Chapter One The Night I Died

The night I died, I was carrying a carton of milk, six eggs, and the stupid hope that my husband might come home for dinner.

It was raining hard enough to blur the lights along Silverpine Road. By the time I left the little convenience store, the bottom of the paper bag had already started to soften.

I tucked it against my chest and hurried beneath the awnings.

I should have driven.

Lunas weren't supposed to wander around alone after dark, especially in weather like this.

Then again, there were a lot of things Lunas weren't supposed to do.

They weren't supposed to cook their own dinners because the household staff had mysteriously forgotten them.

They weren't supposed to be ignored when they asked where their husbands were.

And they definitely weren't supposed to spend their fourth wedding anniversary eating alone.

Yet here I was.

Mira Hale.

Luna of Silverpine Pack.

Wolf-less Omega.

Wife of Alpha Rowan Hale.

And, apparently, the only person in the manor who had noticed there was nothing in the refrigerator.

I almost laughed.

Four years ago, I would have cried.

Four years ago, every small rejection seemed enormous. A closed bedroom door. An untouched dinner. Rowan left the moment I entered the room.

I'd spent countless nights wondering what I'd done wrong.

Eventually, humiliation became ordinary.

That was the sad thing about pain. If you lived with it long enough, you learned where to put it so you could keep functioning.

I reached the corner across from the pack estate and stopped.

A figure stood on the other side of the road.

Even through the rain, I recognized her.

Lena Voss.

Of course.

She stood beneath a black umbrella, staring at her phone. Her pale coat probably cost more than everything I was carrying.

Lena had grown up with Rowan. She was an Alpha's daughter, an excellent fighter, and the kind of woman people naturally made space for.

Everything a Luna ought to be.

Everything I wasn't.

Earlier that evening, I'd heard one of the maids say Rowan was meeting Lena.

Maybe that explained why he hadn't remembered our anniversary.

I hated that the thought still hurt.

"Mira?"

Lena had finally noticed me.

She smiled and lifted a hand.

I managed a smile back.

Whatever jealousy I carried wasn't her responsibility. Lena had always been friendly to me.

Sometimes painfully friendly.

She remembered Rowan's favorite wine, understood pack politics I couldn't follow and knew stories about his childhood that I'd never heard.

But she had never actually been cruel to me.

The engine came from my left.

At first, I barely noticed it beneath the rain.

Then it became a roar.

I turned.

A black SUV came around the bend far too quickly.

My stomach dropped.

"Lena!"

She looked toward the sound.

Her umbrella slipped from her fingers.

She froze.

I don't remember deciding to move.

One second I was standing beneath the awning.

The next, my groceries were hitting the pavement and I was running into the road.

I slammed both hands into Lena.

She stumbled backward.

The headlights filled my vision.

Then something hit me.

For one strange second, there was no pain.

Just weightlessness.

Then the road came up hard.

Something cracked.

Maybe the eggs.

Maybe me.

I couldn't tell.

I tried to breathe and agony tore through my chest.

Rain struck my face.

My fingers wouldn't move.

A tomato from my grocery bag rolled through a puddle and stopped near my hand.

Such a stupid thing to notice.

"Mira!"

Lena appeared above me.

Her hair was soaked now. There was blood on her palm where she'd scraped it against the road.

"You—oh, Goddess. Mira."

She dropped beside me.

I wanted to ask if she was hurt.

My mouth wouldn't cooperate.

People were shouting somewhere.

Lena caught my hand.

"It's okay. They're coming."

Her fingers were trembling.

I looked at her and wondered, absurdly, what Rowan would think when he found out.

Would he be angry?

Would he finally look at me and see something other than the wife he'd never wanted?

That thought hurt worse than I expected.

After four years, some ridiculous part of me still wanted him to care.

Lena glanced toward the road.

Her expression changed.

Only for a second.

But I saw it.

Fear disappeared.

Something sharper replaced it.

She leaned closer.

"You weren't supposed to be here."

I stared at her.

What?

Lena's eyes widened, as though she'd realized she'd spoken aloud.

Then footsteps thundered toward us.

"Mira!"

I knew that voice.

Rowan.

My heart gave one painful beat.

He came through the rain without a coat, shoving past the wolves gathering around us.

I'd seen Rowan calm while men challenged his authority. I'd watched him walk into council meetings where half the room wanted his position and come out looking bored.

I'd never seen him like this.

Terrified.

He dropped beside me.

"Mira."

His hands hovered over my body.

For once, Alpha Rowan Hale didn't seem to know what to do.

"Call the healer," he snapped.

"She's already coming, Alpha."

"Then tell her to move faster!"

His hand finally touched my cheek.

I nearly cried.

What a cruel joke.

Four years of marriage, and this was the tenderness I'd wanted.

His thumb brushed rain from beneath my eye.

"Look at me."

I did.

"Mira, stay awake."

I wanted to tell him I was trying.

I wanted to ask him why.

Why marry me if he couldn't stand touching me?

Why let everyone treat Lena as though she belonged beside him?

Why did he look so frightened now?

My vision dimmed.

"No." Rowan bent over me. "No, no. Stay with me."

His composure was gone.

I had imagined this moment differently whenever I'd been foolish enough to think about dying.

Rowan would stand silently at my funeral, I thought. He would accept everyone's condolences. Perhaps Lena would eventually become the Luna Silverpine had always wanted.

I never imagined him shaking.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

I struggled to focus.

His forehead touched mine.

"I'm sorry, Mira."

Something warm slipped from his face onto mine.

A tear.

Rowan was crying.

My husband hadn't cried when his father died.

A strange calm settled over me.

Maybe I'd been wrong.

Maybe somewhere beneath all that distance—

"I thought they'd leave you alone."

The words barely reached me.

My heart stumbled.

They?

Who?

Rowan's arms tightened around me.

"I made them believe you meant nothing to me."

The world went silent.

I tried to speak.

Darkness swallowed me first.

***

When I opened my eyes again, Rowan was still holding me.

For a moment, relief rushed through me.

Then I saw my body.

I was standing several feet away.

Rowan knelt in the road with a dead woman in his arms.

My dead body.

"No."

I stumbled toward him.

"Rowan!"

He didn't look up.

I reached for his shoulder.

My hand passed through him.

I jerked back.

Around us, wolves lowered their heads.

Someone covered their mouth and began to cry.

Rowan simply stared at my face.

Then he pulled my body against his chest and broke.

The sound he made didn't belong to the man I'd known.

I stood there, unable to understand any of it.

Four years.

Four years I'd believed he didn't love me.

And now I was dead, and my husband looked like he had lost everything.

A movement caught my attention.

Lena.

She was walking away from the crowd.

Her phone was pressed to her ear.

Something in me remembered her words.

You weren't supposed to be here.

I followed her.

She stopped beneath the trees where nobody could hear her over the rain.

Nobody except me.

"I'm fine," she whispered into the phone.

A pause.

"No. It went wrong."

My skin prickled, though I no longer had skin capable of feeling anything.

Lena looked back toward Rowan.

Her face had gone pale.

"Mira is dead."

Silence.

Then her expression hardened.

"You told me she wouldn't be there."

I moved closer.

"Lena?"

She couldn't hear me.

The person on the other end said something.

Lena swallowed.

"No. Rowan doesn't know."

Another pause.

Then she looked toward my body and whispered,

"But we have a problem."

Her eyes settled on my husband.

"He loved her."

And for the first time since the car struck me, I understood one thing clearly.

My death had not been an accident.