Chapter 4

The moment the call came through, I knew everything was about to break.

I barely heard the rest.

Because Ronan changed.

One second ago, he had been standing before the altar in the Old Moon Shrine, cold and furious.

The next, his alpha scent crashed through the room.

The air turned heavy.

My body locked up at once.

Not fear of a man.

Instinct.

My wolf knew before I did.

The Alpha had lost control.

“Elara.”

He looked at me with pure ice in his eyes.

“You dared touch her.You dared touch my child.”

Not a question.

A verdict.

The Moon Priest tried to speak. Ronan cut him off without even looking his way.

“Take her.”

The pack enforcers moved immediately.

One on each side.

I twisted once. It did nothing.

Their hands closed on my arms, and pain shot through my shoulders.

“It wasn’t me.”

Ronan did not even look at me.

That hurt more than if he had.

The ride was silent.

No one spoke.

His alpha scent filled the whole car, rage and panic and something close to madness.

I sat pinned in the corner, barely breathing.

Not because I wanted to.

Because in that kind of pressure, even moving felt dangerous.

By the time we reached Selene’s house, the place was in ruins.

Broken portraits littered the floor. Furniture had been overturned. The air stank of medicine, blood, and Selene’s scent.

She was on the bed, pale and limp, her breathing so shallow it barely moved her chest.

Ronan stumbled toward her.

“Selene.”

His voice shook.

He grabbed her hand like she might slip away if he loosened his grip.

“Open your eyes.”

“Look at me.”

“I won’t complete the mate bond. Just open your eyes.”

So he could beg.

He could break.

He just had never done it for me.

A half-empty bottle of wolfsbane draught sat beside the bed, next to the bloodstained death note.

Ronan never looked twice.

He never noticed the bottle was still more than half full.

Selene had not taken much at all.

He turned to me, and whatever reason he had left was gone.

In the next breath, his hand was around my throat.

He slammed me into the wall so hard my vision flashed white.

“Why?”

His voice was low.

That made it worse.

“You wanted the Luna title. I agreed.”

“What else do you want?”

“Did you have to go after her child too?”

He squeezed harder.

I could not breathe.

My throat felt crushed in his hand. My feet barely touched the floor.

In that moment, I knew the truth.

If he wanted to kill me, he could.

And there was nothing I could do to stop him.

I clawed at his wrist.

Useless.

My strength meant nothing against his.

That was the difference between us.

That was what an enraged Alpha could do.

“I didn’t force her,” I rasped.

“I don’t even want the mate bond anymore.”

“I only went to the Old Moon Shrine to get back my father’s family signet bracelet.”

He looked at me like I was filth.

Then he let go.

I barely had time to drag in one breath before he struck me.

The slap snapped my head to the side.

Pain burst across my face. Blood flooded my mouth.

But that was not the worst of it.

Ronan tore the family signet bracelet from his wrist.

My father’s last gift.

The last piece of Nightvale left in this world.

“You want it back?” he said.

“Fine.”

“Take your precious Nightvale vow.”

“Take your Moonborn bloodline.”

“I’m giving it all back.”

He dropped it.

It hit the floor and shattered.

The sound cut straight through me.

Could not breathe.

Could not even speak.

That bracelet was all I had left of him.

I had come for that.

And Ronan had destroyed it in front of me.

Something inside me ripped open.

“You think I ever wanted Nightvale to save me?”

His voice turned colder with every word.

“If I had known your parents’ deaths would turn into a chain around my bloodline, I would have rather died that night.”

“They chose to protect Blackthorne’s heir.”

“Why should I spend my life belonging to what they left behind?”

There it was.

Not just hatred for the mate bond.

Hatred for Nightvale.

Hatred for my parents.

Hatred for me, because I was what remained of their sacrifice.

Then he bent and picked up the bottle of wolfsbane draught.

My heart dropped.

A boot slammed into the back of my knees.

I hit the floor hard.

Pain shot up both legs.

“Ronan.”

I looked up at him and knew he was beyond reason.

He looked down at me like I was prey.

“She swallowed it.”

“You can too.”

He grabbed my jaw and forced my mouth open.

Then he poured the rest of the wolfsbane draught down my throat.

The liquid was bitter and vicious. Half-dissolved pills scraped all the way down.

I tried to spit it out.

Hands clamped over my mouth.

Another hand locked around my throat from behind.

Others pinned my shoulders and back, forcing me still.

That was the moment the truth hit me hardest.

I was not failing to fight back.

I simply could not.

Not against him.

Not against his order.

Not against the wolves holding me down.

I was nothing under that kind of force.

But the pain that followed was worse than the choking.

The wolfsbane draught did not just burn.

It hit deeper.

It tore through the weakest, most broken part of me.

I folded over, coughing so hard my body shook.

My chest burned. My skull throbbed.

Then my wolf took the blow.

I felt it.

The part of me that had already been damaged, already failing, buckled again.

My scent turned wild.

My breathing broke apart.

The room swam black at the edges.

This was not just pain.

My wolf was being hurt again.

It had never recovered from the fire.

It had already been fading.

And now this.

Now he was driving wolfsbane draught straight through what little remained.

I could feel that fragile part of me collapsing.

The piece that had barely kept me standing until now.

That was when the hurt turned to something worse.

Humiliation.

I had done nothing.

I had only wanted my father’s bracelet back.

Only wanted one last piece of Nightvale before I walked away.

He destroyed it.

Then he destroyed what was left of me.

“Selene suffered when she swallowed it,” Ronan said.

His eyes never changed.

“You should know how that feels.”

I curled on the floor, blood and medicine burning my throat.

Every breath felt like fire.

My vision blurred.

Sound drained away.

But I still heard him speak.

“Elara. I’ll have my mother sever the claim.”

“I was wrong.”

“I should have chosen Selene from the beginning.”

Tears slid down my face.

Not for him.

For myself.

For the version of me that had dragged herself to the Moon Shrine over and over again, still believing one day he would choose me.

He never looked back when he left.

None of them did.

No one cared whether I lived through the night.

I lay there shaking, curled up like a wolf with a broken spine, and let the dark take me.

At least this time, the choice was already made.

I had made it for him.

Ronan

“Miss Selene’s life-scent has stabilized. The amount she took was not enough to kill her. She’ll wake soon.”

The private healer’s words finally loosened the fist around Ronan’s chest.

But his mind was still chaos.

He could still see her on that bed.

Still feel the fear of almost losing her.

Then another face flashed through his mind.

Elara.

She had swallowed a large amount of wolfsbane draught too.

Ronan went still.

Cold hit him all at once.

In the panic over Selene, he had forgotten Elara completely.

He turned sharply to the men behind him.

“Where is Elara?”

“Did you send her to the healers’ hall?”

“Get someone there now. Have the healers perform a purging rite. This ends tonight.”

No one answered.

The silence turned ugly.

At last, one of them lowered his head.

“Alpha... you never ordered us to take Miss Elara to the healers’ hall.”

“We followed your command.”

“We left her there.”

Ronan froze.