chapter 7

Daisy

I made him stop. I don't know how. Maybe it was the whiskey on his tongue. Maybe it was the voice in my head screaming plaything, plaything, plaything until it drowned out Nyx's howling. I shoved his chest and turned my face away.

"Get out," I said.

He stared at me in the dark, breathing hard. Then he laughed softly, like I'd just told the funniest joke in the world.

"That's my line," he said. He got up and left. He didn't slam the door. Somehow that was worse.

I lay awake until dawn, touching my lips and hating myself so much I could barely breathe. He had a Luna. He had a ceremony in a month. And two years ago, he stood on that balcony and told his sister and his Beta that I was something to use and throw away. Nothing had changed. Nothing.

'He cried,' Nyx whispered.

'Drunk men cry.'

'He said he did it on purpose. He said he wanted us gone. Why would he want us gone if...'

'I don't care why,' I snapped. 'Be quiet.'

She went quiet. But I could feel her sulking, curled up tight around the ache in my chest. Four pills left.

That evening, the whole pack gathered in the great hall for dinner. Celeste's father had come down from the Crescent territory, and there were toasts and speeches and far too much wine. I was supposed to stay upstairs with Helena, but Helena squeezed my hand and pushed me toward the door.

"Go," she whispered.

"Eat something, sweetheart. You're too thin again."

I wasn't. But I went anyway, because she asked. I sat at the very end of the staff table. I kept my head down. It didn't matter.

Celeste stood up halfway through dessert, tapping her glass with a spoon.

"I just want to say," she said with a bright smile,

"how grateful we all are to Rose, our little miracle healer. She saved Mother Helena's life. Isn't that sweet?" Polite clapping. My stomach knotted.

"And she's been working so hard," Celeste went on.

"Day and night. Even in the middle of the night." She turned to me, eyes glittering.

"Tell me, Rose, do you always heal men with your mouth, or just the Alpha?"

The whole hall went silent. Someone laughed. Then another person. Then a dozen whispers spread through the room like poison.

My face burned. My hands shook in my lap. I looked down at my plate and blinked hard, and for one horrible second, I was eighteen again, sitting at that breakfast table while everyone laughed at the stray.

Then a chair scraped back. Lucien stood up at the head of the table. He didn't look at Celeste. He looked at the man who laughed first. A young warrior near the middle of the room.

"Something funny, Marcus?" he asked.

Marcus went pale. "No, Alpha."

"Then why are you still smiling?"

Marcus wiped his face clean so fast it was almost comical. Lucien finally turned to Celeste. His voice was calm. That was the scary part.

"Sit down," he said.

"Lucien, babe, I was only joking..."

"Sit. Down."

She sat. Across the table, Seraphina stared at her brother like she'd never seen him before. Celeste's father cleared his throat and reached for his wine. Nobody else dared to move.

He didn't say another word. He didn't defend me. He didn't explain anything. He simply picked up his glass and drank, and the hall stayed dead silent around him.

I couldn't breathe in there anymore. I got up and walked out.

The rose garden behind the house was dark and cold. I made it all the way to the old stone fountain before my legs gave out and I sat down hard on the edge. My breath came in short, ugly gasps.

I was not going to cry over him. Not again. Never again. I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.

This was what I came back to. A house where everyone laughed at me. A sister who'd always hated me. A man who kissed me in the dark and let his future wife humiliate me in the light.

I should have stayed at Moonstone. I should have let them send me to the northern border with the rest of my class, where nobody knew my name and nobody cared.

But then Helena would have died alone, calling for a girl who never came. I hated him for that too. For making it impossible to stay away.

'You don't hate him,' Nyx said softly.

'I do.'

'Then why are we still here?' I didn't have an answer for her.

Somewhere behind me, the music in the hall started again. Laughter. Clinking glasses. Like nothing had happened. Like I was nothing. I always was, in this house.

"You left your food," he said behind me. I didn't turn around.

"Go back inside. Your Luna's waiting."

"She's not my Luna."

"She's sitting in your lap every morning, Lucien. She just told your whole pack I'm your whore."

He grabbed my arm and pulled me up off the fountain. I stumbled into him, and he backed me up against the trunk of the old oak tree until the bark dug into my spine.

"Say my name again," he said. I froze, I'd called him Lucien. Not Alpha. Lucien. The way I used to.

"Alpha," I corrected, my heart slamming.

"Let go of me."

"No." He pressed closer, his body hard against mine.

"I don't want her. I've never wanted her. That marriage is a treaty and a piece of paper and nothing else."

"Then why are you marrying her?" i found myself asking.

"Because the one I wanted is gone."

His mouth came down on mine. This time, I didn't push him away.

His hands slid down my waist and gripped my hips, lifting me until my feet left the ground and my legs wrapped around him. I dug my fingers into his hair. He growled into my mouth, low and rough, and the sound went straight through my body like lightning.

Nyx was howling. My skin was burning. His lips moved down my jaw to my throat, right over the spot where a mark would go, and his teeth grazed my skin.

"Mine," he breathed against my neck.

"Fuck. Why do you feel like mine?" Because I am. Because I always was. I almost said it. I almost told him everything right there against that tree.

Then a twig snapped in the dark. Lucien's head whipped around with a snarl. Nothing. Only shadows and the wind moving through the roses.

He dropped his forehead against mine, breathing hard.

"Go to bed, Rose," he said.

"Before I take you right here."

I ran. I didn't stop until I was in my room with my back against the door, my lips swollen and my whole body shaking.

Somebody was sitting on my bed. Damien, he was holding my bag in his lap. The lining was ripped open. Four little white pills sat in his open palm.

He looked up at me with those kind brown eyes, and his face was full of something that looked a lot like grief.

"Hello, Daisy," he said quietly.