Chapter 2

At 11 that night, a gray SUV pulled up at my back door.

Cecilia's people told me the car would take the old logging road. At the northernmost outpost in Holt territory, I'd be handed over to the Grant pack.

I didn't bring any luggage.

All I had with me was my mother's brooch and an old set of riding clothes.

Mia wanted to come with me.

"Stay here."

"Why?"

"If Damian finds out I'm gone, someone needs to tell him I just went home."

Mia's eyes welled up.

"If he'd ever been willing to listen to you, it wouldn't have come to this."

I was quiet for a moment.

"At least you won't have to suffer with me."

As the car pulled out of the eastern woods, I looked back at the lights of the Holt main house.

For the first time in seven years, not being able to smell Damian felt like a relief.

But half an hour later, I realized we were going the wrong way.

"This isn't the way to the north outpost."

The driver didn't answer.

I went straight for the door handle.

He jerked the wheel, and the car swerved onto an abandoned side road and stopped in front of an old ranger station.

The second my feet hit the ground, I caught a strange scent coming from behind me.

It wasn't just one person.

Two rogues stepped out of the shadows.

One of them grabbed my shoulder.

I reached back to claw at him, but my claws only extended halfway.

It felt like all the strength had suddenly drained from my body.

"Don't touch me!"

I kneed him, but the other rogue had already smeared an oily substance onto my collar and the side of my neck.

The sharp smell of a male wolf instantly masked my own scent.

Then I understood what they were trying to do.

"Who sent you?"

Nobody answered.

The other rogue pinned my head down, his teeth inches from my neck.

I grabbed a broken branch at my feet and struck him in the temple.

He swore and threw me to the ground.

My back slammed into the frozen dirt, and a sharp pain tore through my chest.

The smell of blood filled the air right away.

The next second, I heard engines and wolves howling in the distance.

Both rogues stiffened in alarm.

I froze too.

Damian got there fast.

He'd always come running whenever I got into trouble.

He practically jumped out of the car.

The look in his eyes changed the moment he saw the rogue pinning me down.

He didn't even ask what had happened. He just threw the man off me.

Even I winced at the dull thud of bone against the car door.

The other one tried to run, but the patrol wolves tackled him.

I leaned against the wall and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Damian..."

He turned around.

But he didn't check my injuries first.

His eyes landed on the side of my neck.

It reeked of an unfamiliar male wolf.

The rogue on the ground was still clutching a Holt territory pass.

I recognized it.

It was the pass I always used.

I'd put it in the box of things I was returning to Damian earlier that day.

Damian's expression slowly turned cold.

"Explain."

I was stunned.

"Cecilia arranged the car."

"I'm asking about this."

He stared at my neck.

"Why do you smell like someone else?"

"They put it on me."

"And the pass?"

"I don't know."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

"Evelyn, I got a voice message from your phone."

"What voice message?"

He had someone play it.

My own voice played through the speaker.

"I'm leaving you... to be with someone else... and live my own life."

Two seconds in, I knew it had been spliced together from old recordings.

"I didn't send that."

"Where's your phone?"

I felt my pockets.

Empty.

Damian clenched his jaw.

Suddenly I understood.

He'd come for me.

And he really had saved me.

But in the end, he still trusted the evidence someone had planted more than he trusted me.

"I just wanted to go home."

I stared at him.

"Cecilia planned the route."

The words were barely out of my mouth when more headlights appeared in the distance.

Cecilia stepped out of the car, bundled in a coat, her face pale.

"Evelyn!"

She hurried over.

"How did this happen?"

I looked at her.

"You arranged the car."

Cecilia stopped short.

"I was trying to get you back to Grant territory."

Her eyes slowly reddened.

"But your people stopped responding halfway through the trip. I have no idea how you ended up here."

She glanced at the rogue on the ground and said quietly, "Maybe... you just wanted out of the fated bond too badly."

That was all it took.

Damian's expression had begun to soften, but Cecilia's words made it harden again.

Suddenly I didn't want to say anything at all.

Back in Holt territory, he didn't take me to my cabin.

He took me to the old stone house.

Pack rules required anyone suspected of betraying their mate to be held in isolation.

When someone brought out a silver suppression cuff, the color drained from my face.

"I can't wear that."

Damian looked at me.

"It's only temporary."

"My wolf is already very weak."

"Then don't try to shift and run again."

I looked at him.

He didn't know what the medicine had done to me.

But in that moment, I didn't even have the strength to tell him.

The moment the cuff snapped shut, it felt as though a red-hot iron had been pressed against my wrist.

I dropped to my knees almost immediately.

Damian went pale.

"Evelyn?"

When I looked up, everything was going dark.

He finally had them take the cuff off.

But it had already left a purplish-red burn.

Damian crouched in front of me.

"Just admit you wanted to use another wolf to break our bond, and I'll take you back."

I looked at him for a long time.

"You know I wanted to leave."

"I know you were sulking."

"I asked you if I could go home."

He said nothing.

"You didn't agree."

"Because you're my fated mate."

"So?"

"So I'm not going to stand by and watch you destroy it like this."

Suddenly I laughed.

"Damian.

"I asked you first if you'd let me go home. Why are you only ever willing to believe I'm looking for someone else?"

His lips moved.

But he didn't answer.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

For seven years, I'd believed that sooner or later, he'd understand.

But this was the first time I'd really thought it through.

What if he never agreed to a formal rejection?

Then I'd do it myself.