Chapter6

The first gunshot rang out while the music was still playing.

Glass shattered.

A silver bullet punched into the wall, leaving a large, blackened scorch mark.

The next second, the crowd erupted into chaos.

"Hunters!"

Someone screamed.

Guards rushed in immediately.

I was knocked back a step.

A hand closed around my wrist.

It was Kieran.

"Stay with me."

His voice was low.

I froze for a second.

His grip was tight.

Even in all this chaos, I could feel the heat of his palm against my skin.

For just an instant, my heart still ached.

After the last hunter attack, I had imagined this moment so many times.

If we were ever in danger again, would Kieran do what I had done that night? Would he protect his partner?

Would he at least, in that one moment, pull me close?

Now he was holding my hand.

But it was too late.

I already knew he had been lying to me all along.

Guards quickly surrounded us.

"Sir, ma'am, this way!"

Kieran pulled me toward a side door.

That was when Sabrina's voice came from nearby.

"Kieran!"

The crowd had pushed her to the other side of the hall.

A hunter had charged in from a side corridor.

A silver bullet ricocheted off a pillar, and Sabrina was pinned against the wall.

Kieran stopped dead.

He turned and hesitated for a split second.

Then he let go of my hand.

"Serena, go with the guards."

I watched him.

He had already turned away and was heading toward Sabrina.

No hesitation.

No looking back.

A guard grabbed my arm.

"Ma'am, hurry!"

I stood there and looked at Kieran one last time.

He pushed through the panicked crowd and vanished with Sabrina in an instant.

I didn't call after him.

I wasn't even surprised.

His reaction, letting go of me the moment she called, had been part of my plan from the start.

Even so, the confirmation left me cold.

Exactly as I had known he would, Kieran chose her.

"Let's go."

I turned and followed the guards.

The corridor outside was just as chaotic. The Alpha's guards were evacuating guests through different exits, and Edmund's people had already blended in among them.

Near the rear entrance, one of them moved close to my side.

"Ma'am, this way."

I followed him down a side corridor. A silver bullet hit the wall behind us, sending stone fragments flying.

At the end of the corridor, Edmund's team was already waiting.

I was led into a room nearby.

I changed out of the gown and handed it to Edmund's man.

I looked down at my hand.

The wedding ring was still on my finger.

When I slipped it off, there was a faint line around the base where it had sat for years.

I held it in my palm for a few seconds.

Then I closed my eyes and handed it over.

"Leave this at the scene too."

There was no mark on my neck to hide. Kieran had never given me one. For the first time, I was glad.

Another burst of gunfire sounded outside.

Someone urged, "Ma'am, we have to go now."

I pulled on the dark coat they had prepared and followed them out through the opposite side, to the edge of the clearing.

A body lay in the dry leaves: a rogue she-wolf hunters had killed the month before, unclaimed by any pack, close to my height and build.

Edmund's people had already pulled my gown over her and slipped my ring onto her finger. The air stank of the wolfsbane-laced accelerant they had soaked her in.

Edmund's man held out a flare.

"We can light it, ma'am."

I looked at the shape in my dress for a long moment.

Then I took the flare.

Five years ago, I had married Kieran Blackwood. Tonight, I would bury his wife myself.

I struck it and threw.

The fire caught with a roar.

Wolfsbane fire burned hotter than any ordinary flame. It burned away scent along with flesh; afterward, no wolf alive could tell whose body it had been. It would leave nothing of her but ash and splinters of bone.

Edmund's man fired twice into the flames. Ordinary rounds. No one had wanted to waste silver on a dead wolf.

"Ma'am, the car."

I turned and ran.

Through the car's rear window, I could only make out a vague shape flickering in the rising flames before it collapsed entirely.

Serena Blackwood, the wife who had endured five years of lies, died in that fire.

Smoke and the smell of burning spread fast.

More and more guards poured outside.

Someone was shouting my name.

"Serena!"

My fingers tightened.

It was Kieran.

He had finally come out.

Someone must have led him to the spot consumed by flames.

Only a heap of fabric remained, burned beyond recognition.

Scorched jewelry.

A few blackened fragments of bone.

And a wide scatter of ashes.

Kieran stood there.

He stood perfectly still.

Someone found something in the ashes and held it out to him.

Even from this far away, I recognized it.

It was my wedding ring.

He looked down at the ring in his hand.

He didn't move for a long time.

People around him seemed to be speaking to him.

He didn't respond.

The man who hadn't hesitated to drop my hand in the chaos, who had turned and run to save another woman, was now standing frozen in front of my "remains."

I watched him in silence.

It didn't hurt the way I had imagined it would.

Maybe five years had already worn away everything that could feel pain.

Now all that was left was a hollow numbness.

For five years, I had waited for him to come home, night after night.

Waited for him to truly look at me, just once.

But it took Serena Blackwood dying for him to finally stop.

How absurd.

It was all far too late.

"Ma'am."

The driver asked softly, "Can we leave?"

I placed my hand on my stomach and nodded slowly.

"Let's go."

The car began to move through the darkness.

I took one last look out the window.

Kieran was still standing there, crying out my name in anguish.

I didn't look back.

From today on, I would take my baby and build a good life.