Chapter 6

He could have left.

By the time his wounds had mostly healed, he was perfectly capable of shifting and scaling the cliff wall back to Silvercrown territory.

I'd watched him try. The massive silver-gray wolf stood on the rock ledge outside the cave, moonlight pouring through the crack at the top of the Abyss, spilling down his spine. He was so beautiful I couldn't look away.

He glanced back at me.

Then he leaped down from the ledge and shifted back to human form.

"No rush," he said.

I didn't understand what wasn't urgent. His wounds were healed. Out there, he had a tribe, a castle, a people. The Abyss had nothing—just darkness, moss, and a boring me.

But he didn't leave.

He stayed.

He said he liked who I was.

He said there wasn't another Elaine in all the world.

"I'm taking you with me," he said.

I stared.

Out? I'd never thought about leaving the Abyss. No matter how beautiful his stories made the outside sound, it was still a foreign place to me. The tales were wonderful—but what did they have to do with me?

I told him honestly: "I've never left the Abyss. The outside world is completely foreign to me. And I'm so weak—just an Omega, no fighting ability. I'd only slow you down."

He took my hand. "I'll protect you."

I thought about it for a long time, then reached up and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry—even if we never see each other again, our friendship won't change. You'll always be my friend."

He looked down at the hand I'd placed on his shoulder.

"Friend?"

I nodded sincerely.

He leaned down and kissed me.

No warning.

One second he was talking. The next, his lips were on mine.

I went completely rigid.

My heart was hammering.

He pulled back slightly. At that distance, I could see the curve of his lashes and my own reflection in his pupils.

"This is something only mates do," he said. "Don't tell me you didn't feel it. You're my mate."

Oh.

So it wasn't just friendship.

I'd grown up in the Abyss. I'd barely seen people, let alone mates. The old wolf had never taught me any of this. All I'd known was that two beings could spend a long time together, taking care of each other, relying on each other. I'd thought that was friendship.

He must have read the blank confusion on my face, because he didn't try to explain further.

From that day on, I understood that the word for what we were was mates.

Life in the Abyss had always been monotonous. But with him, it stopped being dull.

Eventually, he took me out. The day we scaled the cliff, I saw the sky for the first time.

At the height of what I believed was love, he took my hand, stood before the altar, and we bonded.

That night, he marked me. It hurt—but I was happy.

What I didn't know then were many things.

I didn't know he was the Alpha of the Silvercrown tribe. I didn't know there had once been a woman called Liliana at his side. I didn't know I looked exactly like her.

That look he'd given me—that long, stunned stare—I'd always believed it was because of me.

It wasn't.

He'd been looking at another woman's ghost.

He'd said he liked who I was. That I was honest, open-hearted—the only light in the Abyss.

But later, it was exactly who I was that he came to despise.

Liliana was fierce; I was soft. Liliana never showed weakness; I cried at the drop of a hat. Liliana was decisive; I dithered over everything.

The more I was myself, the more disappointed he became.

He'd look at my face and fail to find the person he wanted to see—and that disappointment curdled into contempt.

Then he had the healer sever my pinky.

Then he sealed my tear ducts.

Then, piece by piece, he stripped away everything about me that wasn't Liliana.

But he forgot one thing.

Once he'd taken everything that was mine, what remained was neither Liliana nor Elaine.

Just a cobbled-together, incomplete, broken counterfeit.

And counterfeits are never cherished.