Chapter 8

A traveling old merchant-wolf dragged me back from the wilds. He recognized the Silver Mane crest, asked nothing, settled me in a drafty woodshed behind a waystation, left a small jar of blood-staunching salve, and rode off through the night.

My left hand was mostly ruined. From fingertip to wrist the flesh had been gnawed twice over by silver fire and silver dust. The wrapping had to be changed every other day, and when I peeled it off it came away with pus and blood, stuck to the wound, like tearing the skin off again. The silver poison had burrowed into my wolf. I couldn't summon even the smallest claw. Every time I moved, fine needles stirred in the marrow.

But none of that was the worst of it.

What really kept me awake was that one line.

He couldn't be bothered to do it himself.

I turned it over and over. I thought about the unreadable face he wore when he said “go back to Silver Mane.” I thought about the moment he'd softened at my begging. I thought about how stupid I'd been, stupid enough to mistake it for reluctance.

On the evening of the sixth day, the woodshed door pushed open.

Seraphine.

Two servant-wolves trailed her, carrying brocade cases and food boxes, like noble guests come to visit the sick. Her right hand was wrapped in snow-white bandages, where I'd nailed it through.

“Elara.” She stepped in and wrinkled her nose. “How can you live in a place like this?”

She sat on the one broken stool, smoothed her skirts, and looked down at me from above.

“I came to say a few words to you.” She smiled. “Consider it letting you understand everything before you meet your end.”

“Save it,” I said, propped against the wall, twisting my mouth. “Disgust me, and I'll tear your throat out.”

“I'm in a good mood, I'll let it slide.” She tilted her head. “Guess. These three years, all the things Cain did for Silver Mane. Who do you think they were for?”

Something dropped in my chest.

Her smile deepened. “That time in the North when another pack wanted to swallow Silver Mane's hunting grounds, Cain stepped in and shut it down. That absurdly generous alliance treaty between Silver Mane and Iron Claw, he signed off on it. And you.” She drew the word out. “Brought to Iron Claw to 'heal your wolf,' kept right under his eye, with no pack allowed to come courting you. Haven't you always thought that even if his mouth said he didn't want you, deep down he was still protecting you?”

I said nothing. But my silence was the answer.

“Not one of them was for you.” She spaced the words, watching my eyes. “Every single one, the one who asked him was me.”

The woodshed was silent except for the wind needling through the gaps in the wall.

“Silver Mane had an old grudge with my mother's line. I didn't want it dragging me down if something happened, so I had him protect it. The treaty was what I wanted. Bringing you to his side, keeping you in hand so you wouldn't cause trouble, that was me too.” She sighed softly, and the look on her face was almost pity.

“How are you this stupid? You love him this much, and there's only ever been me in his heart. So he gives me everything I ask for.” She smiled. “Including penning you up at his side, indulging you, letting you rot into someone useless, only to throw you away.”

What I'd thought was “he's protecting my home.”

It was “he's managing his control over me, for her.”

The old rejected wound in my chest suddenly stopped hurting. It was like those few sentences had frozen it solid, the blood not even flowing anymore.

Seraphine drew something from the brocade case the servant held and tossed it onto the straw at my feet.

A memory crystal. Two small characters carved on its face: private.

“Know what this is?” she said. “It's his. He's kept it three years. Want to know what he really thought of you? See for yourself.”

“Get out.” I had no strength left. Heart and body, I couldn't tell which hurt more.

Seraphine touched a breath of wolf-essence to the crystal's surface.

Light rose up. A full-moon night. That bedchamber in Iron Claw. Me.

Countless full-moon nights, me and Cain. Him laying me on the bed, the couch, the washstand, the two of us tangled in every position.

My face played out crisp and clear, and the look I wore lying in his arms, full of hope, full of happiness, and there it was. My little wolf.

Scene after scene.

“Cain, I love you. I really love you.”

I bowed my head. My shoulders began to shake.

Seraphine rose, satisfied, the fingers under her bandage curling. At the door she turned back.

“Oh,” she said lightly, “Cain and I are holding our mate ceremony very soon. Goodness, after all these years of him not wanting you, you must be dying to see him married. You're welcome to come.”

Then she left. The hem of her moon-white skirt vanished out the door, leaving the whole room thick with her sweet, sickening scent.

I dug out the comm crystal I kept against my skin and opened my father's link.

“Elara?” There was a flicker of surprise in Magnus's voice.

I went straight to it. “I'll ask you one thing. Three years ago, bringing me to Iron Claw to 'heal my wolf,' Cain asked for that himself, didn't he?”

The other end went quiet.

“Father.”

“He's the one who raised it.” Magnus finally spoke, no guilt in his tone. “He came to me himself. Said you'd been rejected by your fated mate, your wolf was damaged, that you had to be kept near your fated mate to hold it down. And…”

“And what?”

“And he traded a border silver mine for the right to take care of you.” He paused. “At the time I even thought, he must care about you after all.”

I laughed.

I laughed, and the tears came, falling onto the bandaged back of my hand, blurring the blood that had seeped through.

A silver mine.

It was a transaction. A deal he'd struck on the side while paying off another woman's life-debt. I was nothing but the goods in that deal, weighed, placed, dealt with.

I cut the link.

Then, against the wall, inch by inch, I pulled myself up.

My legs shook, my left hand useless. The moment I stood straight, my vision went black for a long while.

I'd cried. I'd believed. I'd been a fool. I'd grovelled. Elara Hale had lost every last bit of her dignity over these three years.

So let it end here.

In two weeks I'd marry north. I would walk into that wedding standing straight, as if I'd never loved a single wolf.

And Cain. I hoped he'd go his whole life never knowing what I'd said in that crystal.

I hoped he'd never once remember that there had been a foolish wolf in this world who said “I love you” to a business deal, over and over.