Chapter 4

Silas realized at once that something was wrong. He raced along the riverbank and ordered the pack to seal every possible exit downstream.

The current had carried me a few miles downstream into the shallows, and my body was numb from the freezing water. Before I could regain consciousness, Silas tracked what remained of my scent and found me.

I survived. But the pup in Lyla's belly didn't.

The force of the rapids had torn away the bargaining chip she loved to flaunt.

Two weeks later, a small stone cairn stood among the pines on the hill behind the pack's territory.

Lyla knelt in the mud, her eyes red and swollen, her hair a wild mess.

"She has to kneel!"

Lyla screamed, her voice raw and ragged. "She killed your heir! I want her on her knees in front of this cairn, begging my baby's forgiveness!"

The pack elders chimed in too. "Harming an unborn pup is one of the pack's gravest taboos. She has to pay for what she did!"

"If we let a crime like this slide, who's going to respect pack law after this?" another elder added.

I stood in the cutting wind in a thin black dress, watching the pathetic spectacle without a flicker of emotion.

"Your jealousy killed your baby. You're the one who jumped off that cliff."

To calm Lyla, who was close to breaking, and silence the elders, Silas slowly turned toward me and brought the full weight of his Alpha command down on my shoulders.

My knees slammed into the gravel. Sharp pain shot through me, and blood seeped from the cuts.

I clenched my teeth and made no sound. I only stared Silas down.

The next second, Lyla rushed at me and raked her claws across my cheek.

Pain blazed through my face as my skin tore open. I did not cry. I memorized every face around me.

Back at the pack house, I was locked in my room, and Lyla's revenge didn't stop.

She invaded my private rooms, shredded every fine gown with her claws, smashed open my jewelry box, and stole every bone carving and gem that marked my rank.

Silas turned a blind eye. He simply looked at me and said, "As long as you admit you were wrong, I'll get your things back for you."

I never answered. I didn't even bother to look at him again.

When I still refused to submit, he used Lyla's recovery as an excuse to leave and helped her into a car headed for the camp.

As it pulled away, Lyla smugly gave me the finger through the window.

I watched the car disappear at the edge of the forest, then slowly straightened up.

The wound on my cheek should have taken days to heal. Instead, it scabbed over before my eyes, and the scab peeled away.

The near-fatal rapids had flushed five years of wolfsbane from my body and broken its hold over me.

The power buried inside me began to awaken. The fog in my mind lifted, taking the last of my anguish over Silas with it.

It was time to call the man who was truly mine.

I walked out onto the balcony and crushed the surveillance crystal Silas had left there.

Then I closed my eyes, poured the full force of my mind into the pack's magical communications network, and sent out a howl that cut through the clouds and shook the entire North.

When that ancient howl echoed, I spoke into the empty air.

"I'm here, Elias."