Without another word, I turned and walked toward the grand staircase, each step feeling heavy, deliberate. I could feel their eyes on my back, a hundred tiny daggers of judgment. Keifer's gaze was the heaviest of all. He frowned, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, but he didn't move. He stayed with Kallie.

My old bedroom was just as I'd left it six years ago, a shrine to a girl who no longer existed. I shut the door and turned the lock, the click echoing in the silence. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I slid down the door until I was crumpled on the plush carpet.

My hand trembled as I pulled out my phone. I found Dr. Evans's direct line in my contacts.

He answered on the second ring. "Aurore?"

"Tell me," I said, my voice cracking. "Tell me the truth. No more 'it varies.' I need to know the worst-case scenario."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the rustle of papers, the soft click of a keyboard. He was stalling.

"Doctor," I pressed, a desperate edge to my voice. "Please."

He sighed, a sound of pure weariness. "Based on the latest cell degradation analysis... the most aggressive projections..." He hesitated. "At most... two months."

The phone slipped from my numb fingers. It landed silently on the thick rug.

Two months.

Sixty days.

The number echoed in the vast emptiness of my mind. A countdown. A final, unchangeable deadline.

I curled into a ball, pressing my forehead against my knees. The tears came then, hot and silent. Not for the family downstairs, not for the husband who despised me. They were for me. For the life I would never get to live. For the dreams that would die with me.

A faint creak from the hallway outside my door made me freeze.

I held my breath, listening. Silence.

But I wasn't alone. I could feel it—the weight of someone standing just beyond the oak. A presence. Watching. Waiting.

I didn't move. Didn't dare breathe. I pressed my ear to the wood, straining to catch any sound from the other side.

And then I heard it. A soft rustle of fabric. The whisper of silk sliding against itself.

Kallie's dress.

She was out there. Listening. She must have followed me the moment I left the party.

I heard her shift her weight, a faint creak of the floorboard beneath her feet. Her breath hitched—just slightly—as if she had heard something that pleased her. And then, so quiet I almost missed it, a soft, breathy laugh. Smothered too quickly to be innocent.

The sound turned my blood to ice.

Footsteps retreated down the hall. Light. Almost skipping. The whisper of her silver gown faded into the distance.

I stayed pressed against the door, my heart hammering. I couldn't hear the words exchanged downstairs, not clearly—the music and chatter from the party filtered up in a muffled blur. But I caught Keifer's low, rough voice, unmistakable even through the floors: "How is she?"

And then Kallie's answer, floating up like honeyed poison, her tone sweet and loud enough to carry: "I think she just wants to be alone right now. Maybe she's just having a bad day. Let's not bother her, okay?"

Her footsteps moved away from the staircase, drawing him with her, back into the warmth and light of the party. I could picture it perfectly—the way she'd loop her arm through his, tilt her head just so, redirect his attention with a practiced touch. She was good at that. She'd always been good at that.

I let out a shaky breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

Upstairs, my tears eventually ran dry. I pushed myself up from the floor, my limbs stiff and cold. I walked to the ornate, full-length mirror and stared at my reflection.

The woman looking back at me was a stranger. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed with a despair so deep it looked like a physical bruise.

But as I stared, something else flickered in their depths. A spark. A tiny, defiant ember in the ashes of my life.

Two months.

If that was all I had left, I would not spend it here. I would not spend it being their punching bag, their disappointment, their convenient excuse.

A new thought, wild and terrifying and liberating, took root in my mind.

I was going to leave. And I was never, ever coming back.

AURORE POV:

The decision settled in my soul like a stone. It wasn't a choice made in anger, but in the cold, clear certainty of a person with nothing left to lose.

I ran a hand over my face, wiping away the last traces of my tears. I unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway, my only goal to retrieve my car keys from the bowl by the front door and walk out of this house forever.

I reached the top of the stairs just as Kallie emerged from the shadows of the corridor, a glass of red wine in her hand.

She gave me a small, pitying smile. "Feeling better, sister?"

Before I could answer, her body lurched. It was a clumsy, theatrical movement. She "tripped," stumbling directly into me. The dark red liquid arced through the air, splashing all over the front of her pristine, sliver designer dress.

A dramatic gasp. "Oh!"

It was loud enough to draw every eye from the party below.

Her own eyes filled with tears instantly. She looked at me, her lower lip trembling with practiced hurt. "Aurore... I know you don't like me... but you didn't have to do that."

It happened so fast I barely had time to process the lie. Before I could even form a denial, a furious presence stormed up the stairs.

Keifer.

He didn't even look at me. His eyes were fixed on the weeping Kallie and the crimson stain blooming on her dress. He reached her in three long strides, pulling her behind him in a protective gesture that was as familiar as it was painful.

He glared at me, his face a mask of rage. "What is wrong with you?"

I looked at the way his hand rested on Kallie's arm, the way his body shielded hers. Any lingering warmth in my heart turned to ice.

"It wasn't me," I said, my voice flat and devoid of emotion.

"Don't lie to me!" he snarled. "I saw you. Everyone saw you."

"Apologize to her. Now." The words were an order, laced with the authority of his Alpha status.

I met his furious gaze and held it. The old Aurore would have bowed her head. The old Aurore would have apologized just to make it stop.

But the old Aurore was dead. She died in a doctor's office this afternoon.

"I have nothing to apologize for," I said, each word clear and deliberate.

His face darkened. My defiance was a spark on a short fuse. I saw the shift in his eyes, the tightening of his jaw.

"I said," he growled, "apologize."

He unleashed his Alpha aura.

It wasn't a command, not a direct order that my wolf would be compelled to obey. It was something cruder. A raw wave of power, of pure, intimidating force, designed to cow and dominate.

It slammed into me like a physical blow.

My already weak body couldn't withstand it. The force threw me backward, my spine connecting hard with the wall. A sharp, searing pain shot through my back, and a grunt of agony was forced from my lips. Black spots danced in my vision. For a second, I thought I was going to pass out.

"Keifer!" My mother's shriek echoed up the stairs.

She and my father, Desmond May, rushed up to the landing. Eleanor went straight to Kallie, fussing over the stained dress as if it were a mortal wound.

My father looked at me, crumpled against the wall, and his face was etched with a profound, crushing disappointment. "Aurore, how could you? Kallie is your sister!"

No one asked if I was hurt. No one seemed to notice that I could barely stand.

I pushed myself off the wall, using it for support. The pain in my back was a dull, throbbing fire. I looked at them. My mother. My father. My mate. The three people who were supposed to love me unconditionally. And they were all looking at me as if I were a monster.

A strange, hysterical feeling bubbled up in my chest.

I started to laugh.

It wasn't a happy sound. It was low and bitter, laced with a decade of pain and a lifetime of disillusionment.

They all stared at me, their anger momentarily replaced by confusion.

I stopped laughing as abruptly as I had started. I straightened my shoulders, ignoring the protest from my bruised spine. I looked at my father, then my mother, and finally, at Keifer.

My voice was steady now, cold as a tombstone. "You're right. I have disappointed you."

I let the words hang in the air for a beat.

"I disappointed you by taking this long to see you for who you truly are."

I took a deep breath, gathering the last of my strength. It was time to burn the final bridge.

"From this moment on, I, Aurore May, sever all ties with the May family. You," I said, looking directly at my parents, "are no longer my mother and father."

The words dropped into the stunned silence like a bomb. Eleanor's jaw dropped. Desmond stared, speechless.

Even Keifer looked as if I had physically struck him.

But I wasn't finished.