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“The male still lives but is changed as Charity said he would be.”

“We need you to keep the dagger, Draven,” Charity said. “For now, it is safer in your hands.”

I looked at Selene, and she smiled tentatively and nodded. “We would be most grateful.”

“I’ll hold it.” I would do anything she asked of me.

“You vow this night that you and the warriors with you will safeguard it? That only those who hold proof from my coven may retrieve it?” Charity said.

“What proof?”

“A map that will reveal its truth when held to the moonlight.”

I looked at Selene again. She watched me, waiting, that sweet smile still on her lips. “You have my vow.”

Charity moved to a large boulder beside me, then made a slice in her hand, a small X, with the delicate blade she wore tied around her waist. She pressed her hand to the stone as she muttered words under her breath. A great cracking sound echoed through the night, startling sleeping birds from the trees before a large slice slid from the side of the bolder. Charity took the magical dagger back from me and placed it against the hard rock, then muttered similar words, and the stone slid back into place, somehow locking the dagger inside.

I frowned. “But I thought I was to safeguard it?”

“That is exactly what you will do.” Then she spun and pressed her sliced hand to my chest.

I tried to step back, but I was held fast by her magic.

“Return to our mother,” Charity said to Selene. “You must gather your things. It is almost time for us to leave.”

What was she talking about? “Selene! Wait…”

Selene turned to me and cupped my cheek. “Without you, the magistrate would have killed us. You saved us, Draven. Your bravery saved our entire coven, and I will always be grateful to you for what you did this night.”

Why did she say that as if she were leaving—leaving me? “Come with me…stay with me.”

Regret filled her smile. “I am not your mate, Draven, and you know that as well as I. There are things I must do, for my coven, for my family. I must leave.”

Then she turned to walk away.

“Selene, don’t go…”

“Goodbye, Draven.”

I struggled against Charity’s magic. I would not let her go. Whatever this was, I could not let her go.

“She is Keeper of our coven, wolf. We need her far more than you do,” Charity said, drawing my attention back to her.

“I don’t understand,” I snarled.

“You don’t need to.”

I tried to follow Selene, but I still couldn’t move. My joints locked, my muscles seized.

“I name thee guardian of the dagger, and bind you and your warriors to this place until coven Thornheart releases you.”

Charity stepped back, and I dropped to the damp forest floor. My pack mates growled from the shadows, snarling and fighting against Charity’s spell that had rendered them as helpless as me.

She looked down at me, and her smile returned. “I knew you would eventually prove useful.” Then she turned and walked away.

By the time I could move, both Charity and Selene had left the forest, and the thrall I’d been under, the feeling I had believed was love had left with her.

Selene had fooled me, betrayed me in the most heinous of ways. I’d believed myself in love with her, but I did not, had not, ever truly loved her.