Chapter 5

He took the stage steps two at a time, caught my shoulder, and threw me away from the keyboard.

“Have you lost your mind?”

My lower back struck the piano leg.

Pain flashed through me, so sudden and fierce that I couldn’t draw breath. I collapsed onto the floor, cold sweat breaking beneath my gown.

“You couldn’t let her have one evening,” he snapped. “You had to do this.”

I curled around my right hand.

The fingers had begun to spasm. I held them against my chest with my left, waiting for the pain to loosen enough for me to breathe.

Around us, chairs scraped. Someone murmured Rowan’s name.

He turned toward the guards.

“Get her out of here.”

Two men hesitated at the foot of the stage.

“Now. Put her in the sitting room behind the hall before she causes any more trouble.”

They obeyed.

One caught me beneath the arms. The other seized my right wrist and pulled my hand away from my body. I made a small sound then, despite myself.

Neither stopped.

As they dragged me past Sophia, she leaned close.

“Now do you understand?”

Her lips barely moved.

“You could crawl at his feet, and he’d still choose me.”

I tried to pull away from the guard’s grip.

“Your hand is useless,” she whispered. “So are you. Why don’t you spare everyone the trouble and die?”

The doors closed behind us, cutting off the watching faces.

The guards took me down a narrow passage and pushed me into a dark room.

I landed on my knees, then my side.

For a while, I stayed where I had fallen. My back hurt too badly to straighten, and every breath pulled at something deep beneath my ribs.

Footsteps approached.

The door opened just wide enough for Sophia to slip inside.

She shut it behind her.

A low fire burned in the hearth. In its light, the white silk of her gown seemed almost silver.

She stopped beside me.

“There’s something you should know, Alex.”

I watched her shoes.

“After the carriage wreck, the healer could have saved your hand.”

My eyes lifted to hers.

She crouched and caught my chin, forcing my face toward the light. Her nails pressed into my skin.

“The bones could have been set before your wolf healed them crooked. You needed a surgeon that night.”

I remembered fragments of that night. Blood on my sleeve. A stranger holding me still. My fingers lying at an angle fingers should never take.

“The healer asked Rowan to send you to the Moon Court infirmary,” Sophia continued. “The local healer couldn’t repair the damage. You needed transport and a surgeon. Rowan refused to authorize either.”

My stomach tightened.

“He told them your hand could wait.”

“No.”

“He said you could be treated once we were safe. Until then, you and Lily would have to wait.”

Her thumb pressed harder beneath my jaw.

“You were always asking for something. Your hand. Your daughter. As though he had no one else to think about.”

I shook my head, but she held me still.

“And when I called for him, he came. Not for you. For me.”

“You’re lying.”

The words came out thin and breathless.

Sophia smiled.

“Believe whatever you like. You were drifting in and out. I heard the healer myself.”

My wolf stirred weakly, alarm cutting through the pain. I reached for her, but all I found was the same frightened, exhausted presence that had lived inside me for years.

Sophia released my face.

“Oh. And later that night, in the blizzard.”

I stopped moving.

“Lily had a fever, didn’t she? You kept calling through the crystal.”

After the wreck, Rowan had arrived in his own carriage. I thought he had come to take Lily and me to the infirmary. Then Sophia called, and he ordered us out.

I remembered Lily’s cheek burning against my neck as I tried to shelter her with my good arm. After he drove away, I kept calling through the crystal.

“I answered the first call,” Sophia said. “I could hear you begging.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“You answered?”

“I closed the channel. Then I blocked your seal on his crystal.”

She studied my face with open satisfaction.

“Was it very cold out there?”

My left hand went numb around the folds of my skirt.

“How long did she last?”

Something tore loose in my throat.

I lunged.

My left hand caught her neck, and we went down together. Her head struck the rug. I pressed harder, shaking so violently that I could barely hold on.

“You let her die.”

Sophia clawed at my wrist.

“You heard me.”

Her mouth opened. She dragged in enough air to scream.

“Rowan!”

The door crashed against the wall.

I turned toward the sound just as his boot struck my chest.

The blow lifted me away from her. I hit the wall and dropped, unable to catch myself.

For several seconds, there was no air.

Then I coughed.

Blood spattered the pale stone beneath my face.

Sophia scrambled toward him.

“She tried to kill me.”

He caught her as she pressed herself against his chest.

“I came to see if she needed a healer. She started accusing me of ruining her hand.”

She sobbed into his coat.

“She said she’d kill me over Lily.”

Rowan held her closer.

His gaze found me on the floor.

“You’re beyond reason.”

I tried to speak. All that came was another wet cough.

“You sabotage the performance, attack Sophia, then invent this filth to justify it.”

He eased her into a chair.

I watched him straighten her skirts before he turned back to me.

“I tried to give you a way home,” he said. “I tried to let you keep some dignity.”

He approached slowly.

“But you won’t stop.”

From his coat, he took his message crystal and pressed his thumb against the Ashford seal.

A voice answered at once.

“Alpha?”

“Find Alex’s daughter.”

I went still.

“Search every settlement in the valley. I don’t care where she’s hidden the girl.”

He looked directly at me.

“Take her to the ward school in the western territory. She stays there under my authority. Her mother is not to see her without my permission.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

He closed the channel.

“There,” he said. “Perhaps now you’ll understand that your actions have consequences.”

The ward school.

He meant to put Lily in a boarding school for pack wards, beyond my reach.

I stared at him.

Then I began to laugh.

It hurt. Each breath dragged across my chest, and blood gathered against my lower lip, but I couldn’t stop.

Rowan frowned.

“What is wrong with you?”

I braced my left palm against the wall and tried to sit upright. My arm shook beneath my weight.

“You really don’t know.”

“Know what?”

I looked up at him.

“Where are you going to send her, Rowan?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Where do you think they’ll find her?”

“Enough.”

“Will your guards follow her into the grave?”

For the first time, he hesitated.

The crystal pulsed in his hand.

He glanced down at the seal. Another of his trackers—the men who had been searching the valley—was calling.

Rowan opened the channel, letting the voice carry through the room.

“Did you find her?”

Silence.

His fingers tightened around the crystal.

“Where is she?”