Chapter 52: Chapter 52

Lily

Running was easier the second time.

With their home on the cusp of the densest part of the pine forest, Lily turned tail and ducked out of the cabin. Memories of Atticus swarmed unbidden through her mind, blurring with images so fresh they felt unstable, not yet fully formed; Elijah’s face hardened, his grey eyes turning green. It was not the truth that hurt her so – it was the lies he had told along the way.

Lily raced into the undergrowth, hardly feeling the harsh scrapes of writhing thorns as they dug into her exposed skin. Blood pounded in her temples. The pines swallowed the evening sunlight, casting her into dappled shadow.

Elijah was half faelen.

Chest heaving, Lily shuddered to a halt and vomited. She fell to her knees, wicked branches scratching her face. New scars to add to the ones she had collected in Blood Moon, in Oakhame, in Entra. And yet it seemed the worst of the scars were the ones Elijah had carved into her very soul.

She loved him, but she did not know him.

And she’d been blind to his deceit. It had all been there: the eyes, the ears; physical truths laid out before her, which she’d wilfully ignored. She’d studied his kind in her research, and still she had not opened her eyes to what he really was. Lily wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and spit.

She stood on trembling legs, a newborn foal rising into the light for the first time. An old adage swelled within her: fool me once, shame on you…

Lily clenched her fists, her mother’s garnet ring digging into her skin. She had allowed herself to be fooled yet again, by another Alpha male. She had left Blood Moon, had left Atticus, with a clear goal: harm no-one. In falling for Elijah, she had only hurt herself.

She had had a goal, once: to rid herself of the curse that forced her to shift into a creature born of anger and hatred and death beneath the pallid light of the full moon. She had wanted to be reborn as a daughter of sunlight; Elijah had stolen her gaze and taken her hand, leading her away from her destined path with a second chance at fated love.

Thinking of him made her heart ache, so Lily strode further into the pine forest.

It was all too much. Lily’s body was wracked with shakes as sobs clawed at her throat, every facet of her horrible, ruined life crawling over her skin and threading through her hair. Tears pricked at her eyes and found no barriers; they streamed freely down her face, and though she blinked furiously, it was but a vain attempt. Unable to see clearly, she stumbled forwards, arms hugging her body. The trees stretched above and moss covered the ground below, tangled undergrowth tripping her every step she took.

To Lily, each gnarled vine signified the ropes Atticus and Elijah had tied around her ankles. She tried to kick them free, but her feet twisted in the straggling plants. She fell to the forest floor, thorns wounding her naked skin.

For nearly three months, Elijah had hidden the truth of who he was. He hadn’t trusted her – because she was a werewolf. She was one of them. She was the enemy; she was his enemy. The mate bond had yanked them together, but it was a noose, not a handfasting.

Curling in on herself, Lily cried. She allowed the tears to overwhelm her as her feelings had. She loved Elijah, but in loving him she had lost herself.

Could it really have been love if he had kept his truest self from her?

* * *

Lily sobbed for hours. She thought about everything: about her dad, left alone at Blood Moon; about Atticus, his cruelty, and her departure; about the answer she had been prepared to give Elijah; and about Elijah himself. She imagined him stood in the wreckage of their kitchen, the bond pulsing out for her as it was to her for him.

She wondered if he’d tried to find her. The bond would have made it possible, though not easy, amongst the thickest parts of the pine forest. Part of her wanted him to chase her, to apologise, to explain; a bigger part of her was glad for the space. It gave her a chance to sort out the conflicting arguments rattling in her head.

Everything within her was tangled. To unknot it all would take years, and the work had to begin with her. Elijah was a soothing balm, but he did not solve the problem – he merely masked it.

But Sea Pine would shortly be under attack. The full moon would come, and with it Blood Moon would rampage through her new home. Even in the depths of her fury Lily did not want to see innocent people hurt for the sake of Atticus’s pride. It was not Sea Pine’s people that had made her hesitant to become their Luna.

Steeling herself, Lily used the tree trunk she’d sat against to haul herself to her feet. Though her path was weaving and uncertain, she had to begin walking it.

Elijah was not Atticus. It had taken time to learn it, but Lily knew, despite his faults, it was fact. She knew not where they would go from this point on, but she had to help Sea Pine before she made any rash decisions. Running was easy, but leaving her pack – for it was hers, now – was harder than anything she’d ever done.

Darkness swelled. Using fragments of moonlight fractured through the evergreens, Lily wove between tree trunks and struggled through bristling undergrowth. As she moved, her heart frosted over. The fire that had raged within her chest had gone, and so began what she imagined would be an eternal winter of love.

Her feelings remained. The disgust she’d felt had softened, melting away into a bitter pain that cut like a shard of ice. She loved Elijah, but her love had turned sour by the hurt of distrust.

In the distance a clearing stood. Cold moonlight spilled freely into the opening, and Lily doubled her efforts, desperate to escape the trees closing in on her for even a moment. The bond was like a compass; it gave her a direction to reach for, but no direct path. Lost in the trees, she longed for the solace of the open night sky.

It took time to weave through the forest. Lily understood, better than ever before, now, why Sea Pine was so often left alone in the monthly brawls. She had no sense of how long she’d been moving in the darkness of the trees, but she alone was struggling to move more than a step in any direction before having to contort her body around the next densely packed thicket.

But she could see the clearing, now. The sight of it gave her hope. Wiping away her tears, she focused solely on reaching the wide, open space, filled with felled logs placed down like seats and merry wildflowers growing across the short plain.

Something about the clearing struck her as odd. Squinting through the trees, she tried to discern what was off. She stilled. Why would anyone have arranged the logs and cut back the flowers? She was sure nobody came to these forests, save for Warrior Wolves on patrol. From her own patrols with Sea Pine, Lily knew they were not the type to spend time making seating arrangements to rest upon.

Lily held her breath. Staring at the clearing, the hope in her chest curdled.

A man edged out of the trees. Lily tensed, holding every muscle still. He strode with confidence into the very centre of the clearing, rolling his head until his joints popped. He grinned.

Lily shuffled a half-step closer.

He looked up at the moon. The pale light painted his face in shades of grey. He was handsome but plain, with short hair and classical features. The man cracked his knuckles, and the arrogance in his expression seemed to make a mockery of the moon.

Ducking behind a tree, Lily peered around it to keep watching. She didn’t understand. Her senses prickled, hair raising on her forearms. She’d never expected to find someone in the forest. Anyone could be out there.

Anyone could be behind her.

The man winked. At what, Lily could not see. Then, with one last, cocky grin, his spine snapped in two.

Nausea clenched Lily’s stomach. Bile rose in her throat. Still, she kept watching.

Fur sprouted from his skin. His legs broke and lengthened, hocks forming where once there had been knees. Lily bit her lip to keep from vomiting, needing the mild pain to help her focus.

Needing to look away, she glanced up at the moon. She already knew what she would see. It was bulbous, but the end slice was missing. The moon was not yet full.

She turned back to the werewolf. Fear oozed down her back, seeping like cold water.

He was looking right at her.