What?
What did they just say?
Executed?
I stared down at my gleaming plate, and the faint reflection of my wide eyes in the ceramic stared back.
Executed. I hadn't misheard.
I wasn't stupid. I'd known Elly, Maria, and Kris had never thought of me as real family, even if they had given me somewhat preferential treatment when I did as they wanted. I wasn't grieving their loss the way I would have with loving family members.
But they were dead. Killed.
And they weren't the only ones. Images flashed across Osborn's mind, enough that I could gather immediately who the casualties were. Alpha Kris's siblings, aunts and uncles to Elly and Maria, pack members who had lived together for decades... killed. Executed.
But as horrifying as the splashes of crimson across Osborn's memory, what was ev
Evan wouldn't be returning to the Scarlet pack house for a while. His absence should have made it easier for me to stay there, but the idea of walking in alone, knowing how everything had changed in just these last few precious hours... I couldn't. I stayed at Raf's apartment, and we had late brunch together while we went over our assignments. No classes today since it was a Reading Day with mid-terms drawing closer, but that didn't mean we could slack.We decided to go to one of the libraries on campus so we could study without the distraction of thumping neighbors. But when we got there, I only lasted an hour before my thoughts began to wander.Curse.Evan had thought something about a curse, but his mind had clouded and darkened before I could hear anything else. What was it? What had he been talking about?It was stupid of me to dwell on it when Evan clearly didn't want me to know. What was I goi
When Monday came around, I dragged myself to classes with bags under my eyes. The nightmares that had begun bothering me never left even after several days, and they were becoming more and more graphic each night. Maybe it was because I was trying to hard to forget about Evan. The futile conditioning I tried to put my mind through was only making me think of him more.I couldn't keep going like this. Seeing Evan in my dreams was torment enough, but Evan doused in blood, in pain, drowning in anger and hatred as he killed me over and over again... The banshee weed might find good use with me, too, not just him.The first class today was physiology and the discussion of the evolutionary leap from human to werewolf. Hundreds of years ago, a mutation in a small group of our progenitors became a dominant trait, one that spread to many of their offspring. The ability to shift into a wolf form was determined by the inheritance of a protein chain. Th
When Peelle had called mentioning that Evan was worried, I had assumed he meant Evan had not yet returned to the manor. But when I headed upstairs to my bedroom, the door to his own was wide open with the lights on. If I hadn't seen his long shadow sliding across the threshold of the doorway, I might have thought it was a maid cleaning up, but there could be no mistake. Evan was home.My gut churned. So he had been able to talk on the phone after all, and yet he had ordered Peelle to call me instead. Was he that determined to keep distance between us now? I had drawn back and patiently waited to see what he would do, even though I had tried so hard to convince myself I no longer cared. But this... Just more proof that it was far too late, if there had ever been a chance in the first place. Evan was avoiding me.And yet just as I took the first step across my bedroom doorway, ready to throw myself into a miserable night full of more nightmare
I'd been beaten before, punished for every imaginable thing including when I simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and within reach of Elly's or Maria's slaps. But this was the worst pain by far, dull and gouging as I got up from the table without a word.Evan. He was angry Ken was picking me up. He didn't want me to go with him, jealous and possessive as if he wanted me -- but he had made it clear already he didn't want me enough to stop looking for his real mate.I wasn't good enough for him and never would be. Evan could be as angry as he wished, but in the end, he was treating me as nothing more than a toy to pass the time with. And the only reason he was angry was because he thought someone was taking that toy away from him before he'd had his fill.And he couldn't even commit himself to it enough to ask me not to go. Not that I would have let him win because I refused to be played with, but if
I pushed him away."Evan, no! You know--!"I couldn't even finish what I'd meant to say, the words catching in my throat like burning barbs gouging deep. How could he? All while thinking, all while knowing he would never stay with me, all while plotting to find another woman to be the one for him no matter what I did, he was still trying to do this to me?I lost her, he thought, the desperate hiss in his mind cutting into mine. I've lost her.You never even wanted me to begin with, I wanted to say back, but that would only expose me in the worst way. I moved aside, gently pushing away his hands from me. My heart ached at the struck expression carved into his face, but this wasn't fair. I couldn't throw myself at him when he had said to my face I wasn't the one for him. Even if he wished I was his mate, even if he wished he could stop searching... this was the choice he had made"Evan. We're still frie
He must have taken my suggestion seriously. By the time I washed up and went down for breakfast fifteen minutes later, Evan was gone. The housekeeper said he had disappeared in a hurry, driving off with Peelle without an explanation to the staff. But I knew. He must have gone off to Dark Moon territory again.Was there a point, though? It was not only possible but likely that if someone there had been intimately involved in the betrayal of his family, they were already dead. He had slaughtered everyone related to Alpha Kris after all... I shook my head, driving the grisly thoughts away. That was in the past now. I would never forget what Evan had done, but there was no way to bring anyone back from death. It was over. Evan might find that the path was a dead end.But maybe he could find clues another way. I texted Peelle, staging the suggestion like an uncertain question. Didn't we stop by the city garden that day you escorted me? I asked. I can't remember clearly anym