Nyra’s fingers tightened around Alaric’s arm as though she had every right to claim him, then she turned her sweet gaze on me.
“Mrs. Viremont,” she said softly, tilting her head with practiced innocence, “thank you for the blood offering earlier. If not for you, I would still be weak.”
Her smile deepened.
Then, in that same gentle tone that always carried a hidden blade, she added, “Alaric… may we bring her back to the estate? She should not be left alone in such a state, right?”
Alaric did not even hesitate.
He reached up and pinched Nyra’s cheek fondly, as if she were something precious carved by the Moon Goddess herself.
“My little dove is always so kind,” he murmured with a low, pleased laugh. “Anything you wish.”
That was the end of it.
I had already intended to return for my belongings, so I offered no protest. In his world, protest only mattered if he chose to hear it.
We returned in a black war-carriage of the Blackthorne House—iron-bound wood, reinforced with beast-hide, warded by old sigils etched into its frame. The interior was silent, heavy with the scent of aged leather and iron.
As if the night itself had been sealed away with us.
Nyra shifted suddenly beside him.
“Oh… what is this?”
She reached into the seam of the seat and pulled out a strip of lace cloth, holding it delicately between two fingers like she had uncovered proof of sin.
“Alaric,” she said lightly, though her eyes sharpened beneath her lashes, “didn’t you say the servants had cleansed everything thoroughly?”
She leaned into his shoulder, tapping his chest in mock complaint.
Alaric actually laughed.
Not the cold, restrained sound I was used to—but something warmer. Almost indulgent.
He apologized to her at once, saying it must have been overlooked, while his gaze slid briefly toward me.
Watching.
Waiting.
For a reaction.
When none came—no anger, no jealousy, not even a flicker—his expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
And something in him soured.
“Elira,” he said suddenly, his voice sharpening as the carriage rolled through the moonlit road, “you have been staring at your phone-crystal since we departed.”
Possessiveness edged beneath his calm like a hidden fang.
“Who sent you word? Your kin? Or some stranger I do not know of?”
I had already arranged passage beyond the seas.
So I simply closed the crystal and returned it to my satchel.
“I was only reading messages from the village,” I answered evenly.
His mood darkened further.
Without warning, he reached over and took the crystal from my hands.
“Speak the passphrase,” he ordered.
“My birth-night,” I said without looking at him.
Nine years. A bond once sealed before Moonstone altar and witnesses of the pack.
He entered it once.
Wrong.
Again.
Still wrong.
The crystal sealed itself with a dull pulse, rejecting him.
Silence settled between us after that.
When we reached the estate, it was as though nothing had shifted at all.
Alaric stepped out first and immediately lifted Nyra into his arms, careful as she clutched her stomach and murmured of discomfort. He carried her inside without a glance backward.
At once, he ordered the hearth prepared, her preferred dishes cooked, the healers summoned if she so much as frowned.
I followed at a distance and turned toward the guest wing.
Only then did he pause—like he had just remembered I still existed within his lands.
“Add two more dishes,” he said without turning. “Prepare the usual fare for the lady of the house. Set three places at table tonight.”
Not kindness.
Routine.
Like assigning space to something already fading from importance.
When I entered my chamber, something felt wrong at once.
My travel chest lay open.
Every garment I had packed was torn into strips, scattered across the floor like discarded offerings. The cuts were precise. Deliberate. Not rage—but message.
Only the hidden compartment remained untouched.
My sealed travel writs were still inside.
That was when I understood.
I was never meant to leave freely.
I gathered them quickly and turned toward the door.
But Nyra was already there.
She held a small black vial between her fingers, examining me as though I were something already broken beyond use.
“I truly did not expect this,” she said lightly. “You endure far more than I thought.”
Her smile widened as she stepped inside.
“I entered your bond, stole your place in the hall, turned you into a joke among the packs… and still you cling to Blackthorne.”
Then she tilted her head, almost amused.
“Ah… your last protection, House Valeheart, fell last moon, did it not? Without them, what are you now besides a shadow at Alaric’s heel?”
She lifted a small carved tablet.
A memory fragment.
A shore beneath dying sunlight. Gold spilling across water. A kiss.
“He did not come to your grandmother’s passing rites,” she said sweetly. “He chose this instead. He promised me that sunset.”
Something inside me cracked cleanly.
I moved before thought.
The tablet struck the ground from her hand as I seized her throat.
The vial slipped from her fingers and shattered.
A sharp scent filled the air at once.
Lamp-oil.
Before I could react, she stumbled back with a startled cry.
The spill spread.
And then—
a spark caught.
Fire took the chamber like it had been waiting for permission.
Flames climbed the wood and stone too quickly for breath to follow. Smoke choked my lungs in an instant, and my strength failed beneath me as I collapsed, coughing, vision breaking apart.
Through the roar of fire, I heard it.
Alaric’s voice.
“Elira!”
Then chaos—guards shouting, boots striking stone, men trying to hold him back.
“Alpha! The fire is consuming the wing—wait for the fire-walkers—”
“Move,” he snarled. “She is still inside.”
The door burst open.
He came through the flames like a warlord breaking siege, ignoring heat and smoke alike.
But he was not alone in what he sought.
Nyra’s voice rose immediately through the burning air.
“Alaric… please…”
He did not hesitate.
Did not look at me.
He lifted her into his arms and turned away.
And walked out.
As though I had already been left behind long before the fire ever began.
Half a bell later, the blaze was contained. The wing reduced to ash and ruin. No trace of me remained within it.
That night, beneath the sky stone arch of the port beyond the pack lands, I coughed blood into my sleeve, sealed a courier’s packet with trembling hands, and boarded the ship to Albion alone.
Before the sails were raised, my crystal pulsed once.
A message.
Alaric.
[Cease this folly.]
[Nyra’s moon-healer appointment is at the tenth bell. You will attend and assist with her breath ritual afterward.]
I read it once.
Then I removed the crystal shard from its chain, crushed it in my palm, and let the dust fall into the sea wind.
The horizon stretched ahead like a cut between lives.
And for the first time—
I did not look back.
