THE FALL

I have a plan.

It’s a desperate, terrifying plan, but it’s the only one I have.

I wait until Kael leaves for the Alpha’s office. I wait until I hear Elena’s high-pitched laughter fade down the hallway as she heads to the spa.

Then, I move.

I pull a duffel bag from the back of my closet—an old, nondescript gym bag that doesn’t scream “Luna.” I pack quickly, my hands shaking. I don’t take the silk dresses or the designer heels Kael bought for me. I take warm sweaters, leggings, thick socks. Practical things. Survival things.

I go to the wall safe behind the painting in the guest room. I know the combination because I’m the one who set it. I take the cash—about five thousand dollars in emergency funds. It’s not much, not for a Luna, but it’s enough for a bus ticket and a cheap motel in a human town where the pack can’t find me.

I can’t use my credit cards. Kael tracks them. I can’t use the pack cars. The GPS will give me away.

I have to walk.

I check the weather app on my phone. A storm is coming tonight—a blizzard. It’s dangerous, but it’s also perfect cover. The snow will hide my scent. The wind will cover my tracks.

“Just hold on,” I whisper to the tiny lives inside me, my hand resting protectively over my stomach. “We just have to make it to the border.”

I zip the bag shut. I’m ready.

I turn to leave the room, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. I open the door—and scream.

Elena is standing right there.

She isn’t smiling anymore. She is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, her eyes cold and hard as flint. She looks at the duffel bag in my hand, then up at my face.

“Going somewhere?” she asks.

Panic floods my veins. “Get out of my way, Elena.”

“You’re running away,” she says, a slow smirk spreading across her lips. “How pathetic. I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

“I’m not fighting you for him,” I spit out, gripping the handle of the bag tighter. “You can have him. You deserve each other.”

I try to push past her, but she steps in front of me, blocking the hallway. She’s taller than me, and unlike me, she hasn’t been starved of affection and strength for three years.

“Oh, I know I can have him,” she says, stepping closer. “I already do. But that’s not enough, Evelyn. You see, as long as you’re alive, you’re a loose end. Kael is a man of duty. He feels… guilty about casting you aside.”

She reaches out and pokes me hard in the chest.

“I need him to hate you,” she whispers. “I need him to despise you so much that he never looks for you again.”

“He already hates me!” I cry. “Just let me leave!”

“Not yet.”

Elena grabs my arm. Her grip is surprisingly strong. She drags me toward the main staircase—the grand, marble staircase that spirals down to the foyer.

“Let go of me!” I struggle, dropping the duffel bag. I claw at her hand, but she digs her nails into my skin.

We reach the top of the stairs. The drop is steep. Marble steps, hard edges, a long way down.

My blood runs cold. I wrap both arms around my stomach instinctively.

“Elena, don’t,” I plead, my voice cracking. “Please. I’m… I’m pregnant.”

I don’t know why I say it. I shouldn’t have said it. But in the face of her violence, I just want to protect them.

Elena freezes. Her eyes widen, dropping to my flat stomach.

For a second, I think she might let me go. I think maybe, just maybe, there is a shred of humanity in her.

Then, her expression twists into something demonic.

“Pregnant?” she hisses. “You’re carrying his spawn?”

The jealousy on her face is terrifying. It’s pure, unadulterated acid.

“That changes everything,” she says softly. “I can’t let you leave now. If he finds out you’re pregnant, he’ll never let me be Luna. He’ll be tied to you forever.”

She looks down the stairs. Then she looks at the front door.

We both hear it at the same time: the sound of the heavy oak door opening. The sound of Kael’s heavy footsteps entering the foyer below.

“Kael’s home,” Elena whispers.

She looks at me, and her eyes go dead.

“Goodbye, Evelyn.”

She doesn’t push me.

Instead, she screams.

It’s a bloodcurdling, horrifying scream, like she’s being murdered.

“No! Evelyn, please! Don’t!” she shrieks.

And then, she throws herself backward.

