# Chapter 14: The Roof

Everyone clapped.

Garrett clapped the loudest. He stood up from his chair with his wine glass high in the air, and his face was red and happy.

"To Kael and Margot!" he said. "To the future of Blackthorn Ridge!"

"To Kael and Margot," everyone said, and they lifted their glasses.

I lifted mine too. My hand was shaking so badly that the water spilled over the edge and dripped onto the white tablecloth. Nobody noticed. Nobody ever noticed me.

Except Mom. Across the table, she was watching me with sad, worried eyes.

And Kael.

Kael didn't lift his glass. He didn't clap. He sat at the end of the table like a stone statue, with Margot's hand still on top of his. The little cut on his lip, the one I gave him, was dark red in the candlelight.

He was looking at his father.

"You didn't ask me," he said quietly.

The table went silent.

Garrett smiled. It was a warm, easy smile. "Son, it was always going to happen. We just moved the date. With the rogues attacking our borders, we need Silver Creek's wolves now. Not in spring. *Now*." He put his glass down. "You saw what happened at the lake. Next time, it could be the town. It could be children."

Kael's jaw went tight.

"You know I'm right," Garrett said softly.

Kael didn't answer. He took his hand out from under Margot's, very slowly. He put his napkin on the table and stood up.

"Excuse me," he said.

He walked out of the dining room without looking at anyone.

Margot's smile didn't move. Not even a little. She just picked up her wine glass and took a long, slow sip.

And then her green eyes found mine across the table, and she smiled even wider.

*I win,* that smile said.

---

I couldn't stay in my room. The walls felt like they were closing in on me. I couldn't breathe.

So I did something I used to do when I was a little girl.

In our old house, when the other kids threw stones at me, or when Mom cried in the kitchen and thought I couldn't hear, I would climb out of my bedroom window and sit on the roof. I'd sit there for hours, looking at the stars, and I'd pretend I was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

My new bedroom window was big and old. It opened easily. Outside it, there was a flat part of the roof, wide and dark. It went all along the third floor.

I climbed out. My ankle hurt, but not too much now. I sat down on the cold roof tiles, pulled my knees up to my chest, and looked up.

The sky was huge and clear. A million stars were shining over the mountains. The moon was almost full. Fat and white and bright.

*Five nights,* I thought. *Five nights until I see Hollis again. Five nights until I learn about my father.*

And three weeks until Kael marries Margot.

I pressed my forehead against my knees.

*It doesn't matter,* I told myself. *It was never going to happen anyway. You're Hollow. He's the Alpha. You knew this from the very first night.*

But knowing something and feeling it are two very different things.

"You're going to fall."

I looked up so fast I almost *did* fall.

Kael was climbing out of his own window, a few feet down the roof from mine. He was wearing a dark gray sweater, and his hair was messy, like he'd been pulling at it with his hands. He walked across the roof tiles easily, like a cat, and sat down next to me.

Not too close. But not far.

"How did you know I was out here?" I asked.

"I heard your window open." He looked up at the stars. "I've been sitting on this roof since I was eight years old. Nobody else in this house knows about it."

"Well, now I know."

"Now you know."

We sat there for a while in silence. The wind was cold. It moved through the tall pines below us with a soft, sad sound.

"I didn't agree to it," Kael said finally. "The date. They decided without me."

"I know. I was there."

"I'm sorry you had to hear it like that."

"Why are you sorry? It's your wedding." I tried to make my voice sound light, like I didn't care. It came out wrong. "Congratulations, by the way."

He turned his head and looked at me.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't do that. Pretend you don't care."

"I *don't* care."

"Sienna."

"I don't! Why would I care? You're my trainer. You're going to be my stepbrother. You're getting married. It's fine. It's all fine. I'm happy for you."

My voice cracked on the last word. I turned my face away so he couldn't see.

He was quiet for a long time.

"My father is right," he said softly. "That's the worst part. The rogues are getting braver. They attacked the Alpha, on our own land, in the daylight. That's never happened before. Never." He let out a long breath. "If Silver Creek joins us, we'll have two hundred more wolves on our borders. Owen won't have to fight three rogues by himself. Kids in the town will be safe."

