Chapter 11

"Passing through." The light went out.

She did not mean to stay. She asked what had happened.

His face twisted. "Selene. She lost it. She pushed me down the back stairs. My right leg's gone. I can't stand on it." He looked up at her, waiting for a flicker of concern.

"Get more sun," Wren said. "Calcium helps."

His smile thinned. "I'm — taking care of myself. I've filed for Severing. I've charged her with intentional injury. She won't walk free."

"Good for you." Wren pulled her coat tighter. "You'll be a twice-Mated Alpha. Behave this time."

His color vanished. "Wren — are you angry with me —"

"Yes. Very." She turned. "I am very angry with you." She didn't look back.

He tried to visit her room. Every nurse on the floor blocked him. He could not get past the door.

Days later her results came back stable. She went back to the old house to pack what was hers. Nothing of Damon's came with her. She booked a flight to Highland.

He chased her out. Arlan met him at the inn gate and did not budge. The kind old Elder made the gentlest wall Damon had ever met. Eventually Wren had him brought in. He limped up the path on a cane. By the time he reached her in the courtyard his brow was damp.

"Wren. I know I did wrong. I know I have no right. But I love you. All these years I can't —"

"Have some tea." She set a cup in front of him. "Highland leaves are good."

He grabbed for her hand. "I have Severed her. I won. Give me one more chance. I will pay you back the rest of my life."

Wren drank her tea. She looked at him, level. "I don't blame you."

Hope rose in his face.

"Those three years almost killed me too. I can understand anyone wanting to escape that. What I can't forgive is that every time I saw a little daylight, you rolled another stone over it. You used my life as leverage."

She kept going, voice low, opening the old wounds one by one. "Every day I was afraid. Afraid I'd never see dawn. Chemo hurt — but your not being there hurt more. One night I had a bad infection. High fever. I was shaking so hard I could not get a sentence out. I was dreaming about you. I asked the nurse to Mind-Link you. I only wanted to hear you for one minute. I wanted to tell you I was scared." She smiled faintly. "You didn't answer. It was her birthday. You were with her."

Damon's shoulders began to shake.

"That was the night I understood — anything I believed about us didn't count with you."

He could not speak.

"I know you were tired. You said it to a friend — every time you finally unwound, the phone rang, more fever, more bleeding. You wanted to breathe. I never blamed you for that."

He finally spoke, voice ragged. "Wren — I'm sorry — I was a coward — I was weak — I only wanted out — I should never have betrayed you — please, Wren —" He said it again and again like he was clutching a last rope.

Wren waited until her eyes stopped stinging. "Let me tell you something. Those years you were founding your business — you wrecked your spine. You couldn't get off the bed. I had just landed a project that would have taken me overseas for months. Promotion. Future. Better life." She looked at him. "The Healer said you needed care. I took care of you. I stayed."

She was not boasting. Her face was soft and tired. "I was frightened too. I wanted that project. But I knew you mattered more. I stayed. I did not know whether you'd walk again or whether we'd ever build anything. But I knew what choice meant — once you made it, you finished the walk with the other person. Even the hard bit. Even the whole of the hard bit."

She dabbed at her eye. "Blame me if you want. I took so long to get sick that I used up the last of your patience."

It cut like a clean blade. Damon put his face in his hands and wept aloud. She let him.

When his shoulders finally stilled, she pushed a tissue toward him and stood. "Damon. Thank you for three good years. I remember. What you did after — I won't count anymore." She paused. "But we end here. Be well, separately."

She turned. She did not look back. He sat under the Highland sky watching her walk away up the garden path, and he did not have the legs or the heart to follow. Wind moved through the young maples. Gentle. Empty.

Word reached Wren through Marla now and then. Damon drank. His gut went. His kidneys went. He stayed in the old house and grew thinner. He did not die. He only regretted. Selene's intentional-injury charge held. The Council sentenced her. She paid for her greed and her malice in Pack coin and Pack days.

Wren stayed in Highland. She kept the cliff-side room with its wide window. She photographed wildflowers with Arlan, and watched the sky, and let the days come slow. The air was always a little sweet. The pain and the betrayal were far below her now, the way a valley looks small from a ridge.

She had become her own light. She had walked out of the cage of her old life and into a quiet morning that belonged to her.