Chapter 513

Olivia

I kept my arms folded firmly across my chest as Nathan walked past me, a cardboard box in his hands.

“That’s everything, I think,” he said softly, turning to face me. “Listen, Liv, I…”

“I told you not to call me that anymore.”

Nathan blanched at my stern words. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come.

For a moment, we just looked at each other—or rather, through each other. The pain in our eyes was insurmountable, but my pain was outweighed by my anger.

He had already tried and failed to talk to me, and even though the golden light of the sun made his tawny, dirty blond hair look like honey, and even though I wanted to kiss him and tell him to come home, I kept my walls up.

“Okay.” He let out a slow breath through his pursed lips that almost sounded like a hiss. “I understand that you don’t want to talk, and I don’t blame you. But my offer from earlier still stands.”

I almost winced at the mention of his offer from earlier; his offer for us to go out together, to sit at the diner over a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee and ‘talk things out’. To me, that sounded like a nightmare right now.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “You cheated on me. What makes you think I would want to talk to you?”

“Liv—sorry, Olivia—I told you I never cheated,” he said softly. “You really don’t believe me?”

A wry scoff escaped my lips. “Do we need to revisit the pictures?”

For what felt like the thousandth time that day, Nathan opened his mouth, paused for a moment, then shut it again as though he was finally realizing that his words meant nothing here. They were just platitudes, lies, ploys to get me back with him.

And I wasn’t buying it anymore.

“Olivia—”

“We’re done, Nathan. Goodbye.”

Nathan stared at me for a few more moments, the soft ocean breeze ruffling his hair. And as we looked at each other then, I thought I felt my resolve crumble for the briefest of moments.

But only for the briefest of moments.

“I said, goodbye.”

“Liv,” he breathed, taking a step forward. “Liv, please…” He reached his hand out for me, as if to cup my cheek in his palm.

And for a second time, I almost felt my resolve crumble again. I wanted nothing more than to lean my cheek into his hand, to feel his warmth against my skin. I wanted nothing more than to bring him inside and hear what he had to say.

But then, just as I was closing my eyes, I saw them: the pictures of Nathan with the other woman. The way that he touched her, just as he touched me. And the way that I had felt when I was home alone, grieving for our stillborn child, and those pictures appeared on my phone.

As soon as his fingers grazed my cheek, it felt as if I had been burned. I gasped and smacked his hand away, stumbling backwards.

“Get away from me,” I hissed. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Nathan looked at me again, and this time, he didn’t even open his mouth to say something. He just dropped his hand back to his side, turned, and walked away.

…

The moon was hidden behind the clouds that night, casting the land in shadow. I sat at the dining room table, typing furiously on my laptop in search of some kind of lead.

When Nathan had banished the Elders, Freya included, they had seemingly disappeared off to nowhere. There was no sign of them anywhere; no mention of them on any nearby pack registries that I could find online, no photographs, no records, nothing.

“Where did you go…?” I muttered as I clicked to the next page. “You couldn’t have gone far…”

When my search came up with nothing yet again, however, I finally snapped my laptop shut with a sigh and buried my head in my arms.

“It shouldn’t be this difficult,” I muttered, my voice muffled by the table. “She could have stayed here, but she chose to go with the other Elders.”

“She has the right to make her own decisions,” my wolf said softly. “You can’t fault her for that.”

I almost laughed out loud, but then stopped myself—because I knew my wolf was telling the truth. Freya had every right to leave with the other Elders, just as we had every right to banish them.

As I laid there, I thought back on the last time I had seen Freya. She had left when the fires of Ryan’s attack were still burning and when I had first completed the ritual to unleash my wolf. The last she saw of me, I had been commanding Ryan’s men with only my voice.

“I wonder what she’d think of me now,” I muttered. “Pathetic, alone, and weak. She probably wouldn’t even want anything to do with me.”

My wolf bristled at my negative words. “That’s hardly any way for you to speak about yourself,” she said. “What’s gotten into you?”

I shrugged and sat up, leaning back in my chair. The room was fully dark now, the shadows almost seeming to move and swirl around me as my eyes adjusted. “Maybe Angela was right,” I said. “Maybe this is all just a distraction. And a pointless one, at that.”

“What makes you think it’s pointless?”

The silence in the wake of my wolf’s question was almost oppressive, weighing down on my shoulders like a ten-ton boulder. I realized, then, that maybe I was just beating myself up. Maybe this wasn’t pointless, even if it was a distraction.

But if it was a distraction, then why, as I sat here now, did I picture Nathan in my mind?

…

I stepped into the archivist’s office, a small room in the basement of the Council building. The room was piled high with books and files, and the air smelled like paper. I looked around, not seeing anyone at first, but a moment later the scratching of a pen on paper caught my attention.

“Hello?” I called out, my voice muffled in the dark room.

Suddenly, a head sporting balding gray hair peeked out from behind a bookshelf. The old man who blinked at me wore round, thick glasses that made his eyes seem rather owl-like.

“Yes?” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose and straightening his crooked bowtie. “What do you want? I’m busy.”

I swallowed, glancing around. “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like an intruder rather than a visitor now. “I was wondering if you might have some records on a specific pack resident.”

The old man continued to peer at me from around the bookcase. “I need a name.”

“Freya,” I said softly. “Elder Freya. The… The ‘Silent Elder’.”

For a moment, the old man continued to blink at me in that owl-like manner—that was, until I mentioned her nickname. The Silent Elder. That was when he stepped out from behind the bookcase.

“The Silent Elder,” he whispered, almost in reverence. “What sort of information do you require?”