Chapter 12

"Say yes."

I said yes.

I went home and told Celeste I had maybe fallen in love. She clapped her hands and demanded photographs.

Two weeks passed. I slept through whole nights. My shoulders came down from my ears. Ryder was supposed to take me to meet his grandfather — the former Alpha King — on a Saturday. I put on a white wool coat. Light snow was falling across Redwood Territory.

I stepped outside onto the path under the bare maples. Two men were standing under the tree. Damon Sterling. Julian Ashford.

"Elara —" Damon was across the path before I could step back. His arms closed around me and he pressed his face into my hair and his voice came out broken. "Moon. Moon. I found you. I was so afraid. You have no idea how afraid I've been —"

I stood very still in his arms. "Afraid," I said, cool, "that Theo's illness will come back and you'll have nobody left to bleed for him."

Damon flinched like I'd hit him. "It's not — Elara, I know the truth. I know what Serena did. I swear to the Moon I didn't know. I swear. Come back with me. She won't touch you. She won't touch any pup of ours. Please."

I laughed in his face. I slapped Damon. I turned and slapped Julian too. Both palms, clean, loud.

Julian stared at me like I'd grown another head. His sister had never raised a hand to him in her life. "Elara —"

"I have a boyfriend waiting," I said. "Move."

"Boyfriend?" Damon's voice had gone dangerous. "Elara. Come home with us. Hit us if you need to. Break something. Anything. Just come."

"I'll come home," I said evenly, "when the two of you walk into the Alpha Council and confess to murdering my daughter."

Their faces changed.

"Julian. You first." I turned my fire on my brother. "Come with me to Mother's kitchen. Confess that you helped kill your niece. Can you?"

Julian could not look at me.

Damon gestured once at his Enforcers. A blow landed low at the back of my neck. Cheap. Precise. My knees buckled.

I woke in the back seat of a moving car, wrists cuffed, with Damon's coat laid over me like an apology. He watched me wake and his whole face crumpled in relief. "Don't fight me, sweet. I'm taking you home. I'm going to make this right. I'm not losing you again."

I kept my voice soft. "I need the restroom. Please. Can we stop at a hotel for the night."

His guard dropped a fraction. He ordered the driver to stop.

The hotel suite had no second bedroom. Damon put himself on the couch and posted Enforcers at every door. A female attendant walked me to the restroom, stood outside, walked me back. My phone was gone. My wallet was gone. The hotel windows didn't open.

I sat on the lobby couch the next morning and said I needed air. The attendant hovered. A small group of blonde she-wolves crossed the lobby. One of them stumbled and fell at my feet. I scolded the nearest Enforcer for not calling for a Healer. He trotted off to find one.

The fallen she-wolf lifted her head and whispered, "Ryder Wyndham sent me. His car is on the east side of the building. He says come now."

"Tell him thank you," I whispered back. "Tell him I'm staying. This is the only chance I'll get. He promised to help me finish it. Tell him to trust me."

She nodded once, got up, brushed off her coat, walked away.

Back at the estate, Damon didn't leave my side. He followed me from room to room with a strained, adoring quiet. He brought me flowers. He swore fealty. He said he had only me in his heart.

"And Nora?" I said.

He stopped. He had, in all his planning, forgotten about Nora. I had my answer.

"I want to see Serena."

He brought me down into the Sterling Manor dungeons himself. Serena was chained to the wall. Her hair was matted. Her face was bruised. Days of Damon's retribution had not been kind.

"I did this for you," Damon said, proud. "I avenged Nora. Tell me it's enough."

"Leave," I said. "I want to talk to her alone."

He hesitated. He left.

I crouched in front of the woman who had killed my daughter and asked her softly, "Do you want out of here?"

Days passed. Damon did not leave my side. He was terrified I would vanish again. He followed me into every room with the shell-shocked care of a wolf who had only just learned what he had lost. I let him think I was thawing.

On the seventh day I sat in the window of Nora's old playroom with the little wooden wolf she had carved for me — Serena had crushed it, I had pieced it back together — and I turned it in my hands. "Damon. Do you know what day it is?"

He looked up from the floor where he had been sitting at my feet. Blank.

"It's Nora's death day."

His face went grey.

"You forgot your daughter's death day." I didn't raise my voice. "You forgot."

"Elara —