Chapter 14

The instant she said it, the rope holding Aria went slack.

Aria plunged downward and hit the freezing water.

"No! Vivienne!"

Ethan saw Aria disappear beneath the surface. His vision went white. He thrashed against the ropes, fighting to get his hands free.

"Vivienne — stop! Let her go and I'll do anything!"

"Bring her up."

Vivienne didn't soften. She had the men haul Aria back up, then let the rope drop again.

They did it over and over. Each time, Aria came up weaker.

She dangled there, barely able to lift her head.

Watching her, Ethan felt something in him break.

His eyes dropped to the knife Vivienne had thrown to the ground in front of him. The moment Vivienne looked away, he started using it to work through the rope at his wrists.

The angle was bad. The blade caught his fingers more than once. He didn't care. His only thought was getting to Aria.

"Aria. You're in so much pain, aren't you? It's almost over. I'll put you out of your misery right now."

"Police! Stop where you are!"

Vivienne had just ordered the men to cut the rope when sirens wailed from the road above.

Caius came running with a group of officers. At exactly that moment, the rope gave way and Aria fell.

The water hit her again. Aria tried to swim, but her hands were bound tight. She could only let the sea pull her down.

At the same moment, Caius and Ethan both ran for the edge and jumped in without hesitating.

Vivienne didn't run. She stood there, watching all three of them in the water, laughing.

"Die, all of you! Ethan! Aria! Go to hell!"

A second later, two officers grabbed her and put her in handcuffs.

In the water, Aria sank slowly. She squinted up at the surface, watching the light above her grow dimmer and more distant, until it disappeared.

As her consciousness faded, she saw two shapes diving toward her through the dark water, coming closer and closer.

When Aria woke, she was in the Pack Infirmary.

No one was in the room.

She sat up in a panic and grabbed the nurse's wrist. "Where's Caius? Where's Ethan? The two men who jumped in after me — where are they?"

"Miss, please calm down. Those two men — they've already —"

"They're dead?"

Tears flooded her eyes. Aria pressed her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. "That's not possible. They can't be dead. Caius can't be dead. He promised he'd stay with me until I was completely better. He wouldn't die. He wouldn't."

"Miss —"

The nurse started to speak again. Aria cut her off with another sob. "Where's his body? Where is it? Take me to him. Please."

"What body? I leave for a few minutes and you're already giving up on me?"

Caius appeared in the doorway.

Aria froze for a split second, then launched herself at him and held on.

"You're okay. You scared me. I thought you died saving me."

"I forgot to mention — I'm an excellent swimmer."

Caius held her. "See? I'm right here."

"Then —"

Aria pulled back, her face wet with tears. "Ethan?"

"He's fine."

Caius said it quietly. "But he's gone. He left with the officers who took Vivienne back to the Northern Territory. After all this, he finally decided to stop coming after you."

"Is that so?"

Aria exhaled slowly. "So it's really over?"

Caius ran a hand over her hair, his voice soft. "Yes. It's all over."

After that day, Aria began her new life.

She took the treatment seriously. She showed up to every session. She stopped having nightmares every night. She started eating again, sleeping again. She started answering when Caius knocked on her door.

With Caius beside her, she healed — slowly, steadily — until at last she was whole.

The bond trauma faded. The panic attacks stopped. The girl who had been afraid to exist in her own skin learned, one careful day at a time, how to want things again.

Three years later, she said yes when Caius asked her to be his mate and Luna.

There was one thing she never knew.

In that water, on that day, Ethan had bled out from the wound in his thigh. He didn't make it.

The note he'd left in his phone read: if he ever lost his life for Aria, he wanted her to never know.