Chapter 5

I didn't take the car and I didn't call anyone.

By the time I reached my mother's old apartment, my hands had stopped shaking.

I couldn't face the photograph in our living room, or another night of listening for Lucian's car.

I wanted to lie down somewhere I had once been loved without having to explain myself.

My phone vibrated as I reached the bedroom.

[Come back and make Camille some cinnamon rolls. You owe her an apology.]

For years, almost everything Lucian sent me was an order or a transfer. Now he had found something he wanted to say.

I called him.

"Did you get my message?" he asked. "Camille says yours are the only ones she wants, so—"

"Lucian."

He stopped.

"If I died, would you grieve for me?"

The line went quiet. I sat on the edge of my mother's narrow bed and waited.

"What the hell is wrong with you lately?" he demanded. "Why do you keep saying things like that? If you need money, ask. Have I ever refused to give it to you?"

I looked at the dent in the metal box beneath the bed.

My mother had kept important papers in it. I had put my letters there when I could no longer bear seeing them at home.

"Where are you?" Lucian asked. "I'll come get you."

He still hadn't answered my question.

I ended the call. The apartment was quiet.

As a little girl, I had slept beside my mother in this bed whenever I had nightmares. There was no one to move over for me now.

I pulled the box out and opened it. Beneath Lucian's letters lay the old phone I had used when we first fell in love.

I plugged it in and waited for the screen to wake.

The messages were still there.

[Saw a rainbow today. Good luck for a guy about to confess his feelings?]

[Who are you confessing to?]

[A girl named Nora. Beautiful. Very slow to take a hint.]

I read the exchange twice.

My wolf stirred weakly, then fell silent. Pain spread through my abdomen and into my back.

I turned onto my side and held the phone where I could still see it.

There were almost eight thousand messages.

I scrolled through our plans, our arguments about where to eat, the good-night texts he sent even after we had spent the whole evening together.

I stopped wherever his words brought back the sound of his voice.

Eventually, I reached the end.

For three years, I had kept those messages as proof that he had loved me. I didn't need the proof anymore.

I deleted the conversation. The screen blinked, then showed me an empty page.

My chest tightened, but nothing came up. Not even tears. There was nothing left in me to spend.

The paper letters stayed beside the bed. I set my treatment records next to them and took the pain medicine and the sleeping draught at the dose the healer had prescribed.

A year of treatment. Every appointment kept. Every medicine taken as directed.

I had wanted to live.

Now, at twenty-two, I could feel the last of my wolf fading despite everything the healers had done.

The pain began to recede as I grew drowsy. My breathing was slow and shallow now; my wolf had grown too weak to push it any harder.

I laid my current phone beside me, its screen open to the question Lucian had never answered.

I was no longer waiting for a reply.

Lucian, I'm free now.

I didn't hate him. I only hoped that, with the woman he wanted, he would keep the promises he made.

I closed my eyes.

---

Lucian stared at the disconnected call.

Nora's voice had sounded strange. Too quiet.

He opened the app they had shared their locations through. He hadn't opened it in years.

Her location appeared over an old apartment complex. He frowned and picked up his keys.

"Lucian?"

Camille caught his arm.

"You promised to take me to the banquet. And my hand still hurts."

He looked at the little bandage around her finger.

"I know."

He set the keys down.

At the banquet, he kept hearing Nora ask the same question. He loosened his tie and called his Beta.

"Find out who she's been seeing. Someone must be putting these ideas in her head."

He couldn't sit through a conversation without losing track of it. Twice, Camille had to repeat herself.

He told himself he was angry at Nora. He had spent years being angry at Nora. A woman who would drink herself half to death for money would say anything to get his attention. He had seen that for himself.

Hours passed before his Beta called back.

"The Luna hasn't been meeting anyone outside the clinic. I've spoken to the staff. They've been treating her regularly."

Lucian tightened his grip on the phone. "And her family?"

"Her mother was her only family. She raised her alone. She died three years ago, shortly after your mating ceremony."

The words landed wrong in the silence.

He had spent three years believing there was no one at all. Nora had told him. He had never once checked.

The Beta paused.

Camille had told him who Nora was, back when they were mated.

An orphan who drifted from pack to pack, inventing relatives and emergencies to get money from wealthy men.

He had believed all of it. He had believed it over every word Nora said.

"The clinic kept her file. Wolf-sickness. Same as the Luna."

Lucian stood, knocking his chair back across the floor.

Months ago, Nora had sent him another message about her illness. He remembered dismissing the first line without reading the rest.

"Where is she now?"

"The clinic couldn't reach her after dinner. I sent someone to check the apartment while I confirmed the records. I'm on my way there."

Lucian stared at the doorway. Perhaps she had been telling the truth about her mother. Perhaps about other things, too.

His phone rang again as he started across the room.

"Bring her home," he said before his Beta could speak. "I'll send you the address. Bring Nora home."

"I'm at the apartment, Alpha."

There was a pause.

"The healer is here."

Lucian stopped walking.

"Alpha... the Luna is dead."