23-BITTER MEMORIES ACT III

They dragged her to the packhouse dungeons before she even had a chance to speak.

Alpha Callans' howls haunted the lands of Stonehaven.

I would never have paid that price, he had cried.

By the time she was dragged to face the pack, faces she had known all her life stared at her like she was a stranger.

“Why didn’t you fight beside him?” Alpha Callan’s voice cracked like dry wood.

“I tried, the roses, they hid me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream.” The words sounded insane even to her.

Someone produced a note, Xavier’s handwriting, but the one she had received, now folded to look like she had written it, luring him to the waterfall alone.

It was a trap with her name on it.

She told them the truth about the mate bond. Told them how he had chosen her.

Brittany stepped forward, eyes wide and shining with tears.

“He never said anything like that to me. We were together. Everyone saw it.”

Lying bitch, she screamed, breath tearing out of her. Rose’s heart was broken, and she didn't give a fuck what she looked like now.

The circle murmured.

“That was the first time I have even seen a rogue,” she sobbed. “We have never had them here in Stonehaven, but the one that got away, I saw Brittany talking with him; she gave him money.

“She has lost her mind,” said Brittany. “I would never…”

Rose looked straight at her cousin and knew Brittany had arranged every piece. The rogues. The notes. The convenient story.

She had wanted the future alpha and the girl who stood in her way both gone. Only one had died.

Alpha Callan’s shoulders caved. The man who had once carried toddler Rose on his shoulders now looked at her like she was poison.

“I should never have taken her in,” he said, voice raw. “The price is too high. I would never have… never…”

He took a step toward her, hands shaking like he wanted to tear her throat out right there.

Rhys, the beta, moved between them.

“She’s still pack, Callan. You can’t touch her.”

Chris stood at the edge of the circle, face gray, eyes hollow.

Rose tried to reach him.

“Chris, please. You know me. You know I would never…”

He looked at her for a long second, doubt, maybe memory of frogs and races and promises. Then grief slammed down again.

“He’s dead.” His voice broke. “Just… go.”

Callan stood before her.

“I should be turning you rogue,” he sobbed, “ but I cannot. I want you to leave this pack and never return if you have any heart.”

He turned to his pack, broken.

“No one is to touch her or go after her. She must have safe passage to leave us.”

Rose returned home, stuffing whatever she could carry into a backpack.

A framed photo of her, Xavier, and Chris was on her dresser. She tore off the part with Christopher in it and stuffed the photo in her bag.

Her own mother, Jenny, wouldn’t even open the bedroom door for her; sobs carried through the wood, muffled and endless.

She was out the front door when Arthur stepped from the shadows of his workshop.

He didn’t speak at first.

Just pressed a thick envelope of cash into her palm and pulled her into a rough hug.

“I believe you,” he said against her hair. “Every word. I’d ride out with you if your mother weren’t…” He let the sentence die. “I’ll find you when I can.”

Then he led her around back.

The motorcycle waited under a tarp, the one they had built together. He had painted a single wild rose on the tank, petals edged in silver.

“Was always going to be yours,” he said. “I knew you’d shifted early. That’s how I knew the mate story was true.”

He touched the key.

“I just wanted to let you two tell your secret when you were ready. Callan and Rhys won’t hear a word I say. I’ve tried to tell them…they think I’m just being an overprotective father.”

She hugged him tight.

“Thank you. I love you, Dad.”

“Go. Before they change their minds.”

Rose swung her leg over the seat. The engine caught on the first try.

She looked back once. The lights of Stonehaven flickered behind her, peaceful no longer.

Protected by the pack, sitting in her house, Brittany was probably smiling. Her own mother would still be crying. Chris would be drowning in guilt he didn’t deserve.

Rose twisted the throttle. The bike leaped forward, tires spitting gravel, carrying her into the dark road that led away from everything she had ever known.

In the rear-view mirror, the wild roses at the edge of the trees seemed to lean after her, as if whispering a promise she couldn’t quite hear yet.

She didn’t look back again. But she knew, with every beat of her broken heart, that this wasn’t the end.

It was only the beginning of the hunt for the rogue that had killed her mate.

She drew a bitter breath as the scrape of a chair shifted her back to reality.

She was frozen, standing behind the bar, staring at a face she once thought she knew so well.

Christopher, who had once demanded she go, right when she needed a friend.

“Please, let me talk to you,” he pleaded.

She didn’t move.