Chapter 3

The pills had a trace of wolfsbane in them. One or two were fine. Too many and you'd be poisoned. Enough of them, and you'd drop dead on the spot.

Serena's engagement was over now. So I could finally die in peace, couldn't I?

Logan, who'd been so cold a second ago, came apart. He shouted for the healer and jammed his fingers into my mouth, trying to make me throw up.

“Have you lost your mind? Damien ends the bond and now you're throwing your life away over it? He doesn't love you. He never has. Serena's the only one he wants. Why can't you get that through your head?”

The healer rushed me into surgery to pump my stomach. They forced a tube down my throat, and by the time it was over, I felt half dead.

Logan frowned at the wrecked state of me and reached out, as if to touch my cheek, when Owen suddenly cried out, his face drained of color.

“The Alpha just mind-linked me,” he said. “He says to bring Elena to the pack hall. Right now. Serena's gone.”

Logan's face darkened. The hand that had almost touched my cheek turned cold, and struck me instead. “All this dying act was just cover for kidnapping Serena. Where is she? Tell me where you're keeping her.”

Serena was missing?

Good, honestly. They loved her so much. If I swore I'd taken her, maybe one of them would lose his temper and finish me off.

They hauled me to the pack hall and threw me down hard on the floor.

Damien stared down at me, cold. “Where's Serena?”

I lifted my head slowly and looked at him, the man who'd once sworn before the Moon Goddess to love and keep me for life. Now he looked like he wanted to tear me apart.

Years ago, someone had drugged Damien and forced his rut to come early. I'd given him my body to break it.

When he came back to himself, he promised to do right by me, to take his mate vows with me and make me his Luna.

He said it wasn't some heat-of-the-moment thing. He said he really wanted me.

Then Serena showed up, and everything changed. She was scared of thunder, so he stayed by her side all night through the storms.

She liked my engagement ring, so he had an identical one made for her. For her birthday, he threw the grandest celebration the pack had ever seen, right on the sacred altar.

Even when people objected, saying the altar was for the Alpha and the Luna alone, Damien did it anyway. All he cared about was making Serena happy. Nothing else mattered.

It was the same now. He drew a silver knife and pressed the edge to my throat. “Don't try anything. Tell me, where is Serena?”

I curled my lips into a mocking smile. “You want to know where she is? Then kill me. Kill me, and you'll find out.”

I leaned into the blade. Damien flinched back, again and again. “You think I won't do it?”

“Then get on with it. Serena's out there waiting to be rescued. You really think I'd let her off easy, as much as I hate her?” I held his eyes. “You don't know the half of it. I hired a pack of rogues. Real monsters, the kind that'll swallow you whole. Want to guess what they're doing with her right now, locked in a room together?”

My taunting got to him. His hand shook around the hilt, his eyes shot through with red. At last the blade drifted down from my throat until the silver tip hovered a fingernail's width above my heart.

Then the knife hit the floor with a clang.

He sucked in a breath and turned away. “Give her the potion.”

I didn't know what he meant, until his assistant brought over a vial. “It's a truth potion. The witch brewed it. One sip and she'll tell us everything.”

That sent a jolt of panic through me. The Moon Goddess had one rule: no one could ever learn I'd crossed into this world. If they did, I'd never get home.

I clamped my jaw shut and refused to open it. Seeing how stubborn I was, Damien ordered the assistant to pinch my nose closed.

With no air, my body betrayed me and my mouth fell open, and in that instant the assistant poured the whole vial down my throat.

I tried to gag it back up, but it was too late. My lips were already moving on their own.

“I... I'm not the one who took Serena.”

Damien frowned. “If it wasn't you, why did you confess to it?”

“Because—”

I didn't let myself finish. I snatched the silver knife from where it had fallen and drove it into my own chest.

Every eye in the room went wide.

If I died, the secret would die with me. No one would ever know.

And in the moment I fell, I heard Serena's voice.

“Oh, you're all here. Why is there so much blood?”

Then came Damien's panicked shouting. Whatever they said after that, I never heard it.

It was a relief. I could finally go home.