10

Her eyes dropped to the compass in her fist. “Because your mother trusted the wrong people and the right ones. Sometimes they are the same.”

I waited, but she said nothing else.

Her breathing had changed. It was slower now, uneven. She was fighting to stay awake. I could see it in the way her eyelids lowered and lifted, in the way her fingers kept loosening around the compass before tightening again.

I stared at her and she stared back.

Then, despite everything, I felt something strange move through my chest. Not hope. Not trust, not yet. But the sharp edge inside me shifted enough to make room for something else.

“All right,” I said. “But if Nora sells me, I will come back and haunt you.”

“If Nora sells you without my permission, I will haunt her first.”

I leaned closer and slid one arm behind her back. She bit down hard on her own breath when I helped her sit. Her body was heavier than it looked, or maybe I was weaker than I thought. We struggled for a while before I got her upright against the fallen trunk.

“Your wound opened again,” I said.

I tore another strip from my dress. There was not much left to tear. By the time I finished tightening the cloth over the first bandage, my hands were sticky with her blood and my own. She watched me work in silence.

“What?” I asked.

“You look like her.”

I knew who she meant, but I still asked, “Who?”

“Your mother.”

My fingers slowed. I lowered my gaze at once, old instinct pulling my hair forward. “People hated her eyes too.”

We moved before dawn. Not far at first. Ten steps. Then twenty. Then enough that the clearing disappeared behind us. She leaned against me with most of her weight, one arm across my shoulders, the compass held tight in her other hand. 

Every few minutes, she stopped and pressed the silver to a tree, a stone, or the dirt beneath our feet. Each time, the needle trembled, and a faint thread of light sank into the ground before disappearing.

**

Victoria’s POV

Dawn hadn’t fully broken when I stepped outside.

The air was sharp, cold enough to sting my lungs, the pack grounds still wrapped in that pale gray quiet that comes before the day admits itself. I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders, already rehearsing what I would say when Dominic finally came to his senses. Everything would settle now. It had to.

Then I saw them.

The guards were crossing the threshold of the pack grounds, moving slowly, heavily. Their clothes were soaked, darkened almost to black, the metallic scent reaching me before my mind fully understood what my eyes were seeing.

Blood.

My heart jumped, sharp and fast.

I hurried toward them, boots crunching against the dirt. “What happened?” I demanded, my voice cutting through the morning stillness. “Where is she?”

One of them wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his expression flat, distant in a way that made my skin prickle. “It’s done,” he said. “The witch is dead.”

Relief hit me so hard it made me dizzy.

“How?” I pressed, stepping closer, my gaze sweeping over their stained sleeves, their hands, their boots. “Did she fight?”

“Not much,” the other guard answered, frowning slightly as if trying to remember something just out of reach. “The river took her.”

I smiled before I could stop myself.

Good.

That tight, poisonous knot that had lived in my chest since the night before finally loosened. The image of her standing there, rejecting Dominic, refusing what should have been hers by right, flickered through my mind... and vanished.

Dead girls did not reject Alphas.

“Clean yourselves,” I snapped. “You stink of it.”

They nodded and moved past me, already forgetting me, already forgetting her.

I turned on my heel and broke into a run. Dominic’s house loomed ahead, larger than it had any right to be, its walls still dark from the night. I did not knock. I pushed the door open and rushed inside, breathless, heart pounding with something close to triumph.

“Dominic,” I called, my voice echoing through the hall. “It’s over.”

I climbed the steps two at a time, already imagining the relief on his face, the way he would finally understand that this was how things were meant to be.

The witch was dead. And now, nothing stood between us anymore.

I found him asleep.

Dominic lay sprawled across the bed like the night hadn’t released him yet, one arm thrown over his eyes, his chest rising slow and heavy. 

I crossed the room and shook his shoulder. “Dominic. Wake up.”

He groaned, irritated, turning his face away. I shook him harder.

“It’s done,” I said, unable to keep the edge out of my voice. “She’s dead.”

That did it.

His eyes snapped open.

For a heartbeat, he just stared at me, unfocused, as if the words hadn’t found their meaning yet. Then his body went rigid. He pushed himself upright so fast the bed creaked beneath him.

“What?” he said.

“The guards came back at dawn,” I went on quickly, the words tumbling over each other now. “They were covered in blood. They said the witch was killed. Thrown into the river.”

I waited for relief.

It did not come.

Dominic did not speak. He did not yell. He did not even look at me. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, his movements sharp, controlled in a way that made the air feel dangerous. He grabbed his trousers, pulled them on, then his boots, lacing them with brutal precision.

“Dominic,” I said, suddenly uneasy. “Say something.”

He reached for his shirt.

I stepped closer. “This is good. It’s over. you are free now.”

He finished dressing and turned toward the door without answering me.

I moved fast, planting myself in front of him, blocking his way. “I know,” I said, lowering my voice, making it softer, more intimate. “I know your wolf is grieving. I know you want to rip the guards’ heads off for what they did.”

His jaw tightened, but he still did not speak.

“I know you want to rebel against your father,” I continued, pressing on, my heart pounding. “To tear the pack apart because of her. I know. She’s the girl the Moon Goddess gave you.”

His eyes flicked to mine, sharp and burning.

“But she rejected you,” I said firmly. “She said no. In front of everyone.” I reached for his arm, gripping it hard enough that he couldn’t ignore me. “I am here,” I said. “I stayed. I did not humiliate you. do not disappoint your father even more. do not break your mother’s heart.”

I stepped closer, forcing him to look at me. “Stay with me,” I said. “Prove to them that you deserve to be Alpha. That you are strong. That you chose right.” My voice dropped, almost a whisper, sharp with challenge. “you are not the mate of a slave,” I said. “you are not, are you?”

For the first time since I entered the room, he looked fully at me.

The room was still, heavy with everything unsaid, and Dominic’s face was unreadable, carved into something hard and distant. 

Then he spoke again, slow and deliberate. “Put on your best dress,” he said. “Today, you will be presented as my fiancée.”

The air rushed out of my lungs.

Fuck!

My heart leapt, sharp and triumphant, heat blooming in my chest so fast it made my hands tremble. I searched his face for hesitation, for warmth, for anything that looked like doubt... and found none. Just resolve.

“Yes,” I breathed before I could stop myself.

I straightened, smoothing my hair, already imagining the looks, the whispers changing tone, the way the pack would bow their heads when they saw me at his side. 

Dominic moved past me toward the door, not sparing me another glance.

I followed him with my eyes, a smile slowly curving my lips as the weight of victory settled in. Whatever shadows lingered in him, whatever grief his wolf carried, they would fade. 

She was gone.

Dead girls did not haunt Alphas.