Chapter 4

Lucian was still staring when I turned and headed for the doors.

He reached out to stop me. I stepped around him.

"I'm giving this bond back to you. It's not a bargain. It's goodbye."

I looked at the four of them one last time and said, barely above a whisper,

"I'm not coming back. Call these six years my payback for being born into this family. From now on, you're on your own."

I hated them for ever bringing me home.

If they'd just left me alone, I'd have spent my whole life in the countryside with Nana, the woman who raised me.

She wouldn't have cried her eyes out missing me. She wouldn't have been all alone on that winter night when death came knocking.

That night, I stayed at an inn on the edge of the royal city.

Tess slipped back to the Keep at dawn to grab a few of my things. When she came back, her arms were full of letters.

"The King sent these, and your parents too," she whispered. "I did what you said. I didn't tell anyone where you are."

I opened a few at random.

"Maren, I know you're angry. We all said things we didn't mean yesterday. We were wrong. Please come home so we can talk this through, okay?"

"Maren, wherever you are, come back right now. I will never agree to break the bond."

Lucian's handwriting was a mess. Nothing like the hard, heavy strokes he usually wrote with. Was he actually panicking?

I kept going and found another letter. Neat, delicate handwriting. A woman's.

Vivienne.

"Maren, stepping aside is just giving back what was mine. Playing the victim now only makes me look like the bad guy."

"You're so naive. Six years as Luna and you actually thought it was real? Did you really start believing you belonged here?"

"That night, he told me himself. I'm the only one worthy of carrying his heir. Marrying you was just a quick fix to save the pack from embarrassment."

"Don't forget it. You'll always be my stand-in. And who could ever love a stand-in?"

"You'll never beat me, Maren."

I went stiff.

The worst part was, I'd heard almost those exact words before. Our first year, standing outside his study door, I'd heard him say only Vivienne was good enough to give him an heir.

I'd told myself he was drunk. I'd told myself it would change.

So all the tenderness he'd shown me over six years really was fake.

Her letter cut away the last little lie I'd been telling myself.

Just to make her feel better, he hadn't even left me a scrap of dignity.

Everything I'd done yesterday to keep my head high must have looked like a joke to her.

I made myself focus and handed the papers to Tess.

"Take these to the Keep right now."

I tucked Vivienne's letter in with them.

Then I packed fast, hired a carriage, and found a little cottage by the river in Millbrook, a quiet ferry town an hour downriver. Nobody would think to look for the Luna there.

That night, I pulled an old, yellowed page out from under my pillow.

I'd copied it from the pack's archive room. It described an old blood rite called the Blood Severing.

A formal rejection needed both mates, a group of Elders as witnesses, and the whole pack watching. Lucian would never go along with that. He'd already written it down in black and white: never.

But my mind was made up.

According to the page, with blood, one mate could rip the bond apart alone.

I picked up a silver knife and held it to my fingertip.

Faint runes started to glow across the page.

Then running footsteps pounded across the yard. Tess came flying up to the door, out of breath.

"Miss! Something awful's happened!"

My hand froze.