Ch. I Hid My Supreme Rank Regret of the Pack 8 I Hid My Supreme Rank Regret of the Pack 8

Chapter 8 

The first one to track me down was Dad. 

He pulled my class schedule from the academic advisor. 

The bell rang, I stepped out of the lecture hall and there he was. Standing in the hallway. 

Two months. That’s all it had been. 

He looked like he’d aged a decade. 

Half his hair had gone white, and his shoulders sagged in a way they never used to. 

The second his eyes locked on mine, they went red-rimmed. He rushed forward, hand already reaching for mine “Clara! I finally found you!” 

I stepped back. His fingers grabbed empty air. 

“What are you doing here?” 

His hand froze mid-reach. Then a smile crawled onto his face, too tight, too eager. 

“Clara, come home with Dad.” 

“Your mom cries every single day. She’s cried herself half-blind.”/ 

“Cata’s been walking around like a ghost. The whole pack house is a wreck.” 

I stared him down, ice-cold. “And that concerns me how?” 

“How can you say that?!” 

His voice cracked higher, panic bleeding through. 

“That’s your pack! You… you took off so fast, you didn’t even grab your registration papers. You’ve got to come back for them, right?” 

A short laugh slipped out of me. “I don’t need them. Save them for Catalina.” 

His face went purple. His jaw locked like he was about to explode. 

Then he caught the look in my eyes, and swallowed it all back down. 

He exhaled. Softened his voice. 

“Clara, I know you think we played favorites. But… you’re being so unreasonable!” 

“Why didn’t you tell us you were the Supreme Rank? Why keep that a secret?” 

“If we’d known sooner, we never would’ve treated you like that!” 

I looked at him. And the absurdity of it punched the air right out of me. “So you’re telling me, if I hadn’t scored number one, I would’ve deserved everything you did to me?” 

He froze. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I-I didn’t mean it like that…” 

“Let me make myself clear.” 

I cut him off. Quiet. Every word landing like a nail. 

“My life is good right now. Stay out of it.” 

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Some near me again and I’ll change my number. You’ll never find me.” 

I turned and walked into the next study room. Didn’t look back once. 

The second one to come was my brother. Declan. 

He was waiting right outside my dorm 

Same arrogant tilt to his chin, same look down his nose. Only now there was a twitch of frustration knotting his brow. 

He watched me walk up with a bag of fruit, dragged his eyes up and down my body, and snorted. 

“Well, well. Look at the big shot. Learned how to run away from the pack now?” 

“Real proud of yourself, huh? Too good to even claim your own Alpha and Luna?” 

I walked past him like he was a stray rogue barking at the curb. 

His hand shot out and ripped the plastic bag from my grip. 

He slammed it to the ground. Oranges bounced and rolled across the concrete. 

“Clarinda Sinclair! I’m talking to you! Are you deaf?!” 

I stopped. Turned. “Are you out of your mind?” 

His teeth ground together. “You’re the one out of your mind!” 

“Do you even get it? The house is a disaster because of you!” 

“Every pack on the block is laughing at us. Can’t you cut Mom and Dad some slack for once?” 

Meri