Chapter 2

As soon as my wounds healed a little, I started looking for ways to get close to Kane.

The Graypine pack relied on its strong warriors and left many smaller jobs to low-ranking wolves. I started by helping the healer. I cut the bandage cloth the hunters had left behind into shorter strips that were easier to wrap around wounds. Then I dried several kinds of herbs and made little pouches the guards could carry, just as I used to.

Kane used to come back from the border covered in wounds. I'd treated them more times than I could count. I knew which herbs he was allergic to. I also knew not to use water that was too hot when the cold made his old injuries ache. Now he was using medicine I'd prepared once again, and he even praised how careful I was in front of the healer.

"This is a good idea," he said. "Where did you learn it?"

"I used to make them for someone who was always getting hurt." I looked at him. "He had a terrible temper, and he'd never admit it hurt."

Kane's eyes lingered on my face. My heart was racing as I waited for him to ask more.

But he only told the healer to give me extra pay.

Next I went to the kitchen. I made roasted pears, honey meat pies, and cheese with wild berries, chilled in mountain spring water during the hottest days of summer. I'd once made them all for him. Back then, I cared for the wounded on the pack's border and ran a few shops in the human town, so I rarely had time to cook. Kane always said anything I cooked for him stayed with him for a whole year.

Now he tasted the treats I brought him and finally smiled. "Leah, you know what I like better than those old cooks do."

He moved me into his personal service and put me in charge of his meals and clothing. I was a little closer to him now. Sometimes at night, when I heard him settle territory disputes, I remembered the days we used to sit by the fire and talk things over together.

Selena found out soon enough.

"A low-ranking servant trying to climb into the Alpha's bed?" She called me over in front of everyone and made a point of pinching my chin. "Don't think a few dishes will win you Ivy's place."

Before I could say a word, Kane came over. When he saw that Selena was upset, he soothed her first, then turned and told Grant, the pack steward, to send me back to the kitchen.

"She's just a servant," he said. "There's no need to get upset over her."

My clenched fists slowly loosened. I'd been his mate, and now one careless sentence from him had knocked me back down to the very bottom.

A few days later, Kane drank too much hard liquor at a moonlit gathering. His stomach was so upset that he wouldn't touch anything anyone brought him. I made a small bowl of roasted-pear soup with honey and took it to his bedside myself.

Once, he'd returned from negotiations with a border Alpha so drunk he could barely stand, and he wouldn't let the healer near him. That was the first time I'd made roasted-pear soup to help him sober up. When he finished the soup, he grabbed my hand and said he'd never forget the taste as long as he lived.

Now Kane took one sip, and his fingers suddenly tightened.

"Who taught you this?"

I hardly dared to breathe. "I used to make it for the most important person in my life."

He looked at me for a long time, then suddenly set the bowl down. "Did you overhear someone talking about Ivy? Are you trying to copy her habits to win me over?"

For a moment I couldn't say anything.

Not long after, Kane fell ill. The healer found a little wolfsbane in his drinking water. It wasn't enough to kill him, but it left him weak for two weeks. Selena insisted it had been in the cold drinks I'd prepared. She had me dragged into the courtyard and whipped with silver again.

I swore I hadn't poisoned him, but Selena had the guards lock me in a windowless storeroom anyway and cut off my food and water. The silver wounds wouldn't heal. By the third day, I couldn't even crawl to the door. I thought the system was going to send me back to the human world again.

Mia found Grant, broke in, and got me out. The pack healer treated my wounds with a solution that drew out the silver poison. That was the only reason I survived.

After Kane recovered, he came by once. He listened as Mia tearfully told him what had happened, but he only frowned, scolded Selena mildly, and told me to rest until I was well enough to return to the kitchen.

"How could the Alpha do this?" Mia was shaking with anger. "You almost died, and she didn't even get confined to her room!"

Another servant tugged at her sleeve and whispered, "Elder Evelyn raised Selena as her own. We're just low-ranking wolves. How could we ever be treated the same?"

I didn't argue. While I was too hurt to work, I started a small vegetable patch in the backyard. I also took in a little gray hound that had been hurt in a hunter's trap. It limped after me wherever I went. I named it Ash.

I'd always enjoyed growing vegetables, even though I never cared much for eating them. When Mia helped me water them, she'd wait until no one else was looking and softly call me "Luna Ivy."

That day, Kane happened to walk into the backyard. He saw my vegetable patch, then Ash circling around me, and he stood there for a long time.

"Did you know Ivy before?" he suddenly asked.

"I did." I looked up and met his eyes on purpose. "And I knew her very well."

I thought that this time, he'd finally recognize me.