Chapter 7

When Cain said “go back to Silver Mane,” I froze for a second.

He hadn't punished me.

I'd expected him to lock me up. Throw me in the cells, or chain me to the Moon Goddess grounds for everyone to see. At the very least he should have said, you wounded Seraphine, there's a price for that.

But he didn't. Why hadn't he punished me?

Maybe there was a tiny bit of reluctance in him to let me go. But I didn't want to stay one more minute in that heartbreaking place. I took the medicine and left on my own.

Silver Mane was out; that was Magnus's ground now. On the evening of the third day I walked north along the wilds toward the neutral border town. Dusk was closing in, the wind high, dry grass flattened against the earth. I couldn't shift right now, but if I kept walking I'd reach town before dark.

Then I heard footsteps. From behind, from both sides, from the dead grass ahead, all at once, treading on cracked earth. I stopped. My right hand went to the dagger at my waist.

Gray shapes took form out of the dusk. Six wolves, maybe more. Patchy coats, hard eyes, a wolf-fang token pinned to each chest. The leader was scarred, broad through the shoulders, an old wound slashing crooked across the corner of his mouth.

I recognized him. The night of the offering moon-feast, he'd sat in the hangers-on seats and toasted Seraphine.

“By the Alpha's order,” he said, lifting the fang token, “we're here to teach a Silver Mane cast-off who's forgotten her place.”

The silver wolf-head glinted cold in the dusk. By the Alpha's order. Cain's order.

My fingers shook on the dagger. He let me go. He told me to pack, watched me walk out the gate, and it was only so I wouldn't die in front of him and ruin his view.

When they rushed me, I had the dagger out. I cut the first wolf across the shoulder, the edge opening cloak and flesh. But the second slammed into me from the side and knocked me flat. The dagger flew from my hand and stuck in the dirt. When the silver chain wound around my wrist I screamed, not from fear but from pain. Silver is poison to our kind. The instant it touches flesh it was like a thousand red-hot needles driven into bone all at once.

Claws pinned my shoulders, my knees, my ankles. My face was in the mud, the taste of earth and blood flooding my mouth.

“You stabbed our future Luna,” the scarred wolf said, crouching close to my face, “so you're going to learn what manners means.”

He sprinkled silver dust on the wound on my left hand. The moment the silver powder hit the curled flesh, it was a thousand needles into the marrow at once, then stirred around inside. I bit down on my own wrist and crushed the sound back into my throat.

I bit my wrist, teeth sinking into flesh, the pain past numb.

Then he scattered silver dust along my spine, and I heard a fine grinding in my bones, the sound of a shift being forced to break mid-way, bone crushing against bone. My back arched up hard, every ounce of strength stripped out of me. I collapsed into the mud. A scream finally wrenched out of my throat, raw, not like my own voice.

“Look at you, you pathetic thing. You're cast-off garbage, you little bitch.” The scarred wolf gripped my chin and looked at me, mocking.

He crouched and brought his face close. His breath hit me, thick with blood.

“You stabbed our future Luna. Want to guess what he'll think when he hears? He'll think you've gone mad. He'll think you’ve lost your mind, ungrateful to the core. He let you go, not because he couldn't bear to, but because he couldn't be bothered to do it himself and didn’t want to dirty his hands with you was beneath him.”

When they were done, they left.

The scarred wolf's words turned over and over in my head. He couldn't be bothered to do it himself.

Three years. All his leniency had never been love. He just couldn't be bothered. Couldn't be bothered to punish me, to deal with me, to look at me at all.

I let out one grieving howl and passed out from the pain.