Chapter 5

His jaw worked. He looked half out of his mind.

"You're the only person I can think of."

Felicity started slamming her forehead on the floor.

"Mercy, if you hate someone, hate me, just don't hurt Noah. Give him back and I'll leave Dominic, I'll go away, I swear, please—"

"Stop."

Dominic hauled her up and turned on me with his eyes burning gold.

"Everyone's begging you. Everyone. And you just sit there."

He took a breath.

"When did you get so cruel, Mercy?"

I went still.

I was fifteen, and Felicity had whined until I took her out with me. She wandered off and got lost.

My mother hit me just like this, in front of the whole house. "Why couldn't it have been you?" They said I'd lost her on purpose. They said I was vicious. By that night I half believed it myself.

A boy came through the crowd and stood in front of me.

"Leave her alone. Mercy would never hurt anyone. Not ever."

They found Felicity the next morning. She'd gone to a fair and stayed out for fun. The whole family fussed over her for days, and only Dominic came and sat with me on the back steps.

He said he would always be on my side. He said he would always believe me, no matter what.

My eyes spilled over.

His phone rang.

"Alpha Cross, this is the Council enforcers' station. We have a location on your son. We need you here now."

"I'm coming."

They ran, all of them, and the door swung behind them on its hinge.

I looked at the empty room for a while. Then I wiped my face, got dressed, and took a cab to the nearest law office.

"I want to file a rejection petition with the Council. I want this finished."

The lawyer asked a few questions. He took my mating certificate, the one with the Council seal that I'd kept folded in my passport for five years, and he studied it for a long time. Then he typed something into his computer.

"Ms. Thorne, this certificate is fake."

He turned the screen around so I could see the Council registry.

Mercy Thorne. Status: unmated.

Dominic Cross. Status: mated. Mate: Felicity Thorne.

I looked at my sister's name.

I started to laugh, and halfway through it stopped being a laugh.

So it was all fake, then. Right down to the paper.

Fine.

That saved me a trip to the Council.

"Thank you," I said. "Sorry to take up your time."

I had my passport on me, and my wallet. I took another cab straight to the airport.

"The next flight out, please. I don't care where."

I went through security without looking back and took my seat.

* * *

As the plane broke through the clouds, Dominic was walking out of the enforcers' station with one arm around Felicity, who had Noah locked against her chest.

They had the whole story by then.

A rival from the Red Hollow Pack had done it. The Crosses and Thornes had ruined his business a month ago, and he'd paid two rogues to walk in with the caterers the morning after the birthday party, when the house was still full of strangers, and take the boy.

Felicity had noticed almost right away. Noah had been smart enough to scream at a gas station.

The enforcers got to him in time. He was frightened and unhurt.

"He's okay," Felicity kept saying. She couldn't stop shaking. "He's okay, he's okay."

Dominic held them both. "We're going home."

"I still say this is Mercy's fault." Lillian Thorne hadn't taken her eyes off her grandson. "If she hadn't shown up and made that scene, those men never would have had their chance. She did this to him."

Dominic frowned.

"Exactly," Julian said. "She's got no sense at all. And that pup she's carrying can't stay. We go back there tonight and make her get rid of it."

"That's enough."

Dominic's voice went cold, and it was the Alpha's voice. Julian's mouth shut before he'd decided to shut it.

"We're the ones who wronged Mercy. She had nothing to do with today. As for her pup, I'll deal with that myself."

He took Noah and walked away from all of them.

That night, once the boy had finally cried himself to sleep, Dominic took the chicken soup the housekeeper had made and drove to the hospital. He stopped at the flower shop downstairs and bought the white roses she liked.

He pushed open her door with the soup in one hand.

"Mer, you need to eat—"

The room was dark.

The blanket was folded in a neat square at the foot of the bed.

The roses hit the floor, and petals went everywhere.