She turned, eyes ablaze, and he shut his mouth. “If I what?”
“That’s not what I—”
“If Iwhat, Dominic? If I waspartof the pack?”
He met her furious eyes, slowly rising to his feet. Twin instincts roared inside him, one commanding him to cow her, to force her submission, the other urging him to take her into his arms and kiss away any insecurities she had. To reassure her that she was his now, and that meant more than any vapid opinion of the pack.
But he did neither. Merely looked at her, silently willing her to understand.
She didn’t.
“Get out,” she said again, her voice final.
He hesitated, every muscle screaming to stay. But he did as she asked.
The door closed between them, quiet, but echoing through his head.
Through the wood, he heard the first few sniffles of tears, and he rounded and stalked away. He didn’t want to hear her cry. He didn’t care if that made him a coward.
Because the truth was, if he stayed, nothing would stop him from breaking his promise. From reaching out and taking her as her mate, as herAlpha.
Chapter 14 - Layla
The basement was a mess of light and shadow, paper and frustration.
Layla sat at her desk, shoulders tight, hair half-tied and half-fallen, the faint light of the candles stuttering across the walls. The place looked like the inside of her head, chaotic, overrun, refusing to settle. Burnt matches and half-melted wax crusted the edges of the desk. The tang of old smoke lingered, a ghost of all the spells she’dtriedand failed to make sense of the dreams.
Now, she wasn’t even bothering with magic.
She was sketching. Again.
The rough paper was crowded with lines, bold arcs and rippling curves, jagged slashes, and half-erased shading. Aurora Peak, summit of the tallest mountain in the Chilkat range, loomed across the center of the page, drawn from memory, its slopes etched in strokes of green-black ink. Above it, she’d captured the undulation of the northern lights as best she could remember: seven long waves, then two shorter flickers, the rhythm burned into her brain.
The candle beside her hissed and spat. She ignored it, instead bending closer, adding a fine line along the crest of the wave, then another, smaller, sharper, almost like a pulse. She chewed absently at the end of the pen as she worked, her eyes stinging from lack of sleep.
It was the same vision every night, unchanging, relentless. A flare of the northern lights above her as she knelt in the snow of Aurora Peak.
Around her, the remnants of her earlier attempts crowded the floor, papers covered in furious, cramped handwriting, small vials of dried herbs, burnt-out candles leaning drunkenly in their holders. The scent of rosemary and salt clung to everything, mingling with the faint metallic chill of the sea air seeping through the stone walls.
It had been a week since the fight. A week since Dominic had left her standing at the window, too proud to say sorry, too tired to try again.
She pressed her thumb into the paper so hard it left a dent.
He’d treated her like a child. Both him and her brother. Like she couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and truth.
Her mouth twisted.
If they wanted to think her foolish, fine. Let them drown in their own logic. She would prove herself right. She’d climb the mountain, find the lights, find whatever it was that haunted her sleep until she couldn’t tell where the dreams ended and waking began.
She reached for the graphite pencil this time, dragging a smudge of grey through the streak of green. The arc looked too sharp. Wrong again. She flipped to a new page, her movements brisk and controlled.
Her fingertips were blackened with ink. A thin cut traced her palm where a broken nib had bitten her hours ago. It still throbbed, but she ignored it.
“It twists all up,” she whispered, sketching the motion again. “Like water down a drain. Green into blue.”
She was getting closer, the shapes on the page more and more resembling the vision that played on the back of hereyelids every time she closed her eyes. She didn’t know why she bothered. She could picture it always, as if constantly in some sort of waking dream. But perhaps getting it down on the page would finally get it out of her head.
Layla leaned back in her chair and stared at the page, exhaustion buzzing in her skull. The candles were burning low now, their light uneven, their shadows trembling. She rubbed her temples, smearing ink across her cheek.
