Chapter 2

Chapter 2

ELENA

Hilda glanced at him, then back at me. She spoke slowly and calmly, like she was talking to a scared horse.

"Nobody forced anything on you, child. You agreed to the bond. Two nights ago. I was there."

The room went very quiet.

"That's a lie," I said.

"It isn't."

"That's a lie!" I shouted it this time. "I would never agree to that. Never. Not with him. Not with any of them. His wolves killed my people. They killed—"

My throat closed up. I couldn't finish.

Hilda's face softened. She didn't argue. She just waited.

"What's the last thing you remember?" she asked gently.

I opened my mouth to answer. Then I stopped.

I tried to think. I tried to reach back.

The fire. The bell. My mother screaming my name. My mother's hands on my shoulders, pushing me down, down into the dark. The smell of dirt and old potatoes. The cellar. I had been in the cellar.

And then nothing.

Just black. Like a page ripped out of a book.

I searched for more. I pushed and pushed against the dark in my head, but there was nothing there. No faces. No voices. No bond. No him.

"I don't remember," I said slowly. My voice was shaking again. "I don't remember anything after the fire."

Hilda nodded, like she had expected that. "That's normal. The bond can do that, especially to a human. Your mind wasn't built for it. The memories may come back. They may not."

"No." I shook my head hard. "No. You're lying. Both of you. You're lying to me."

"Hilda." Kade's voice was quiet but firm. "Give us the room."

The old woman looked at him for a long moment. Then she stood up with another grunt and patted my knee.

"Eat something," she told me. "You're weak as a newborn pup."

She walked to the door. Before she left, she looked back at Kade and said, "Be careful with her."

I didn't know if she meant he should be careful not to hurt me, or careful because I might hurt him.

The door closed behind her.

It was just the two of us again.

Kade walked slowly to the table and poured tea into a cup. The steam curled up into the gray light. He did it all so calmly, like we were two people sharing breakfast. Like my village wasn't ashes. Like my mother wasn't—

I couldn't think about my mother. If I thought about her, I would break.

"You should drink this," he said. "It's willow bark. For the pain."

I stood up slowly, using the wall to hold myself steady. My legs trembled, but they held.

"Why?" I asked.

He looked at me.

"Why me?" I said. "Why would you do this to me? Is this what you do? You burn a village and take a pet home?"

His jaw tightened. "That's not what happened."

"Then tell me what happened."

He was quiet for a long time. He set the cup down.

"Not yet," he said.

Not yet.

Something inside me snapped.

My eyes went to the breakfast tray. Next to the plate of apples was a small knife. Silver handle. Short blade. Hilda must have used it to cut the fruit.

I didn't think. I moved.

I crossed the room in three steps and grabbed the knife. I spun toward him and swung it with everything I had left.

He saw it coming. I know he saw it coming. He was an alpha. He had fought wolves twice his size. He could have caught my wrist before the blade got anywhere near him. He could have thrown me across the room.

He didn't.

He just stood there and let it happen.

The knife slashed across his right forearm. It cut through his sleeve and into his skin. I saw the red line open up, and blood welled out and ran down toward his wrist.

At the exact same second, a hot, stinging pain ripped across my own right arm.

I cried out and dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor.

I looked down.

A long, thin cut ran across my forearm. In the same place as his. The same length. The same angle. Blood ran down my skin and dripped off my fingers onto the wooden floor.

I stared at it. I couldn't breathe.

I hadn't touched myself. The knife never came near my arm.

I looked up at him. He was looking at me, not at his own wound. His face was pale.

"What did you do to me?" I whispered.

"It's the bond," he said quietly. "What happens to me happens to you. What happens to you happens to me."

My stomach turned over. I thought of every punch he had ever taken. Every fight he would ever have. Every wolf who wanted him dead.

I had tied myself to him. My life to his life. My blood to his blood.

No. He had tied me.

"Undo it," I said. My voice cracked. "Please. I don't care how. Just undo it."

"I can't."

"You can! You're the alpha! You can do anything!" I shoved him in the chest with both hands. He didn't even move. "Undo it! Undo it!"

I shoved him again. And again. I was crying now, and I hated it. I hated that he was seeing me cry. I hit his chest with my fists, over and over, and every hit echoed as a dull ache in my own ribs. I didn't care. I kept going.

"You killed them," I sobbed. "You killed them all. My mother. My neighbors. Little Sam from the bakery. He was seven. He was seven years old. And now you want me to—to be yours? To stay here? I'd rather die. Do you hear me? I would rather die!"

He caught my wrists.

He did it gently, but his grip was too strong to break as I tried pulling it but it felt like I was pulling away from hardened concrete, there was not a budge at all, in any other circumstances, I might have laughed at ot, but now's, to only made me feel worse, dread pooling in my guts. He held my hands still against his chest. I could feel his heart beating under my fingers. Fast. As fast as mine.

The blood from our matching cuts ran together where our arms touched.

I tried to pull away. He didn't let go.

He bent his head down until his gold eyes were level with mine. This close, I could see flecks of brown in them. I could see how tired he looked. How there were dark shadows under his eyes, like he hadn't slept in days.

For a moment, just a moment, the burning in my wrist stopped hurting. It turned warm instead. Soft. Like a hand on the back of my neck.

I hated that too.

"Listen to me," he said. His voice was low and rough, hardened by years of violence, steel, blood on his hands, I flinched without meaning to, half afraid that he would take a swing at me, then hated myself for showing him that I was scared.

 "You want to know how this happened? You want the truth about what really happened?"

I glared at him through my tears. I didn't answer. I didn't have to. He was going to tell me, whether I liked it or not. Alphas like him, they liked tot run it in, taunt their victims with their trauma, because they could.

He took a slow breath, like he was internally counting to ten, before he released it.

"You didn't just agree to this bond, Elena," he said. "You begged me for it. On your knees. Because it was the only way you would live to see morning."