CHAPTER 4-COLLATERAL DAMAGE

ETHEL

“Honey, you've not touched your dinner.”

"I'm fine," I said. "Just not that hungry."

I stabbed a forkful of eggs and put them in my mouth so she would stop looking at me like that.

But mom didn't stop. "I prepared them exactly how you like them. Should I add more salt? What is wrong, Ethel? Talk to me.”

"Nothing is wrong, mom."

"Your portions have been declining for three days, Ethel."

"I'm just tired." I pushed back from the table and picked up my plate. "I'll cover this and come back down later if I get hungry. I'm going to go and lie down for a bit."

She sighed but didn't argue. I went around the table, kissed the top of her greying head, and took the stairs before she could find another angle to start questioning me from.

I closed my bedroom door and let out a breath that felt like it had been sitting in my chest for three days.

I hated lying to her. We didn't keep things from each other. But what was I supposed to say? That my boyfriend and his secret girlfriend had murdered me in the boy's locker room? That I had woken up a month back in the past sitting in a lecture hall? That somewhere between surviving my own death and discovering Declan's illegal drug usage, I had found out that my lifelong bully was apparently my fated mate?

She would call a doctor. Heck, if I didn't know better, I would call a doctor for myself.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand beside my bed. I already knew that it was Declan without looking. He had been calling non-stop to ask why I didn't attend way-prep to support him, and to spill the tea that Tavian hadn't come.

I didn't have it in me to pick those calls and pretend like everything was fine.

Bang. Bang.

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked around to check where the noise was coming from. It sounded like a tap, no… it sounded more like a knock coming from my window.

Something was knocking on my window?

I crossed the room and pulled it open expecting the squirrel that occasionally came looking for whatever it thought lived in my window box. Instead I found Tavian Graves three feet up my exterior wall with one hand braced on the drainpipe.

“Mind opening up? I want to come in.”

“Goodness sake… what are you doing at my house? How do you even know where I live?”

He gave me a flat look. "Who do you think covered your entire porch in newspaper in junior year?"

"That was you?"

"Took you long enough." He hauled himself up and swung through the window. When he came in, he clapped his palms together. “Nice decor, simple… but nice, I was expecting posters of boy-bands though.”

“I don't remember permitting you to come in.” I crossed my arms and a hard frown settled on my features. “What are you doing here?”

"I owe you an apology," he said. "For disappearing. I needed time to think.”

After ghosting me for three whole days. Wow. He just set the jerk-bar a standard higher.

“Is this the part where I applaud you, my lord?”

He huffed at the sarcasm.

“It… it wasn't intentional. It's not… I, I always thought that Alicent was my… yunno, and it's not everyday that you find out that the girl you…”

“—Made life a living hell for is your mate? Likewise the same way I feel about you, Tavian.” This still didn't make up for the silence. I was going through the same thing, he didn't have to make this all about him.

“It's not as simple for me. I… I did what I did because I thought you were like him. You followed him around like a shadow so I assumed that you were like him.”

“That I was like Declan?” I scoffed. “Let me get this straight, you bullied me not because I did anything to you, you bullied me because of Declan? What are you talking about—”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed.

“Did anyone ever tell you that Declan and I used to be friends?”

I stayed silent before breaking into a dry snicker.

“Declan and you? How on earth did that happen?”

“We were close as kids. I even dared to believe that our friendship could bring peace to both our packs, but then, in junior year of high school he started spreading rumours about me.”

“What rumors?”

“That I went feral at night and that I attacked children from a local school. What actually happened was those kids came for me specifically because I was the next Alpha of the Greymoor pack and I defended myself without causing any serious damage. He took that and twisted it into something that followed me for two years.”

I didn't know what to say. I mean thinking about it, I did hear the rumors back then, but not this version.

A certain disappointment washed his features as he leaned against the wall of my room.

“His family spent decades branding mine as the wolves who started the founding conflict. Everyone in this town knows the Greymoor pack as the black sheep, the aggressors, the ones who couldn't be trusted. What nobody talks about is that the Mercers wanted total control of what this university became, and when my family pushed back for equal standing, equal land and equal say, they lost the argument and rewrote the story. I got upset, I hated him and everything that concerned him.” He ran a hand through his dark curls. “So when I saw you at his side every single day, yes, I assumed that you were like him…and I reacted. I'm sorry. I think.”

I blinked at him.

“You're sorry? You.. you think?” A humourless laugh escaped me. “So i wasjust collateral damage in whatever you had going on with Declan?”

Every nickname, every hallway comment, every time you made me feel like I was dirt. Each time you made me second guess my clothes and my body. That was the final line. I had thought about everything on my own, how to get back at Declan and Alicent, using this second chance to my benefit. And I would do it without him or anyone else.

“You know what, the moon goddess definitely misaligned something here. This bond is a mistake.” A mistake I was about to correct. I locked eyes with him and repeated the words slowly. “Tavian Graves of the Greymoor pack, I reject yo—”

He moved like lightning.

One second I was across the room and the next my back was against the wall and his palm was flat over my mouth.

“Hey,” His forehead rested against mine in a harsh breath. “Stop. Please.”