From Rejected Defect To Supreme Queen

The rough hands of the guards slammed Angel onto the freezing stone slabs of the central square. Her knees hit the rock hard, the sharp pain shooting up her thighs, but the physical agony was nothing compared to the deafening roar of laughter that erupted from the crowd surrounding her.

"Look at the pathetic defect!"

"Can't even maintain a stable hybrid form. What a waste of air."

Angel gritted her teeth, her fingers curling against the icy stone. Snowflakes drifted down, landing on her thin, tattered clothes and melting instantly against her shivering skin.

A pair of pristine leather boots stopped right in front of her face. Angel looked up, her vision blurring from the cold, and saw Jasmine Roman standing there, looking down at her with eyes full of undisguised malice and triumph.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you, sister?" Jasmine's voice was loud enough for everyone to hear, dripping with fake sorrow. "Sneaking into the Chief's tent, trying to seduce him... I covered for you so many times, but you just had to embarrass our family."

The crowd's laughter turned to angry boos. The male warriors glared at Angel with disgust.

Angel tried to push herself up, to defend herself, to scream that it was all a lie, but her throat was too dry. The extreme hunger and cold made her voiceless. She could only gasp for air like a dying fish.

"Enough of this farce." A familiar voice cut through the noise.

Al Stein stepped out from the crowd. He walked over to Angel, his face twisted with a contempt she had never seen before. He pulled a white bone ring from his pocket-the symbol of their mate bond.

"You're a genetic reject," Al spat. "A zero on the Viability Index. You can't give me children. You're useless."

He threw the bone ring hard at Angel's face. The sharp edge cut across her cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. The ring bounced off her skin and rolled away into the snow.

The crowd exploded into righteous fury. "Exile her!"

"Throw the defect into the wasteland!"

High Oracle stepped onto the high platform, his face devoid of any emotion. He struck his staff against the stone, the sharp sound silencing the mob.

"Angel Haynes," his voice boomed. "For the crime of seduction and being a genetic dead-end, you are hereby stripped of your clan citizenship. You are exiled to the wasteland. Forever."

A ripple of movement went through the crowd. Two burly guards dragged a man forward and threw him onto the ground next to Angel like a piece of garbage.

It was Kain Avila. The notorious "Cold-Blood" of the clan. His eyes were tightly shut, his skin pale as death, already slipping into a near-death state of hibernation.

Jasmine covered her mouth, feigning pity. "Oh, the poor thing. Since they're both useless, why not let them keep each other warm in the wasteland?"

The crowd burst into laughter again.

A guard grabbed Angel's