Chapter 6

"Who said so?"

"The Pack Queen," I said.

"Half a month ago, when I woke up, she offered me a favor. I asked to dissolve the arrangement. She agreed."

"You didn't know?"

When I woke up.

The Pack Queen had promised me one thing I could ask for.

I said it immediately. I want the bond with Dorian canceled.

The Pack Queen went quiet for a long time.

"Dorian is a little thoughtless. But you don't have to—"

I cut her off gently.

"I'm not angry. I just don't want this."

She saw I was serious.

She stopped trying to talk me out of it.

Dorian had probably heard about it.

He just hadn't believed it.

Now he stood in front of me.

Face hard.

"Ivy. Are you out of your mind?"

I looked at him without flinching.

Dorian's eyes moved past me to Caspian inside.

Caspian had his head down, reading.

He looked like he hadn't noticed anything.

Dorian stared at him for a moment.

Something clicked.

"You broke the bond for him? This pretty boy?"

I frowned.

"Caspian is my teacher."

Dorian laughed, cold.

"Alone in a room, just the two of you, and you're calling him your teacher? You want to start a scandal inside the Pack Infirmary—"

I slapped him.

"Watch your mouth," I said.

"I study under Healer Forsythe with the Pack Queen's approval."

Dorian left.

But his last two lines kept going in my head.

"You think breaking the bond makes you free?"

"Let me tell you, Ivy. I like getting what I want. No exceptions."

Living or dead.

Neither one would leave me alone.

I was still thinking that, face blank.

"Hand."

Caspian's voice came from behind me.

I turned. He'd come out without me noticing.

"Hold it out."

He glanced at my palm.

"…No marks," I said.

"Mm." He gave a flat sound.

"You're improving."

I went quiet for a moment.

These two. The same mold, different faces.

Dorian was in a bad mood.

The news that he'd been turned down a second time was all over the Capital Territory.

And the Pack Queen had approved it.

He had no way to argue.

"Dorian, she saved my life. I can't refuse her."

The Pack Queen said it gently, but she meant it completely.

"You know you have options."

But he couldn't swallow it.

Dorian Calloway. He could have any she-wolf in the territory.

And a minor Beta's daughter had turned him down in public, then sought to dissolve the arrangement herself.

The whole Capital Territory was watching him fail.

"Did you hear? Ivy Pemberton ended things with the Calloway Alpha Heir."

"That's not ending things, that's throwing him out."

"Is there a difference? Either way, she didn't want him."

These days.

He kept going back to that moment in the forest.

Ivy, covered in blood, holding that branch. Not moving.

He couldn't concentrate. He couldn't even think about Vivienne.

Dorian crushed the glass in his hand.

A shard cut through.

Blood ran.

Then a cold laugh came from the study.

"Pathetic."

Dorian drew a blade and spun.

"Who's there?"

He turned.

And looked into his own face.

That face was gold-pale, eyes pitch-black.

In the moonlight — no shadow.

Dorian's pupils tightened.

"What are you?"

"Me?"

The thing smiled slightly.

"I'm you."

The ghost told him some things.

About how, in a past life, he and Ivy had been bonded.

And how he had died at her hands.

Dorian laughed.

"You're joking. That flat, quiet woman?"

The ghost looked at him.

"You think so little of her. How did she still manage to end things with you?"

Dorian stopped laughing.

"Why come to me?"

He turned away, voice rough.

The ghost drifted closer.

"To teach you how to win her back."

Dorian almost laughed again.

"Win her back? She walked out on me — why would I—"

The ghost repeated his own words back at him, perfectly flat.

"Let me tell you, Ivy. I like getting what I want. No exceptions."

Dorian went very quiet.

"You heard that?"

The ghost sneered.

"Still lying to yourself?"

That night, Dorian didn't sleep.

The ghost's words kept running through him.

"You just haven't lost her yet."

"You'll regret it. You'll regret how you treated her."

"Go look at her. See what she does every day. See what she actually is."

Dorian couldn't help asking.

"And then?"

The ghost said.

"Then you'll be just like me. Dying with unfinished business."

Against all sense, Dorian listened to the ghost.

He didn't know why.

It was early summer. The acacia trees were thick enough to hide him.

He hid in the branches and watched Ivy.

Sometimes she sorted herbs slowly. Ground them. Brewed them.

Sometimes she sat across from Caspian, head down, writing treatment plans.

Every now and then she'd look up and say something.

Caspian would answer. She'd nod and go back to writing.

This was a version of Ivy he had never seen.

He couldn't look away.

He left. He came back the next day.

Then the day after. And the day after that.

He told himself he was just watching to see what exactly had made her think she could end things with him.

Then, half a month in, it rained.

She came in holding an umbrella.

She had a food box in her right hand.

Dorian stood in the rain.

He watched her take out pastries.

Then a bowl of hot soup. She slid it in front of Caspian.

Caspian frowned.

Clear resistance on his face.

Ivy blinked at him.

"If a healer skips morning food, the stomach lining weakens and can't absorb. The spleen follows. Once the spleen fails, the body has no energy to pull from. Long term, everything breaks down—"

Caspian said nothing.

Caspian picked up the bowl.

Ivy smiled. "There we go."

Dorian suddenly felt like the view was unbearable.

He had never once eaten food she'd made.