Chapter8

It wasn't me.

It was Pippa Reed, a gangly young pup who picked berries and wild greens for the pack. She was staring up at him, scared and bewildered.

Kael's feet seemed nailed to the boards. He swallowed. "You? What are you doing in Lyra's coat?"

"She gave it to me," Pippa said in a small voice.

Before she'd even finished, a warrior came pounding up the stairs. "Alpha! We've counted everyone twice. Nobody's seen Ms. Ashvale. One of the guards says she walked out past the border last night, right after the extraction."

The wind struck Kael's face like the flat of a cold blade.

He didn't move. His mind had gone completely white.

"Alpha, she's only just lost her wolf. She can't shift. She can't heal. She can't even keep herself warm the way the rest of us can. She's never been weaker. Shouldn't we send someone after her?" the warrior ventured.

Kael's head snapped up, and his hands curled into fists. He sounded certain. He didn't notice the thread of panic underneath.

"Why would we chase her? This is a ploy to make me come crawling. Let her freeze for a while. Maybe it'll knock some of that pride out of her!"

He stopped, as if struck by an idea. One brow lifted, and he put on an air of calm. "Send invitations to every pack within reach. Every one. Tell them Vivienne and I are holding our marking ceremony."

Once word reached me that he was about to mark another female, he was sure I'd come running back. Fifteen years of loving him didn't just switch off.

But the days went by, and there was nothing. Not one word. He threw himself into the preparations, picking out every tiny flower arrangement and every bead and thread on their garments himself, and still I said nothing. Not even on the morning of the ceremony.

He was starting to come apart at the seams.

The marking ceremony was held at the Starstone Altar, and no expense was spared.

Rose petals carpeted the path for a full mile. Wines and delicacies had been flown in from the human world. Hundreds of attendants lined the aisle, and a handful of famous human faces sat among the guests.

The visiting packs looked on in envy, murmuring about how rich and powerful Duskfall's Alpha must be.

The horn rang out, and the ceremony began.

Kael stood on the dais and quietly reached out through the mind-link, scanning the packed crowd for me. Nothing.

He couldn't see me. He couldn't catch even a whisper of my scent.

"Kael?"

Vivienne's soft voice pulled him back.

She was coming down the aisle in an ornate Luna gown, her maid of honor at her elbow.

Out of habit he held out a hand to steady her. The fabric slid across his palm, and his eyes dropped to the buttons at her wrists.

His fingers went still.

I hadn't made this.

I'd told him once that buttoned cuffs were a nuisance, and every single thing I'd ever sewn for him had the sleeves altered so they didn't need them.

It finally sank in. The day I'd agreed to make these clothes, I had already decided to leave.

It hadn't been a sudden impulse. I had been planning to go for a long time.

"Alpha Kael, will you take Vivienne Crowe as your mate?" The officiant's voice rolled across the Starstone Altar. "Through sickness and health, through strength and frailty, will you share in her honor and never forsake her, for all your days?"

Never forsake her.

The words drove into Kael's heart like needles fresh from a fire.

Years ago, a tiny white wolf pup caked in mud had tugged on his sleeve and asked, wide-eyed, "Kae, even after you find your mate, you still won't ever leave me, right?"

His breath snagged in his throat. His chest hurt so much it was hard to breathe.

"Kael? Is something wrong?" Vivienne whispered.

He dragged himself back to the present. Then he looked down into Vivienne's eyes, and every drop of blood in his body went cold.

He was looking at my wolf.

The silver light swimming in her pupils. The white lock at her temple. That was a white wolf's light, the same light that had shimmered under my skin since the day I was born. On her face, it looked wrong. Horribly wrong.

The noise of the crowd fell away. All he could see was me on that stone slab, bleeding, my lip caught between my teeth, refusing to make a single sound through all that pain.

"Kael? Kael!"

Vivienne's smile had gone stiff, the embarrassment barely hidden beneath it.

The officiant had to prompt him a second time before he came back to himself and murmured an apology.

He had just opened his mouth to say "I will" when a deafening crash shook the Starstone Altar.

The massive oak gates at the edge of the grounds blew inward and tore off their hinges. Rogue wolves flooded through the gap by the dozen, snarling, and the guests fled screaming in every direction.

Leading them was an enormous, scarred wolf in human form, a battered leather satchel slung across his chest.

The moment Kael recognized him, his pupils narrowed to slits, and shock and fury flooded his face.

Brask. The Rogue leader whose band had been bleeding Duskfall's eastern border for a year. The very wolf Lyra was supposed to have been writing to.

Brask didn't spare Kael a glance. His eyes were fixed on the female in white standing at the Alpha's side.

"Getting marked behind my back, sweetheart?" he drawled. "Three years together, and I don't even get an invitation?"

The color drained from Vivienne's face until it matched her gown.