I watch in horror as she hurls her own body down the stairs. She tumbles, her limbs flailing, hitting the marble steps with sickening thuds. She rolls, crashes, and lands in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the landing.

She lies still.

“ELENA!”

The roar shakes the foundations of the house.

Kael is there in a second. He drops the files he was holding, papers scattering everywhere, and rushes to Elena’s side.

He falls to his knees, scooping her up. Elena is bleeding from a cut on her forehead. She opens her eyes weakly, tears streaming down her face. She lifts a trembling hand to point up at the top of the stairs.

At me.

“She… she pushed me,” Elena sobs, her voice weak and pitiable. “I told her… I told her I was pregnant with your baby… and she pushed me.”

The lie is so audacious, so evil, that my breath leaves my lungs.

Kael freezes.

He looks down at Elena, at the blood on her face. Then, slowly, terrifyingly, he looks up at me.

I have never seen hatred like this.

His eyes are glowing a bright, violent amber. His lips are pulled back in a snarl that reveals his canines. The air around him crackles with Alpha power, so dense it feels like the room is on fire.

“Kael, no!” I scream, backing away from the ledge. “She jumped! I swear, she jumped!”

He doesn’t listen. He gently lays Elena’s head on his coat and stands up.

He moves faster than humanly possible. One second he is at the bottom of the stairs; the next, he is in front of me.

He grabs me by the throat.

He slams me against the wall, his hand tightening around my windpipe, lifting my feet off the ground.

“You tried to kill her,” he growls, his voice a distorted, monstrous sound. “You jealous, vindictive bitch. You tried to kill my mate and my unborn child.”

I claw at his hand, gasping for air. Black spots dance in my vision.

“I… didn’t…” I choke out. “She… lied…”

“SILENCE!” he roars.

He squeezes harder. I feel the darkness encroaching. I feel the life draining out of me.

My babies, I think, my hands falling from his wrist to clutch my stomach. I’m sorry. Mommy’s sorry.

Just as I think he is going to snap my neck, he releases me.

He throws me to the ground like a ragdoll. I slide across the floor, hitting my head against the banister. Pain explodes in my skull.

I curl into a ball, coughing, gasping for sweet oxygen.

Kael stands over me, his chest heaving. He looks at me like I am a cockroach he just stepped on.

“I should kill you,” he says, his voice eerily calm now. “By pack law, attempted murder of a Luna is punishable by death.”

He looks down at the stairs where Elena is moaning in pain.

“But death is too easy for you,” he says.

He grabs my arm, hauling me to my feet. He drags me toward the door, ignoring my stumbling feet, ignoring the fact that I have no shoes on.

“Kael, please,” I sob. “Please listen to me. Check the cameras! There has to be—”

“The cameras were down for maintenance,” he snaps. “Elena told me this morning.”

Of course she did.

He drags me out the front door, into the biting wind. The storm has started. Snow is swirling violently, the temperature well below freezing.

He drags me to the edge of the porch steps and throws me into the snow. The cold bites into my skin immediately, soaking through my leggings.

“Kael!” I scream, trying to stand up.

“I, Alpha Kael of the Obsidian Pack,” he booms, his voice carrying over the wind, alerting every guard and wolf on the perimeter.

My heart stops.

No. Not this. Anything but this.

“I reject you, Evelyn,” he says, looking down at me with cold, dead eyes. “I reject you as my mate. I strip you of your title. I strip you of your name.”

The pain hits me instantly. It’s not physical—it’s spiritual. It feels like someone has reached into my chest and severed a vital artery. The bond, the thin, fragile thread that connected us, snaps.

I scream in agony, clutching my chest, curling into the snow.

“You are Rogue,” he pronounces. “If you are found on my lands by sunrise, you will be hunted down and killed.”

He turns his back on me. He walks back inside, toward the warmth, toward the liar who destroyed my life.

The heavy oak door slams shut. The lock clicks.

I am alone in the blizzard. I am broken. I am rejected.

And I am freezing to death.