“Good.” She turned to go, then paused. Her expression shifted, just slightly. Softened. “She loves you, you know. Even after everything. I could see it when you were speaking. She was hoping, until the very last second, that it was some kind of joke. Some misunderstanding.”
The words gutted me. My wolf howled with anguish.
“I’ll make it right,” I said. “I swear on my life.”
“You’d better. Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you myself.”
She left.
Get in line, sister. At this point, there was probably a queue forming.
I stood alone in the infirmary, the weight of everything I’d lost pressing down on my shoulders. My mate was gone. My child was in danger. And somewhere in this castle, the person responsible was watching, waiting, thinking they’d won.
They were wrong.
I thought of Riley. Of the devastation on her face when I’d said those horrible words. Of the way she’d called me a coward, a liar. She’d been right. I was both those things today.
But I would fix this. Find whoever did this. End them. And then spend the rest of my life proving to Riley that every word I’d said in that throne room was a lie.
I was going to find them.
And when I did, they were going to wish they’d never been born.
30
— • —
Riley
I was freezing my ass off.
I’d been in wolf form for what felt like hours, my white fur doing absolutely nothing to protect me from the bitter cold of Duskmere’s winter. Snow crunched under my paws. Ice crystals formed on my whiskers. My breath came out in visible puffs that dissipated into the frigid air.
What a day to be alive.
Not.
After Caelan ripped me apart in front of the entire court, after he stood there with his cold, dead eyes and called our bond a mistake, a temporary fascination, a moment of weakness, I couldn’t stay in that castle for another second. The humiliation was suffocating. The betrayal was devastating. The way hesaid “the child will be provided for” while looking at me with absolutely no emotion on his face, that was the thing that broke me.
I ran. Out of the throne room, past the gossiping nobles who were already whispering behind their hands, through corridors I barely recognized, until I found a door that led outside.
The winter hit me hard. But I didn’t care. I shifted, my wolf coming easier now, responding to my desperate need to escape, and I ran.
I didn’t know where I was going, didn’t have a plan. Some vague idea of finding the portal, getting back to the human world, disappearing forever. Starting over where no one knew me, where no one could hurt me, where I could pretend none of this had ever happened.
But the tears and heartbreak had added to the dizziness and sickness that were already plaguing me, and I was stumbling more than running, my paws tripping over roots and rocks hidden beneath the snow.
I was weak, pregnant, sad, and lost. Great combination for a dramatic escape through a frozen forest I didn’t know.
I’d been running for maybe twenty minutes when I heard paws behind me.
My wolf went on high alert, hackles rising, a growl building in my throat. I spun to face whatever threat was approaching, ready to fight even though I could barely stand. If Caelan had sent guards after me, if he thought he could just drag me back and lock me up...
But then I caught the scent, familiar and safe.Thessa.
A gray wolf emerged from the trees, smaller than my form but faster, more agile. Thessa circled me once, nudged my flank with her nose, and then set off in a different direction. Follow me, the gesture said.
I didn’t have the energy to argue. I followed.
