Chapter 6

When Celine got back to Redridge from the warden post, Warren was already waiting in the Ancestral Fire hall.

The wolfsbane still in her made every step feel like walking over shards of silver. Warren did not offer her a chair. He slammed the wardens' investigation receipt onto the table.

"Withdraw it."

"Once an independent investigation is registered, only the wardens can close it."

"Then tell them you were mistaken." Warren lowered his voice. "Poison appearing during a trial doesn't prove attempted murder. Cassandra is the Redridge heir. Forcing her to submit to questioning by outside wardens will ruin her reputation."

Delia sat to one side, her eyes swollen and red. "She fainted again when she learned you had filed a report. Celine, how much more damage do you intend to do to this family?"

Celine looked at them. She was the one who had been poisoned. She was the one who had nearly lost her wolf form. Yet to them, the true victim was still Cassandra.

"All I said was that there was poison on the route token. Why are you all so sure an investigation will destroy her?"

Warren's face went completely cold. "Because you've been jealous of her since you were small."

"Jealous of what? Jealous that she sits in my seat on my birth moon, that she takes my moon maps, or jealous that when I was dying you couldn't spare one sliver of her essence?"

Gavin entered and pulled the hall doors shut behind him. "Enough. You think using the Council as a shield means you can ignore pack law?"

Two guards moved up at once. Moonbinding chains closed on Celine's wrists and the cold force of them pressed into her bones. The wolf form inside her lost its voice instantly.

Warren walked to the ancestral fire and took down the whip only an Alpha had the right to use.

"Refusing requisition. Going to outside wardens on your own. Slandering the heir. Any one of them earns punishment."

"Council law forbids packs from punishing wolf-soul carriers without trial."

"This is Redridge," Warren said. "Until a warden sets foot in this territory, you're my daughter first."

The first stroke landed across her back and split the old wound open on the spot. The chains dragged Celine to her knees, and blood quickly soaked through her clothes.

Delia turned her face away. "Admit you were wrong, and your father will stop."

Celine raised her head. Pain shook her voice, but she did not beg. "You keep calling me your daughter. Is a daughter hidden in a side wing and drained whenever her sister needs her? Is a daughter denied a place at the Moon Feast, denied new clothes, and told even her own maps are a waste?"

The second stroke came down.

"You didn't raise a daughter." She swallowed the taste of blood. "You raised a reserve of wolf soul. When you need me, you call. When you don't, I'm worthless to you. You don't care whether I live or die."

"You still dare talk back!" Warren shouted.

Celine met his eyes. "Are you angry because I finally said aloud what all of you were thinking?"

Warren snapped, "How did I end up with a daughter like you? No ambition at all—only endless fussing over those useless scraps of paper. And still you refuse to give anything to this family's heir!"

"You're selfish through and through, you have no vision at all, and you don't deserve to be my daughter!"

Warren was lifting the whip for the third stroke when the doors of the Ancestral Fire hall were smashed open.

The doors struck the stone walls, spraying splinters across the floor. Rafe stormed in with Blackwood guards and saw Celine at once: on her knees in chains, blood soaking the back of her clothes. His Alpha scent exploded through the hall, and every torch flame shrank.

"Who gave you permission to touch her?" Rafe tore the whip from Warren's hand, wrenched the moonbinding chains apart, and swept Celine into his arms. He held her desperately tight, his face pressed to her neck. "Celine. Look at me. I'm here. Do not be afraid."

He cupped her face, put his forehead to hers, and brushed his nose against hers, his breath shockingly hot. "My little wolf, I'm right here. Anyone who touches you again won't live to see the next full moon."

He turned and glared at Warren, and the fir and rust of him nearly smothered the ancestral fire. "She's my mate and I love her. Touch her again and it's war with Blackwood."

In her first life, Celine might have clung to those words as a lifeline.

Then a scent bead lit up. Cassandra's attendant sobbed that the eclipse had returned, that Cassandra had heard the argument—and that she had stopped breathing.

Rafe's body went stiff. The arm clamped around her waist tightened first, and then it let go.

He looked down at her, the red not yet gone from his eyes, and his lips moved.

"Go," Celine said.

"Let me get you back to your room first."

"There's no need." Celine forced herself upright on the broken chains, blood running down her back to her waist. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Every time, you tell me you love me. Then she calls, and you turn away. Stop saying it, Rafe. Your choices tell the truth your mouth never will."

He still wanted to explain, and the second distress bead lit up.

In the end, Rafe handed her to an attendant and sprinted from the hall.

Celine watched him go. Thirty-six hours until the Tide Gate opened.

This time she was not waiting for him to come back.