Chapter 5

When Celine woke, the moon outside the window had moved only half a pane.

She had been unconscious for three hours.

A stranger was stitching the wound behind her shoulder with a bone needle. Her cloak smelled of wind and distant snow, and small silver vials of powder lined her belt.

"Hold still," the woman said. "I only just brought the poison under control. Another fifteen minutes, and you'd never have managed a full shift again."

"Did you save me?"

"Evelyn Hart. Itinerant healer." The woman tied off the stitch, her tone flat. "I was passing through Redridge when I heard everyone in the healing den debating whether the heir could spare any essence. Imagine that. One woman was dying, and they were still calculating whether the other might miss a party."

Celine closed her eyes for a moment. Rafe sat beside the bed, dark bruises beneath his eyes and his lips dry and cracked, as if he had kept watch all night. When he saw her wake, he jerked forward like a man breaking the surface after being held underwater.

"You're awake. That's all that matters." He caught her hand and squeezed too hard, his knuckles whitening before he hurriedly eased his grip. "You scared me to death. You really did."

He gathered her against him, blanket and all, and pressed his chin to her temple, breathing hard and fast. "I've sent for the finest moon crystal. It will be here tomorrow. I'm staying with you for a month while you recover, and you're not going anywhere. No one will let you near another dangerous trial, little wolf. I'll never let you be hurt again."

His chest was against her while he spoke, and she could feel his heart going far too fast. He truly did look terrified.

But Celine heard what he did not say. Every promise was about what he would prevent next time. Not one word was about who had poisoned her this time.

Evelyn gave a humorless laugh. "She wasn't poisoned by accident. Someone smeared wolfsbane resin on an object they knew she would touch. If you truly want to protect her, start by finding the person who did it."

Rafe's expression stiffened. "Cassandra gave her the route token because she wanted her to run the trial."

"Interesting. I didn't name anyone." Evelyn watched him steadily. "You were the one who rushed to defend her."

Leaning against him, Celine felt the arm around her go rigid for a heartbeat. Then it slackened.

He did not ask who had done it. He was defending Cassandra.

The cave went quiet. Rafe opened his mouth and shut it again. Celine turned her head aside and looked at the halo the moonstone lamp threw on the wall instead of at him.

Rafe shifted closer on the edge of the bed and took Celine's uninjured hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. "I know this feels unforgivably unfair. You nearly died, and no one was more desperate than I was. But Cassandra... she once saved my life."

Celine finally turned her face to him.

"Do you remember Blackwood territory? The year I was named Alpha heir, the pressure became too much. I ran into the Moon Wood alone and got lost." Rafe lowered his eyes. "If Cassandra hadn't led me out that night, I might have frozen to death. She left me half a button. I've worn it ever since."

He touched the thin cord at his collar, and his voice softened. "So when she does something wrong, I can't treat her the way I'd treat anyone else. She saved me. Can you understand that?"

Celine looked at him.

She had heard that speech in her first life more than once. Whenever she tried to expose Cassandra's lies, Rafe answered with the same story. Celine had argued. She had given him every detail of that night in the Moon Wood: the mud beneath the mask, his split knee, the blood on her fingers when a branch tore the button loose.

But Cassandra only had to look hurt, shed a few tears, and say the right thing. Rafe would turn to Celine with disappointment in his eyes.

Then he would use that lecturing tone on her. "As my wife, you shouldn't be this petty, and you shouldn't lie."

She had lived it, argued it, and learned exactly how useless every explanation was.

"All right," she said. "I understand."

Rafe seemed to breathe out. He bent and kissed her fingertips. "I knew my little wolf was the sensible one."

Evelyn packed her vials nearby, metal clinking bright and cold. She said nothing. But as she passed the bed, she slipped a small roll of gauze into Celine's palm.

Celine closed her fingers around the gauze and did not look at Rafe.

She understood. How could she not? She knew better than anyone who had been in that wood, because it had been her from beginning to end. She had put on the mask beneath the moonlight. She had led him step by step through the shadows and out of the maze. Her button had torn loose as she climbed the wall; her bleeding fingers had retrieved it from the mud. Four years had passed, and Rafe had replaced the cord around his neck twice. She knew that, too.

But saying it would not make him believe her. She had already tried in her last life.

That brief answer was enough to placate him. She watched Rafe rise to pour water, relief in every line of his back now that he believed the matter settled. At the table, the cord slipped from his collar, and half a silver laurel button flashed in the lamplight.

Celine looked down at the faint old scar in her palm.

She was not going to say it a second time.

Rafe did not even last until dawn. A scent bead kept heating in his pocket. He ignored it twice, but on the third summons he opened his hand. An image rose above his palm: Cassandra dancing very close to Whitepine's young Alpha. The caption read, At least someone still wants to make me smile.

Rafe's scent went sharp in an instant.

"I have to go out. I'll be back soon."

Celine did not ask where he was going. In her first life, she would have caught his sleeve, told him how much she hurt, and begged him to stay through the night she was weakest. This time, she moved her hand aside and made it easy for him to leave.

Rafe paused anyway. "Do you have nothing to say to me?"

"I do." Celine looked at him. "Shut the door."

After the stone door closed, Evelyn set a sealed vial by the bed. Inside it was wolfsbane residue scraped from the lines of Celine's palm, with a few pink-silver flecks settled at the bottom.

"That's laurel powder left over from the mixing. Every healer uses a different ratio. It can be traced."

Celine pushed herself upright. "Would you testify?"

Evelyn gave her a serious look. "As long as the Redridge Alpha isn't the one running the investigation."

Before dawn, Celine pulled on a cloak and slipped through the healing den's back entrance toward the Moon Council warden post. The night-duty warden compared the sealed residue with the palm print on the record stone and confirmed that the scents matched.

"Once a case is opened, everyone involved gets questioned," the warden warned. "Including the Redridge heir. Your Alpha may put pressure on you."

"I know."

"You still want to file for an independent investigation?"

Celine signed her name. "Yes."

She had less than forty-eight hours left.

Before she left, she wanted to make sure that this attempt on her life could never be called an accident again.