Chapter 7

"Anything."

"Please find out which healing house shelters my grandfather."

There was a brief pause before her voice came back through the bond. "I'll see to it."

Night had already fallen deep when Lucien returned. A storm raged beyond the walls, rain hammering against the shutters like a hundred small fists. The chamber door slammed open so hard it struck the wall.

I opened my eyes.

Lucien stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, his clothes soaked through, water dripping from his cloak and hair. At first I thought it was only rain.

Then I looked closer.

The liquid running down his sleeve was not clear. It was red. Blood.

Before I could speak, he strode toward me, his face dark and furious. "Selene, why in the moon's name did you do this?"

I frowned. "What are you speaking of?"

He let out a cold laugh. "You truly wish to ask me that?"

I stared at him, confused. "What's happened?"

Without warning, he drew a small scrying mirror from within his cloak and cast it onto the bed. Its silvered edge struck my hand painfully. I flinched and looked down.

Visions filled the glass, one after another. Evelyn, years ago, being carried from a tavern in the border villages, her gown disheveled, her name already being cried through the marketplace by that evening: Lawyer of the Court Assaulted After Drink! A thousand whispers had followed, spreading from crier to crier until half the territory called her a mistress, a homewrecker, a disgrace to her bloodline.

Slowly, I looked back up. Lucien's face was terrible to behold.

"I found the crier who first spread it," he said coldly. "I tracked down every soul involved, and do you know what he told me? A woman calling herself Muffin sought him out. She wanted no coin, no favor. She wanted only one thing." He stepped closer. "To destroy Marga."

The chamber suddenly felt suffocating.

Lucien stared straight into my eyes. "The proof points to you alone. What else am I meant to believe?"

I shook my head at once. "It wasn't me."

"Selene—"

"It wasn't me," I repeated, forcing the words through my ruined throat. "I swear it on the moon, it wasn't me."

For a brief moment, doubt crossed his face. Then it vanished, and his jaw tightened.

The next instant, his hand cracked across my cheek.

My head snapped sideways, pain exploding through my face. My ears rang. My skin burned, though somehow that was not what hurt the most.

Lucien stood over me, his eyes cold with fury, looking at me as though I were the criminal, as though I had ruined a life rather than had mine ruined first.

"Selene, how did you become so vicious?" His voice had gone low enough to silence an entire Council hall.

Slowly, I turned my head back toward him. Blood lingered at the corner of my mouth where I'd bitten through my own lip.

"I didn't do it," I said hoarsely.

But Lucien no longer listened. His fists tightened. "Marga opened her own wrists over this. She nearly died, Selene. She wept while the whole territory tore her apart, and you expect me to believe you had no hand in it?"

Every word landed like an accusation.

"This isn't finished," he said. "You don't get to wound her and walk free of it."

Then he turned and left without another glance, without asking whether I spoke truly, without caring enough to hear the whole of it. The door slammed shut behind him.

The chamber fell silent. I stared at the empty doorway for a long while before a quiet laugh escaped me, one that sounded far more like a sob. In my mind I heard the vows we had exchanged beneath the full moon on our bonding night.

What a jest that had turned out to be.

"Lucien," I whispered, my voice barely more than breath, "what exactly did you ever keep of those vows?"

A few hours later, I understood fully what he'd meant by not finished.

Evelyn's scandal vanished overnight. Every whisper, every rumor, every tale carried by the criers disappeared as though none of it had ever been spoken. The territory moved on from her.

It did not move on from me.

A new scandal rose in its place. Mine. Or rather, the shape of it they wished the pack to believe.

False visions spread through every scrying pool and seeing-glass in the territory, conjured by some spell-worker's cruel hand. Illusions showed me bound to a bed. Others showed my dead brother standing over me. Still more painted me among strangers, old wolves, young wolves, anyone they could use to make me appear something foul and disgusting.

None of it was real. None of it mattered. The pack believed it anyway.

