Chapter 3

She knew. She knew I was there, and she kissed him again anyway. Slower this time. For me. Then the truck pulled away, and I followed, because I had nothing left to lose but the truth. They stopped on Main Street, outside Harrow's, the boutique every she-wolf in the pack dreamed about and none of them could afford. Kane got out first, came around, opened her door. She took his hand without looking at it. I parked across the street, pulled up my hood, and went in after them. Selene moved through the store like the air parted for her out of courtesy. Kane walked beside her, his hand at the base of her spine, his thumb tracing a slow circle against her coat. The same circle he traced on my wrist. A cashmere wrap. Leather gloves. A dress, blood red, cut low in the back, for tonight. She held it against her body. He watched with quiet, undivided attention. He paid without looking at the total. Then she sat on a velvet bench, and Kane Thorne, the Alpha who once told me he kneels for no one, knelt and slid a heel onto her foot with his own hands. She looked down at him. He looked up at her. His face went open. Soft. A version of him I'd spent seven years trying to earn. She got it for free. "Your Luna has beautiful taste, Alpha," the saleswoman beamed. Neither of them corrected her. I stood behind a rack with my nails carving crescents into my palms. Seven years, and Kane had never bought me a single thing. Not a scarf. Not a ring. Once, walking past a jeweler, I let my eyes linger on a thin silver chain. "Silver's wasted on you, Nora," he'd said. "You don't even have a wolf for it to burn. You don't need trinkets." So I swallowed the want and kept walking, ashamed I'd let it show. Their last stop was the jewelry case in the back. Old Harrow himself came out, carrying a velvet box like it was holy. "Cleaned and reset, Alpha. As you asked." He opened it. The moonstone. Pale blue fire in a silver cage. The Silverfang Luna's heirloom, passed from mate to mate for two hundred years. The one Kane told me was lost in a fire before his grandmother's time. He lifted it out and fastened it around Selene's throat himself. His fingers lingered on the clasp. Then he kissed her temple, brief and automatic, the way you do something your body has stopped asking permission for. The overhead light caught the stone and threw a sliver of cold fire across my eyes. I turned away before I screamed. They drove to the Ashwood Lodge at the edge of the territory. I watched them walk in with a key card and disappear into the elevator. I counted to three hundred. Then I called my husband. Six rings. Soft music behind him. "Hey." Easy. Relaxed. Not a crack in it. "Where are you?" "At the Hall. Setting up for tonight. Total chaos." A short laugh. "What's up?" I let my voice thin and shake. "Kane, my chest. It's tight. I can't breathe right." Silence. He knew about my heart. The weakness the pack healer found the week after our mating. Marta's bitter tea every morning for seven years was the only thing keeping it steady. "Did you drink Marta's tea?" "Yes. It's not working. Can you come home? I can't drive." I let the pause stretch. I could hear him calculating. Leaving meant leaving her. Leaving meant lying twice. Then a voice floated through the line. Faint. Female. "Kane? The bath's ready. The water's perfect." Soft. Intimate. The voice of a woman calling a man back to bed. He heard it too. Panic replaced calculation. "Nora, I can't leave right now. My father's got the elders in council. Call Marta. She'll get there faster than I can." Lower, rushed: "I have to go. They're calling me." The line went dead. I set the phone on my thigh and watched the screen go dark. And then my chest really did start to burn. Not my heart. Deeper. Lower. A heat unfolding under my ribs like something rolling over in its sleep. Something inside me that had been silent for seven years stirred. And slowly, for the very first time, it opened one eye.