Chapter5

The replies beneath it were brutal.

People cursed me in every way imaginable. One wolf listed every warrior wounded on the eastern border that year and typed my name next to each one. An Alpha from a neighboring pack posted, "Duskfall's precious lucky white wolf is a Rogue informant. If Duskfall won't handle her, we will."

Ten minutes after the post appeared, Kael's beta, Owen Marsh, released a statement. The Alpha had opened an internal investigation, and Ms. Ashvale's privileges as the pack's white wolf were suspended until it concluded.

It was practically a signed confession on my behalf.

The world tilted. My fingers turned to ice.

I made myself breathe and went through the photographs again, one by one, until I spotted it.

The longest letter, the one that laid out the entire winter patrol schedule, was dated the night of Kael's birthday last year.

I hadn't left him for a single minute that night. We had sat on the roof of the watchtower until the sky went gray. He'd had too much to drink and dozed off against my shoulder, and I had wrapped my own coat around him and stayed awake until sunrise so he wouldn't get cold.

The letters were fakes. And only one wolf hated me enough to go to this much trouble. Vivienne.

I clutched my phone and ran for the watchtower. Someone had said Kael was up there.

I was foolish enough to think that once I reminded him of that night, he'd believe me. That he'd stand up in front of everyone and clear my name.

The wind at the top of the tower was savage. By the time I reached him, my hair was whipping wildly around my face.

Kael turned and saw me, out of breath and disheveled. His brows shot up in irritation.

"What are you doing here? Isn't that post embarrassing enough already?"

I didn't waste time. I held up my phone with the date on the letter zoomed in.

"I didn't write these, Alpha! Look at the date. That was your birthday. I was here with you all night, right here on this tower, until morning! You fell asleep on my shoulder! When could I possibly have written this? Vivienne set me up! You have to tell them—"

He cut me off with a snarl.

"Stop it!"

He turned his head away as though I were something he couldn't stand to look at. His eyes were full of fury and revulsion.

"When are you going to quit? I don't remember any of that. And even if I did, do you really think I'd announce to the whole pack that you spent my birthday night alone with me?

"That's the plan, isn't it? Make me defend you in public so everyone thinks I picked you over Vivienne. You'd wade through a treason scandal just to wreck my marking ceremony?

"Have you got no shame at all, Lyra?"

Each word went in like a poisoned blade, and the last fragile hope I'd been carrying broke apart.

He didn't remember.

The night I had held onto like a treasure for an entire year hadn't left so much as a mark on him.

I bit down on my bloodless lips. Everything I meant to say died before it reached my mouth. All of me ached.

Nothing I said would change anything. He had already decided this was a stunt, one more trick to make him choose me.

When I didn't speak, his eyes went even colder.

"If not for me, the Elders would already have dragged you before the council for treason. I'm covering for you this one last time. And if you think a scandal will scare me into marking you, you've badly misjudged me."

He didn't hold anything back.

"Hear me clearly. You could kneel at my feet and beg until your knees were raw, and you'd still disgust me. I will never want you. Not in this life. Not in the next one either, if there is one. Understand?"

The hand holding my phone dropped to my side.

I lowered my gaze. I had nothing left to fight with.

"Go think about what you've done. Pull something like this again, and I'll hand you to the first Alpha who'll take you for an alliance!"

At that moment, warriors and healers came running up the tower stairs and lowered a stretcher to the floor behind him.

Vivienne lay on it, barely breathing.

"What happened to her?" Kael's pupils shrank to points as he rushed over.

The healer shook his head wearily. "Alpha, she couldn't find you, and the grief was too much. She collapsed. Her wolf is almost gone. There's no more time. She needs the core transfer now—"

I spoke before the healer could finish, my eyes on Kael.

"I'll do the extraction. But remember what we agreed. As soon as it's over, Owen posts on the forum that I've left Duskfall Pack.

"After that, we're square. Neither of us owes the other anything. Your life is yours, and mine is mine."

Kael agreed without a moment's thought.

Vivienne's moaning filled the healing center as we lay on two stone slabs side by side.

The chief healer looked at the faint silver light rising under my skin, the glow of a pure white wolf's core, and couldn't make himself begin. His voice shook. "Alpha, the white wolf brings this pack its luck. I can't. I just can't."

"Spineless coward!" Kael tore the long silver extraction needle out of the healer's hand. "Then I'll do it myself!"