My name, my face, my whole life were flung across every market square and gathering hall like carrion for the crows.

The whispers multiplied with every passing hour.

Disgusting.

No wonder she's mad.

Like brother, like sister.

Perhaps she wanted it.

She's jealous, since Marga is the prettier one.

She means to destroy another wolf's happiness because her own mate no longer loves her.

My hands began to shake as I gripped the edge of the scrying glass harder and harder.

No. No. No. Every vision was false. My brother had never touched me, never once.

The old lies that had ruined me years before had returned, crueler now than ever. My chest tightened, the chamber began to spin, and suddenly I couldn't draw breath. The stone hall of the Council flashed through my mind, followed by the whispers, the stares, the shadow cells, the humiliation, the hatred. It felt as though unseen claws had wrapped around my throat and were tightening with every heartbeat.

Somewhere in the distance, voices called out.

"Selene, look at me. Breathe, stay with us!" someone urged.

"Fetch the healer, now!" another voice cried.

My vision blurred until everything dissolved into noise. Then something pressed over my mouth and nose, sweet-smelling herbs meant to calm a failing breath.

One breath. Two. Three.

Slowly the darkness retreated. Shapes returned. Colors returned. Eventually, so did Lucien.

His face appeared above me, and for one brief moment I thought I saw real worry in his eyes. Then the bond flared with another voice.

Evelyn.

Of course. Always Evelyn.

He answered at once. "Marga, what's wrong? Speak to me."

I couldn't hear her reply, but I watched him rise to leave regardless. Before vanishing through the door, he said gently, "The false visions are gone now. Don't fear, I won't let this happen again."

Then he left. Again.

And I was alone. Again.

**

Over the following days, Lucien rarely came to see me, though the pack made certain I knew exactly where he spent his time instead. Visions surfaced daily in every seeing-glass across the territory. Evelyn and Lucien walking along the shore. Watching the sun set together from a cliff's edge. Sitting side by side atop some mountain overlook, laughing, smiling, the very picture of a bonded pair.

The whispers adored them. No one cared that Evelyn had knowingly pursued a mated Alpha. No one cared that I remained his true mate still. Instead the pack called them fated, true love, a romance destined by the moon itself.

Tales spread from hall to hall. Some claimed Lucien had once gifted an entire gathering of young wolves with charms just so he might slip one to Evelyn unnoticed. Others said she'd mentioned wanting honeyed cakes from some distant village, and he'd ridden through the night to bring them back to her by morning.

The tales grew more absurd with each passing day. The pack loved them regardless. Some even begged Lucien to set me aside and take Evelyn as his true mate instead.

Evelyn made certain I saw every vision, every whisper, every tale, sending them to me herself, one after another, hoping to provoke me into losing what little composure remained. I ignored all of it. I had already made my choice.

I no longer wanted this wolf. Not now. Not ever again.

That night, I drew out the scrying charms I had hidden within Lucien's study and Evelyn's chamber, meaning only to be certain they still held their working.

Then the vision surfaced within the still water, and I froze.

Evelyn stood unclothed within her chamber, tears filling her eyes. Across from her stood Lucien, his face tense, torn.

"Lucien, this is my fourth wish. You swore me six, and this is all I ask of this one," Evelyn said, stepping closer, catching his hand in hers.

His frown deepened. "Marga, don't do this. You know this isn't right."

Tears slid down her cheeks as she shook her head. "Please. Only this once. Don't refuse me."

Lucien's jaw tightened. He closed his eyes. For a long moment, neither of them moved.

He should have pulled free. He should have walked from that chamber. He should have refused her outright.

Instead, he hesitated.

And he stayed.

That alone told me everything I already knew.

A slow smile crossed my face, not because it wounded me, and not from anger, but because the vision had merely confirmed what I had long since understood in my bones.

I sealed the vision within the charm, keeping it safe, then let the water still once more.