Chapter 2

The graveyard is dead silent. The old gothic headstones of the pack's ancestors cast long shadows over the damp earth. I lay a single white rose on my mother's grave. She was the Luna this pack still remembers.

Eleven years she held the seat, and she never once told me what it cost. I found out the way every daughter finds out — by watching the men who came after her treat her chair as furniture. The trust she built still pays for this pack's roads and this pack's soldiers. Nobody has sat in her seat since.

I used to think that was grief. It is not grief. It is convenient.

I turn to leave, heading for the edge of the forest.

Arthur is leaning against a massive oak in a casual black sweater, hands in his pockets. The moment he sees me he straightens up and blocks my path.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the silver-thread charm. He grabs my hand and presses the rough cloth into my palm.

Then his fingers lift and take hold of my earlobe.

Normally, a fated mate's touch sets off something fierce and beautiful. In that instant a current should run through the skin, boil the blood, wreck the heartbeat. It is the mark of the bond the Moon Goddess tied between us.

But the moment his fingers meet my skin, he jerks his hand back and stares at his fingertips as if the flesh there has gone numb. Something like shock crosses his eyes, and then the arrogance bred into him buries it.

"You will be at the procession tonight," Arthur says, in the tone of a boss handing down orders. "Stand in the viewing stand and lend Selene some presence. The council needs to see that we are united."

"No," I say. Flat. Unmoved.

I look at him and feel sick at how little sense of boundaries he has. He treats me like a low Omega with no right to refuse him.

Four years ago Selene was sobbing in the mud. Arthur took pity on her, brought her into the New Moon Pack's corporate headquarters, and gave her a well-paid public relations job.

For four years, Arthur, Finn and Leo have let Selene seep into every corner of our lives.

I remember sitting in the living room of the pack mansion, watching the three of them stare blankly at the wall — talking to Selene in secret through the pack's mind link. Every time I caught them at it, I got the same excuse: "Ella, we just didn't want you twisting things in your head."

"Your mother's death anniversary is coming up," Arthur says suddenly, cutting through the memory. "Once our Binding Ceremony is behind us, I'll come here with you to pay respects."

I look down at the charm in my hand. "Not necessary," I say.

I walk past him, shoulder brushing his, and not a single spark jumps between us.

Behind me, Arthur's phone rings. He answers it.

"Yeah, I'm with her right now," Arthur complains into the phone, deliberately loud enough for me to hear. "Throwing a princess fit. She won't last. Biology wins in the end — she can't fight the mate bond."

A short laugh escapes me. These people have no sense of propriety, and no idea what respect means.

I walk back alone to the old gothic manor my mother left me: a vast stone building swallowed in dark ivy, far from the glittering glass towers of the pack's business district.

I go down into the cellar. The air smells of old dust and dried roses. On the bottom shelf I open a heavy iron box. Inside lies an ancient silver ring, solid and weighty — the Luna relic my father had made for my mother — and beside it, the master ledger key to the pack's founding trust.

If my mother were alive, she would tell me to leave that honor to the dead rather than hand it to those three traitors.

Then a voice echoes in my head.

"Ella, what are you making a fuss about now?" Finn's voice comes down the mind link, thick with self-righteous irritation. And behind his mental frequency, Arthur's arrogant low voice rolls through the link: "Let her sulk. She's a spoiled child. All I wanted was to give Selene a decent event to settle the lower ranks."

I close my eyes and gather my focus on the mental threads that tie our minds together.

With one hard yank of will, I rip it apart. The bond itself stays — a dead weight I can no longer reach.

My wolf does not answer me. She has gone somewhere I cannot follow, and she will not come back for anything I have to offer her tonight.

The pain in my mind is nothing next to the pain in my heart, and yet I feel lighter than I have in years. From today, I live for myself.

My phone is a small weight in my pocket. There is a number in it that I saved in January and have never once dialed.

I take it out and look at it for a long time. Then I put it back where I can reach it without thinking.