Chapter 21

Chapter 21

KADE

For four days in a row, she went to the same place.

I felt it through the bond every afternoon. She would finish her training with me in the yard, barely saying a word. She would eat a little at lunch. Then she would walk out of the pack house and keep walking, far to the east, until the pull in my chest stretched thin and aching.

She would stay there for hours. And when she came back, her heart was calmer. Lighter. She smelled like lavender and wood smoke.

On the first day, I told myself it was good. She needed somewhere to breathe. Somewhere away from me.

On the second day, I told myself the same thing.

On the third day, I asked Tobias where the east path went.

He scratched his head. "Nowhere, really. Just the old woods. And the omega's hut."

I went very still.

"The omega," I said.

"Krystal." Tobias shrugged. "He grows his herbs out there. Keeps to himself. Nobody goes near him much."

On the fourth day, I followed her.

I didn't go as a wolf. I didn't sneak. I walked down the east path in plain sight, and I let her feel me coming through the bond. I wanted her to know.

The path ended in a small clearing. There was a stone hut with a mossy roof and a crooked chimney. There was a garden. And there, near the back wall of the hut, in a shady corner where the sun never reached, was a patch of small flowers I had been hoping I would never see again.

Pale silver petals. Dark purple centers. They glowed faintly even in the daylight.

My stomach turned cold.

Elena was sitting on a wooden bench by the door, grinding something in a stone bowl. Krystal was kneeling beside her, showing her how to hold the pestle. She was smiling. A real smile. The kind she hadn't given me in over a week.

Then she felt me, and the smile vanished.

Krystal looked up. The moment he saw me, he dropped the bunch of leaves in his hand. His face went white. He scrambled to his feet and backed up against the wall of the hut. He lowered his eyes to the ground and didn't lift them again.

He didn't say a word. Not good afternoon. Not Alpha. Nothing.

Good, I thought. He should be afraid.

"Elena," I said. "It's time to go."

She didn't move. She looked from me to Krystal, and back to me. I saw her notice it all. The way he shook. The way my voice had gone hard. The way my eyes hadn't left him since I walked into the clearing.

"I'm not done," she said.

"Yes, you are."

She set the bowl down slowly. "What is wrong with you?"

I walked over to the bench. I stopped in front of Krystal. He was trembling so hard I could hear his teeth click together. I looked down at him, and I didn't try to hide what I felt.

"Look at me," I said.

He lifted his eyes. Gray. Wet with fear.

I turned to Elena. "Has he hurt you?"

She stared at me like I had lost my mind. "What?"

"Has he hurt you? Given you anything? Food? Drink? Anything to put on your skin?"

Her hand moved to her arm, where the cut from the clay pot had healed. Too fast. Too clean. She didn't answer the question.

"No," she said. "He hasn't hurt me. He's the only person in this whole pack who's been kind to me."

That hit harder than I expected.

"Stay away from him," I said.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

She stood up. Her face was pink with anger. "That's not a reason."

"It's the only one you're getting."

"Then it's not good enough." She stepped right up to me. She had to tip her head back to look me in the eye, but she did it anyway. "You don't get to tell me who to talk to. You don't get to pick my friends. You already took everything else from me. You don't get to take this too."

Behind her, Krystal made a small sound. Like he wanted to speak. Like he wanted to tell her to stop. But no words came out.

I looked at him over her head. He looked away.

"I'm not asking, Elena," I said quietly. "Stay away from him."

I turned and walked back up the path. I felt her standing there behind me, furious, for a long time. Then I felt her follow. Slowly. Far behind. But she followed.

She didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

That night, I sat in my study with the door locked and a single candle burning on the desk.

The black cloth with the red thorn lay in front of me. Next to it lay a small glass vial Hilda had given me three days ago. Inside was a few drops of dark liquid. Poison, scraped from the blade of Vera's knife.

"Moonshade," Hilda had said when she handed it to me. Her voice had been low and scared. "That's what it is, Kade. Not the common wolfsbane you find along the river. This is the rare kind. Silver flowers. Purple hearts. It's ten times stronger, and it spreads fast in the blood. That's why the black lines looked the way they did. On the girl in the cellar. And now again."

"Where does it grow?" I had asked.

Hilda hadn't wanted to answer. I made her.