When her family and most of her pack were murdered, she ran. She felt like a coward. Captured by a neighboring pack, she was forced into slavery until her mate came to see the Alpha who had imprisoned her. She had heard rumors about him and the strength of his pack. Fear dominated her thoughts as she wondered if there would be any place for a wounded and cowardly slave among them and if she could ever prove herself worthy of being their Luna. Would she ever find herself again after the trauma she'd endured? Would she find hope within a new pack? Would she ever find out the truth about the night her family was killed?

Sometimes my voice dies in my throat, buries itself beneath waves of crippling suffocation, burns itself out as cold hands tear at my laced skin. I have smiled while my eyes have cried and pleaded, my wrists numb, my lips wobbling and blue, and stars escaping this dark night that I'm trapped in. I long for a darkness that gives way to light. But I do feel the warmth of petals gathering and scattering in my cold bones, and imagine the touch and the sweetness of a kiss, and my heart rises to the surface of this sea and finds a sky painted by passing artists remaining far above our heads. I'm breathing out all the words I've kept locked under the pages of my breaking mind. And by doing so, I'm going to heal. TRIGGER WARNINGS: depression, anxiety, self harm, suicidal thoughts, OCD, panic attacks

Volume 1: Pickpocketing Living in secret and stealing to eat is a hard life , but it's all Kuro has ever known. Fear and necessity honed him from a young age into the finest young thief in in the wizard kingdoms. Nobody can hide forever, though, and a run of poor luck lands Kuro in a place where his quick hands and quiet feet count for nothing: Avalon Academy, school of magic. Out of his depth and unable to escape, can Kuro find a place among the other misfits at the school, or will his past return to ruin the one chance he has to leave his life in the shadows?