Chapter 8

But no matter how much he refused to accept it, he had to stand there and let the Pack Council's formal announcement go ahead.

He went back to his wing in a bad mood. Serena tried to put a jacket around his shoulders. He shrugged her off.

He wasn't angry with her the way he was in the past life. She just meant nothing to him now.

Dorian, who barely drank, got drunk that night.

I don't know what he said while he was.

What I do know is that Serena pushed for something and got nothing. The person she loved had stopped loving her, and she couldn't handle the distance.

After Dorian turned her away for the last time, she went back to her room.

She left a note.

She tied a rope to the beam.

She was doing the same thing she had done before — trying to make sure Dorian would never forget her, and making sure I paid for it.

The note was almost the same as last time. The name was different.

"Ivy Calloway drove me to this. She left me no choice."

The note was found. Word spread.

But this time was completely different.

Dorian had shown no interest in her. I had barely interacted with her. The moment anyone looked into it, the framing was obvious.

Why had she done it? Everyone had a theory.

Some said she was jealous of my Pack standing and family. Some said she had no family of her own and resented what I had. Some said she had fixed on Dorian, and because he was drawn to me instead, she had directed her hatred at me.

None of the versions made me look anything but innocent.

Serena's character was the thing that didn't survive the telling.

Unlike the grand burial she had been given in the past life, she was wrapped in a plain cloth and taken away quietly.

I heard that when Dorian was shown the note, he stared at it for a long time.

Not in grief. In confusion.

He shut himself in his room for three days.

When he came out, he left everything on his desk untouched, walked out into the heavy rain, and came straight to the Calloway grounds.

He said he needed to see me.

I came out with an umbrella. He was standing there completely soaked, eyes red at the corners, mouth tight.

He asked, "So that year — when Serena died and blamed you — was that your fault too?"

"You wanted to break us apart with her death. And I believed it. I spent years hating you for something you didn't do."

"And this — this was the same thing, wasn't it? She staged everything. Both times."

He had started to remember. The past life.

I nodded.

"Yes."

"She used two lives to pull us apart. The first time, it was the pup she was carrying. She used that to make you stop trusting me. The second time, it was her own life. She used that to make us hate each other until the end."

Serena's death this time had, by accident, proven what I had not been able to prove in the past life.

The rain was steady. Dorian asked in a rough voice, "Ivy. Now that she's gone — will you be the Luna of this Pack with me?"

I looked at him steadily. "Didn't we agree? In the next life, no ties between us."

Rain ran down his face. It looked like tears.

He said, "I can't. I changed my mind."

"You're not in love with me," I said. "You just can't let go of something you couldn't have."

He caught my sleeve. The edge of his mouth curved, but without any real feeling behind it.

"What if I told you I've always loved you? That it started in our past life?"

He said he had seen my feelings for him before we were ever Bonded.

But too many people had pushed themselves toward him because of his position. He had assumed I was the same — that I wanted the title, not him.

So after we were Bonded, he kept his distance on purpose. He made himself stay controlled. He didn't let it mean anything.

Then he went south and met Serena, who pulled him out of the river without knowing who he was. For the first time, someone came to him with nothing to gain.

She had no powerful family behind her. Nothing to leverage. He decided that if he was going to let himself care about anyone, it would be safer to care about her.

"But I always found myself wanting to see you. I lost my control around you. That scared me."

When he heard that I had been blamed for Serena losing the pup, his first reaction wasn't anger.

It was relief.

He told himself I wasn't so perfect after all. That he had been right not to let himself fall for me. He punished me to prove to himself that I hadn't gotten to him.

"And then at the Pack Gathering, you threw yourself in front of that arrow. You went down in my arms. I knew then that I couldn't hold it back anymore."