Chapter 3

"Mother!" Selene's voice rang through the whole house. "Mother, come quickly! You have to see this!"

I tried to cover my neck again, but she grabbed both my wrists. Her nails dug into my skin. Downstairs the music stopped. Heavy steps came up the back stairs, and a moment later my stepmother Vivienne filled the doorway in her green silk dress, a glass of wine still in her hand.

"What is all this noise? Our guests can hear you."

"Look at her neck," Selene sang. "The wolfless freak has been busy."

Vivienne's eyes dropped to my neck. The glass slipped from her fingers and broke on the tiles. She did not even look at it.

For three seconds nobody spoke. Then she crossed the room, took my chin in her cold hand, and turned my head toward the light.

"Close the door, Selene."

"But Father should know."

"Close it."

Selene obeyed, pouting. Vivienne kept staring at the mark. She did not look angry, and that scared me more. She looked like a woman doing sums.

"Who did this to you?" she asked, very quietly.

"I do not know."

The slap came so fast I never saw it. My cheek burned and my ears rang.

"Do not lie to me. I raised you under my roof."

"I am not lying," I said. Tears stung my eyes. "It was dark. I never saw his face. Rogues attacked me at the Weeping Spring, and he saved me, and then it just happened."

Selene laughed. "She was rescued by a stranger and thanked him like a cheap girl."

"Be quiet," Vivienne snapped, and Selene's smile slipped. My stepmother turned back to me. "Do you know what you have done? In Hollowmere, a girl who takes a mark without her Alpha's blessing is a traitor. Your father would have to stand in front of the whole pack and speak the sentence himself. Do you know what it is?"

I knew. Everyone knew. I could only nod.

"Then I will ask once more. Which wolf?"

"I do not know. I swear it on my mother's life."

That made her pause. Something shifted behind her eyes, and I understood that she was afraid. Not for me. For herself.

"Mother, tell Father," Selene pushed. "Let everyone see her shame."

"Tonight? Are you stupid?" Vivienne spun around. "Dorian's father is downstairs drinking our wine. Tomorrow morning he will announce your mating to the whole pack. Do you want a traitor scandal in this house on the very night you rise? Do you want them asking how a Gamma could not control one useless daughter?"

Selene's mouth opened and closed.

"Not one word. Not to your father, not to Dorian, not to your friends. Go downstairs and smile."

Selene shot me a look full of poison and left. Vivienne pulled a key from her sleeve. I heard it turn from the outside.

I sat on my bed and shook. I do not know for how long. The party sounds crept back through the floor. Plates. Laughter. Another toast to Selene.

At last I looked in the cracked mirror on my wall. A red handprint on my cheek. Leaves in my hair. And on my neck, the mark.

It was changing.

I leaned closer. The edges were going soft. The deep red turned pink, then pale, as if someone were wiping it away from the inside. I touched it. It was warm. It sank into my skin like a coin sinking into water, and in less than a minute my neck was smooth. No scar. No bruise. Nothing at all.

I pressed my fingers to the place and felt a slow, steady pulse, like a second heartbeat. It was still there. I just could not see it.

Deep inside me, in that quiet house, something held very still. Like an animal hiding.

I did not sleep. At dawn the key turned, and Vivienne came in with her hair undone and dark shadows under her eyes. She had not slept either. She said nothing. She grabbed my face, pushed my hair aside, and rubbed my neck with a wet cloth until the skin turned red.

Nothing.

"Selene lied," I said weakly. "Maybe it was only a bruise."

"I saw it with my own eyes." Her voice was flat. "A mark does not vanish in one night. Not unless..."

She stopped and let go of me. For a long moment she stared at the wall. When she spoke again, her voice had changed. It was low, and almost excited.

"Do you want to know what I heard at the party, Mira? Just after midnight, a man pounded on Alpha Leon's door. He was the Beta of Blackfang Pack. His Alpha had been hunting rogues near our border. He wanted permission to search our land. Do you know why?"

My mouth went dry.

"Because his Alpha had marked a woman in our forest, and by morning she was gone."

The room tilted.

"A bite that deep," Vivienne went on softly, "in our forest, on the same night. I am not a fool, girl. Only one wolf in all the packs would be so careless and so sure of himself. Alpha Kael Draven."

I had heard the name before. Everyone had. The Butcher of Nine Packs. They said he had burned a dozen packs off the map. They said he never smiled and never forgave. Mothers used his name to frighten children into bed.

"No," I whispered. "That cannot be."

"Can it not?" She tilted her head. "Tell me, did he smell of cedar smoke and rain?"

I could not answer. I did not need to. She read it in my face, and she smiled.

I did not know if she was right. I knew only that part of me was terrified, and another part, a small, stupid, dangerous part, hoped that she was.

"He will not stop looking," Vivienne said. "A man like that does not lose what belongs to him. He will tear every house in Hollowmere apart until he finds her. And I have decided how it will go."

"What do you mean?"

She stood up and smoothed her dress.

"Dorian Ashe is a boy with a small pack and big dreams. Kael Draven is a king. Selene will not be a Luna of Ashfall, Mira. She will be the Luna of Blackfang."

"But he marked me!"

"He marked a girl with no face and no name," Vivienne said. "And my daughter will be the one to walk forward and claim it. You will say nothing. You will stay locked in this room until the Alpha has chosen, and you will thank me for keeping you alive."

"And if I refuse?"

She bent until her face was an inch from mine. Her perfume was sweet and heavy and made me feel sick.

"Then I will tell the Butcher that a wolfless servant's daughter lied her way into his bed. And I will watch him decide what to do with you."

She walked out and locked the door behind her.

I sat in the pale morning light with my hand over the secret on my neck. Somewhere out there, a man was searching for me. And inside my own home, a woman was about to take the only thing that had ever been mine.