Chapter 2

After she left, Garrett let out a sigh. "Cain. It's Wednesday. Iris didn't bring the tea. With rogues this bold lately, I don't like it. Send your Beta out to the cottage. Just to check."

Cain laughed, short and ugly.

"Check on her? She heard about Selene's ceremony tonight, and now she's sulking in that shack, cooking up something to ruin it. She called me three times last week, for nothing, and I didn't pick up because I was sick of it. Now she won't even show up tonight? That's the whole point. She's trying to get a reaction out of me."

Garrett's eyes widened. He was about to push back when Cain's phone lit up again.

Selene calling.

"Lena." The second he picked up, the temper went out of him. His voice dropped, gentle in a way he almost never was. "Hey. Don't worry. I'll be back before the ceremony starts."

"Cain." Her voice came through wet and fragile, exactly the kind of voice that made him want to fix things. "The healing crystals for tonight's ceremony are gone. Iris came into my room last night, and after she left, the drawer was empty. Without the crystals, I can't go through with the rite."

"She wouldn't." Cain's eyes went dark. He spoke through his teeth. "When I get back, I'll use an Alpha command, and she'll hand them over. And if she ruins your ceremony, I'll have her on her knees in front of the entire pack, apologizing to you."

My soul screamed soundlessly above them. Those crystals, that whole system, were the core of our family's healing tradition. I'd been at our father's knee from the time I was five. I'd spent twenty years learning it, piece by piece.

Selene had spent the last two years sneaking my apprentice notes and copying them, line for line. And now I was the one stealing from her?

Before she hung up, Selene slipped it in like an afterthought.

"Cain, on Sunday, after the ceremony? I want to visit my father's memorial up at the northern border. The Alpha stone. Will you come with me?"

That memorial was less than two miles from the abandoned outpost where they'd butchered me.

"Yes," he said, without hesitation. "I'll go with you."

My eyes went wide. That place was a kill zone, the rogues had it laced with traps.

I lunged at him, desperate to grab his arm, shake him, warn him, but my hands closed on nothing. My soul passed straight through his chest.

After he hung up, Garrett's brow was drawn tight.

He called over a guard. "Get out to the cottage on the east side. Check on Iris. Now. Something's wrong, I can feel it."

"Don't bother." Cain waved him off, impatient. "We still haven't ID'd the she-wolf in the woods. I don't have time for whatever jealous tantrum Iris is throwing."

He turned on his heel and walked back into the morgue.

At the cold steel table, he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and went back to examining the body.

Then his hands stopped.

His eyes locked on the side of the neck, on what was left of it. Under the fresh cuts, half-destroyed, there was still the faint shape of an old scar, a jagged upward tear. Classic rogue claw mark.

His breathing changed. He was sixteen and I was twelve. He'd taken me with him on a patrol of the northwest border. They'd been ambushed.

I'd half-shifted, thrown myself in front of him, and taken the killing blow meant for him.

He was the only person in the world who knew where that scar came from, or what it looked like.

His knuckles hovered just above the ruined skin, trembling. He was about to touch it.

I remembered that night, after he'd dragged us both home alive, when he was bandaging me. His hands had shaken the same way.

His eyes had been red. His voice had cracked. Iris, it should've been me. I'd take it instead, if I could.

I held my breath. Would he recognize me?

Then the video call rang, sharp and loud. The screen lit up with our aunt's name.

She started talking before he'd fully answered. "Cain, still nothing from Iris? She messages me every other day. It's been three days now. I can't sit still anymore."

My name was like a switch being flipped. The flicker of doubt he'd just felt vanished, replaced by something cold and sour.

He thought I was working an angle, that I'd dragged an elder in to pressure him. The kind of indirect, manipulative move he'd refuse to fall for.

"Hasn't she played this game enough?" He let out a cold scoff. His hand jerked back from the scar. He yanked the body bag zipper shut.

"She's sulking. Turned her phone off, hiding so she can ruin tonight's ceremony." He cut our aunt off, eyes drifting sideways to a dark silver cloak folded on the table.

Our aunt had brought it. From me.

I'd worried Selene's outfit for tonight wouldn't meet the old Sterling protective standards, so I'd spent the last two nights weaving him this cloak, reinforced with the traditional ceremonial wards.

His fingers caught the collar and lifted it. His eyes landed on the inside, on a small herb pattern embroidered in silver thread. My healer's mark.

I'd stitched it into everything I'd ever made for him, since we were kids.

He stared at it for a long moment. Then, expression flat, he folded the cloak up and tossed it aside.

He walked out without looking back.

Outside the morgue, news came in from the field. A pack of rogues had just hit a small allied pack to the north.

A stretcher was being carried in when one of the wounded, a Gamma soaked in blood, grabbed Cain's wrist and held on. In the raid, he'd put his body between his little sister and a rogue's claws. It had gone right through his chest.

"Please…" he rasped, eyes locked on Cain. "Take her in. To Sterling. Please, Alpha. Keep her safe."

Cain dropped to one knee in the pooling blood, expression solemn. He spoke an Alpha command in the old form, a blood oath sworn on his own life, to protect a girl he'd never met.

My soul drifted above them, somewhere between laughing and crying.

Once upon a time, that twelve-year-old who'd thrown herself in front of rogue claws had had an Alpha brother who couldn't stand to see her hurt either.

But that brother had been dead for a long time. To this version of him, I wasn't even worth a single hair on the head of some Gamma's sister he'd never met.