Chapter 8

Once Little White's injuries healed, Cassian and I took it out for a walk.

Passing the small lake behind the castle, I stopped. The water reflected the sky; weeds swayed gently in the shallows. I drifted for a moment, lost in thought.

The lake reminded me of the pool at the bottom of the Abyss.

"You know," Cassian said, "this is where Adrian and Liliana first fell in love."

"Oh?" I dipped my fingers in the water. "Maybe they should put up a plaque."

"Probably why he got ideas when he saw your face looking like hers." Cassian glanced at me, tone dry. "But a puppet is still a puppet."

Puppet.

Well-chosen word.

I was mulling over a retort when Little White went bounding through the mud at the lake's edge, freshly regrown hind leg pounding away, all four paws kicking up muck that splattered Cassian head to toe.

He looked down at his charcoal-gray coat, face cycling through several shades.

I smiled, waved it off, and turned to go—but he caught my wrist.

A low voice came from a distance: "What are you two doing?"

I looked up. Adrian.

Perhaps Cassian and I really did look a sight, or perhaps he'd come in a bad mood already. Adrian's brow was furrowed, gaze heavy on us.

Cassian didn't miss a beat: "Just a joke. Apologies for the disturbance, Alpha."

I straightened my clothes and gave Adrian a nod.

"Since when are you two so close?" he asked.

They talked tribal business for a while. I tuned out, and before I knew it, I'd drifted along with them to Liliana's quarters.

A banquet was underway inside. Liliana sat at the head, a glass of wine at her elbow, posture languid.

Today was her birthday.

Cassian pulled me to a seat in the back.

Adrian ignored us.

Gift after gift was paraded in, the tribe's members falling over themselves to show loyalty.

Among them was one particular item.

A photograph.

Enlarged, framed. When the crowd saw it, they gasped and heaped on praise.

The woman in the photo stood in a field of deep blue flowers, face turned to the side, features soft, as though lost in thought.

Adrian's eyes darkened.

He recognized it.

He'd taken that picture of me.

We were still in the Abyss then. I'd been crouching by the flower patch outside the cave, spacing out. He'd secretly captured the moment.

Now the crowd admired "Liliana's" beauty in the photo, and the more they praised it, the darker Liliana's expression became.

By the time the banquet ended, it was late. Cassian and I walked slowly back through the covered corridor, Little White trotting at our heels. Moonlight slipped between the pillars in pale sheets.

Along the way, Cassian told me that Liliana's pinky had been bitten off five years ago during the Blood Moon War—by an Abyss wolf clan Alpha, while she was shielding Adrian.

Every time Adrian saw that severed finger afterward, his guilt and heartache deepened by another layer.

The severed bone from Liliana's pinky was still treasured in Adrian's keeping.

And mine—the one his healer had hacked off on his orders—had been thrown away. No one knew where.

Cassian sighed. "Elaine—does it hurt?"

Of course it hurt. I'd loved him once, deeply. Being treated this way couldn't not hurt.

But what could I do? Liliana hadn't done anything wrong either.

The one who needed to leave had only ever been me.