

Not this time.

I walked past the dining table without a word, heading straight for the staircase.

"Aren't you going to sit down?" Mother's voice stopped me. Not warm. Just suspicious.

"I'm not hungry." I kept my back to them. "I came to let you know I've been accepted into Ironveil Academy. I leave in three days."

The silence that followed was delicious.

Ironveil Academy sat deep in Lycan territory — the last place any vampire would willingly send their child. It was a military institute, brutal and unforgiving, designed to forge warriors out of wolves.

Father's fist hit the table. "Absolutely not. No daughter of the Ashworth bloodline will set foot in a wolf den."

I turned just enough to meet his eyes. "You've spent five years reminding me that my wolf blood is a stain on the Ashworth name. Now you're upset I'm taking that stain somewhere it belongs?"

His face went white.

Celeste leaned forward, eyes wide with theatrical concern. "Sera, you don't have to do this. I know the Coven Academy rejected your application, but Ironveil? You'll be torn apart. Wolves hate vampires even more than — "

"More than my own family does?" I finished for her.

She flinched. Good.

In my last life, Celeste's fake kindness was the leash she used to drag me into every humiliation. She would push, I would snap, and suddenly I was the unstable halfblood while she played the saint.

I was done performing for her.

"My decision is final." I looked at Father. "I don't need your permission. Or your money."

I climbed the stairs without waiting for a response. Behind me, I heard Mother whisper to Celeste, "Let her go. She'll come crawling back within a week."

She was wrong. I never crawled back. Not in this lifetime.