Chapter 7

I stopped writing back.

I never imagined I would end up living in the High Pack Estate. Not like this.

Rumors started to spread. Damien did not care.

He still found time to come to me for a game of stones after every Council session.

One evening I couldn't take it anymore.

"When can I leave?"

He lifted his gaze. "Why go? Is it not good here?"

I had run out of patience.

"What do you want? You have already torn one wolf's mate away once. If you do it again, what will the realm say of you?"

He set down another stone.

"I do not care."

"I care. My name has already been ruined once because of you. And I am Julian Thorne's mate. The mating cloth from our first night — you've seen it, haven't you?"

Damien's hand trembled. He swept the stones off the board.

"Don't speak of it again."

That pleased me, oddly.

"Only a fact. And I've had many nights like that one with him since."

Damien shot to his feet. He stood over me.

"But you were meant to be mine. The former High Alpha chose you for me."

And he had handed me to someone else.

We fought. We parted badly.

That night, Seraphina came to my rooms again, raging.

It wasn't the first time.

She had come to hate me with everything she had.

"Why? You already have Julian. You want the High Alpha too?"

I had taken all I could. I raised my hand to knock her out cold.

Damien walked in right then. He saw us and had his guards take her away.

"Do you know? When I pulled them apart, Julian was on the floor begging me not to take his Seraphina."

I pressed my mouth shut.

I had no interest in answering him.

But the mention of Julian made me realize it. He had not sent a letter in days.

Something was wrong. I felt it in the pit of my stomach.

The rains had come. I stood at the window and looked out at them and thought of the swing in my courtyard, the new one, the one I had still not tried. I wondered if it would hold up in this weather.

I went to bed early that night.

I woke in the middle of it, sharply.

Damien was standing at the side of my bed.

He looked down at me. His eyes were tired.

"Evelyn."

"A battle report came in. Julian Thorne is dead."

His rival was dead. He took no pleasure in it.

Because many of the High Pack's warriors had died with Julian.

That one sentence.

My body shook, and my tears came down in a flood.

I had only just spoken to him of Severing the Bond, before he left.

We had agreed — we would speak of it properly when he came home.

The next day, I heard that Seraphina had lost her mind.

The attendants said she did nothing now but chant Julian's name over and over.

Later, I learned Julian hadn't needed to die.

The blade that killed him had been meant for Syrus. A silver blade. He had stepped in front of it.

Syrus came back and threw himself at my feet, sobbing.

"Before he went, he told me to take care of you."

I returned to the Thorne Estate.

Before I left, Damien said:

"Once things have settled, I'll bring you back."

I gave a cold laugh.

"Julian Thorne died having earned war honors. Tell me — this time, can you really keep me here without shame?"

The hall fell silent. For a long time.

I saw Julian into the ground. Then I left the capital that same night.

Cassian Thorne had returned with his family. They were the true Thornes. I was the outsider.

I closed the shop.

But I had enough coin.

If I could open the first shop, I could open a hundred more.

That autumn was wet and cold. Syrus wrote to me.

He said all my sisters had been Marked.

His only regret was that I had not been there.

I picked up my quill and wrote back.

[I am well. Don't worry.]