Sever the bond

Chapter Two

ROAN

The hall empties slower than I expect.

Nobody wants to be the first one to leave. Nobody wants to be the last, either. So they linger in clusters near the doors, whispering, glancing back at me like I might still change my mind if enough people stare hard enough.

I don't change my mind. There's nothing left to change it with.

Marcus finds me near the front, still standing where I set her down, like the floor itself might tell me something if I look at it long enough.

"That's done, then," he says.

"It's done."

"You want to tell me what that was?"

"You were standing right there."

"I was standing right there for the part where you rejected your mate in front of the entire pack and half the Halloran envoy. I wasn't standing anywhere for the part where you explain why you didn't tell me first." He pauses, jaw tight. "Or the part where you told two hundred people her hands shake too much to hold a blade. She was bleeding from the nose by the time you finished, Roan. In front of children. You didn't have to say any of that to end a bond."

I don't answer that. Marcus has been my second since we were both young enough to still think rank was something you earned through fighting instead of through everything you're willing to give up. He deserves an answer. I don't have one that doesn't sound like a lie even to me.

"Roan."

"Not now."

"The elders want you back in session. Vasser looks like she's about to have someone's head, and I'd rather it not be mine for standing next to you."

"Tell them I'll be there."

He doesn't move. "Where is she?"

"Gone. Someone drove her."

"Gone where?"

"I don't know, Marcus."

"You don't know." He says it flat, like he's testing the shape of the words in his mouth to see if they make any more sense out loud than they did in his head. "You just ended a mate bond in front of the entire pack and you don't know where she went afterward."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me this was worth it."

I look at him. I don't have anything for that either, and he reads it on my face before I manage to arrange it into something better.

"Christ," he says, quieter. "You don't even believe it yourself."

"Get the elders. I'll be there in five minutes."

He goes. I stand alone in the hall a moment longer, and the quiet does something to my chest that I don't have a name for yet. Not guilt, exactly. Something quieter than guilt. Something that hurts more.

I tell myself it's nothing.

---

The elders are waiting in the side chamber when I get there, all seven of them, and Vasser doesn't wait for me to sit before she starts.

"You could have warned this council."

"I did what the situation required."

"You humiliated a Bishop in front of two hundred witnesses and the Halloran envoy without a single word of warning to the people who have to clean up after you."

"The Hallorans wanted proof I'd honor the terms. They have it."

"They have a spectacle." Corwin, from the end of the table, doesn't bother hiding his disgust. "You think Halloran wanted a broken girl sobbing in his driveway as a wedding gift? He wanted an alliance. You gave him a mess."

"I gave him exactly what he asked for."

"Did she know?" This from Ilsa, the youngest of them, the only one who hasn't spoken yet tonight. "Before you walked her into that hall. Did she have any idea what was coming?"

I don't answer right away, and that's answer enough.

"Gods, Roan." Ilsa sits back like the air's gone out of her. "You let her get dressed for it."

"There wasn't a version of tonight that didn't end the same way."

"There were a dozen versions that couldn’t have ended with you gutting her in public," Corwin snaps. "You could have told her. You could have ended it quietly, weeks ago, in a room with four walls and no audience. Instead you let her walk in there thinking she was getting married."

"The Hallorans needed to see it happen. In front of the pack. That was the term."

"The term," Vasser repeats, "was that you sever the bond. Not that you humiliate a woman who has done nothing to deserve it in front of every wolf we have."

I don't have a defense for that one. I don't try to build one.

"It's done," I say instead. "The alliance is secured. That's what this council asked of me."

"And what it cost you," Vasser says, "remains to be seen."

I don't answer her.

---

I leave the chamber a little after midnight. The compound is quiet, like something bad has happened and everyone's gone home to talk about it behind closed doors instead of in the open.

Marcus catches up to me in the courtyard.

"Halloran's people are pleased," he says. "For what that's worth."

"It's worth the alliance holding. That's all it needs to be.”

"You look like hell."

"I feel fine."

"You don't look fine. You look like you're about to be sick."

I stop walking. He's right, though I don't tell him that. There's a pressure sitting low in my chest that wasn't there an hour ago, dull and persistent, like something pressing a thumb into a bruise I don't remember getting.

"It's nothing," I say.

"Roan—"

"It's nothing, Marcus."

He doesn't push. That's the thing about Marcus, he knows exactly how far he's allowed to go, and he stops one step short of it every time, even when I can see in his face that he wants to keep going.

"Halloran wants to meet tomorrow," he says instead. "Finalize the terms while the ink's still wet, so to speak."

"Fine."

"And Sloane?"

"What about her?"

"Are we tracking where she goes? Making sure she's—" he pauses, chooses the word carefully "—safe?"

"She's not pack anymore. It's not our concern."

Marcus looks at me for a long moment, the kind of look that used to make grown wolves back down when we were younger and rank still got settled with teeth instead of treaties.

"You don't believe that," he says.

"Doesn't matter what I believe."

"It always matters what you believe. You're the Alpha. What you believe is the only thing that's ever mattered around here."

I don't answer that. I start walking again, and this time he lets me go.

---

The pressure in my chest doesn't leave that night. If anything it settles in, finds a place to sit, makes itself comfortable somewhere behind my ribs like it plans on staying a while.

I tell myself it's stress. Guilt, maybe, finally catching up with the bill.

I don't yet have any reason to think otherwise.

I'm halfway to my quarters when one of the border runners finds me, out of breath, having clearly run the whole way from the east gate.

"Alpha."

"What."

"There's been an incident on the county road. A car, run off toward the ravine bend. One of the elders' drivers found it."

Something in my chest tightens, sharp enough that I have to stop walking.

"Whose car."

"We don't know yet. Witnesses say there was a young woman inside. Might've been headed south, off pack land."

I don't move for a second. I don't trust my own voice.

"Find out who," I say. "Now."

The runner takes off. I stand there in the dark a moment longer, one hand pressed flat against my own chest without meaning to put it there, feeling something underneath my ribs that has no business being there at all.

I tell myself it's nothing.

I don't believe myself. Not this time.