"Then you should marry her," I said quietly.

"I know."

"So do it."

He didn't answer.

"Kael. Do it. Your people need you to."

He reached over. Very slowly, his fingers touched my chin, and he turned my face back toward him. His hand was warm. His gray eyes were shining in the moonlight.

"Tell me it was you," he whispered.

My heart stopped.

"What?"

"I know it was you. I've known since the dinner. But I need to hear you say it." His voice was low and rough. "Say it out loud, Sienna. Say you're the girl from the ranger station. Say you felt it too. That night, when your blood touched me."

"Kael…"

"Say it, and I'll stop all of this." His thumb moved softly across my cheek. "I'll stand up in front of my father. In front of the elders. In front of Silver Creek. I'll tell them the moon gave me a mate, and it wasn't Margot Hale. I'll fight every single one of them if I have to."

I couldn't breathe.

He was so close. His face was only an inch away from mine. I could see the little cut on his lip. I could feel the warmth coming off his skin. And deep inside me, in that place I didn't understand, something was screaming.

*Say it. Say yes. Say it, say it, SAY IT.*

I wanted to. God, I wanted to so badly.

But then I thought about Owen. Sixteen years old, crying in the grass with a rogue on his chest.

I thought about the kids in town. The ones who threw stones at me, yes, but kids. Just kids.

I thought about a war. Silver Creek against Blackthorn Ridge, because the Alpha broke his promise for a Hollow girl with no wolf and no scent.

And I thought about my mother. Her shiny hair, and her pretty pink dress, and her first real smile in twenty years. If Kael fought his father because of me, what would happen to her?

They would hate him. The whole pack would hate him. Because of me.

I couldn't do that to him.

I wouldn't.

So I did the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life.

I pulled my face away from his hand.

"It was nothing," I said.

He went very still.

"What?"

"That night. Whatever you think happened, it was nothing." I made my voice cold. I made it hard, like his voice on the first day. "I was scared. I was hurt. You saved my life, and I helped you. That's all. I didn't feel anything, Kael. Nothing. It meant nothing to me."

He stared at me.

I watched his face change. The softness went out of it, slowly, like a candle going out. The light went out of his gray eyes.

"Nothing," he said quietly.

"Nothing."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"Look at me and say it again."

I looked straight into his eyes. My heart was breaking into a thousand pieces, and I said it.

"It. Meant. Nothing."

For a long moment, he didn't move.

Then he looked down at his wrist. At the black hair tie, my hair tie, sitting next to his watch.

He pulled it off slowly.

He took my hand, and he opened my fingers, and he put the hair tie in my palm. Then he closed my fingers over it, very gently, like he was giving me something precious.

"Then you should have this back," he said.

He stood up and walked away across the roof without another word. His window closed behind him with a soft click.

I sat there alone in the cold, holding the hair tie so tight that my nails dug into my palm.

Then I cried. Really cried, for the first time in years. Big, ugly, silent tears, with my face pressed into my knees and my whole body shaking. Because I had just thrown away the only thing I'd ever wanted.

And I did it to save him.

---

I don't know how long I sat out there.

When I finally lifted my head, my face was wet and cold, and the moon had moved across the sky. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie and took a shaky breath.

That was when I saw it.

Down below, in the dark garden behind the house, there was a small light. A little blue light glowing between the rose bushes.

It was a phone screen.

Someone was standing there in the shadows, looking straight up at the roof. Looking straight up at *me*.

I leaned forward to see better. The person stepped out from behind the rose bushes into the moonlight.

Messy blond hair. White T-shirt. A big, happy grin.

Rhys.

He lifted one hand and waved at me slowly, like we were old friends.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out with cold, shaking fingers. It was a message from a number I didn't know.

It was a photo. A very clear photo, taken from below. Me and Kael on the dark roof, with his hand on my face. We were so close we were almost kissing.

Under the photo, there was a message.

**The Founders' Dinner is Friday night. You're going as my date, little sister.**

Then a second message came.

**Or Uncle Garrett gets this photo for breakfast.**