Page 1

Chapter 1

The council chamber smelled of pine resin and smoke, the ancient carved beams catching the dance of the firelight. Faelynn stood alone before the dais, her hands clasped tight to hide their trembling.

The alpha sat on a raised platform, his aura of absolute authority settling over his gathered pack like a warm blanket. His grey eyes softened as he regarded her rigid posture and downcast eyes. Unlike the others—her sister, Lisna, radiant at his side, her brother looming at the back like a silent wall of strength—he had always seen her predicament more clearly. Not entirely, perhaps, but enough to offer sympathy.

"You wish to leave the pack?" His voice betrayed nothing of his thoughts, neither accusing nor mocking.

She lifted her chin and answered without a trace of her inner turmoil.

"For a time. I have been offered an apprenticeship in the land of the rising sun, to learn woodwork from a master craftsman. It is a rare honour."

Murmurs rustled along the benches. Apprenticeship. Travel to the island nation where plum blossoms herald the spring. Such words belonged to unmated wolves seeking purpose, not to a wife already tied to a household with two stepchildren and a husband. Lisna frowned, confusion flickering across her elegant features. Her brother's jaw clenched in disapproval, though he said nothing. The alpha leaned forward. "And your...husband?" He did not say his name. The way he shunned his wife was a public secret and the sympathy in his tone cut sharper than scorn.

"He has not objected." That was true, because to him, her presence was no more than the wardrobe that held his clothes or the pot that simmered on the stove. He would probably not notice until she was gone, and even then, perhaps only in the absence of meals and order, like an old clock that had stopped ticking to his tune.

She had asked for this hearing because it was unheard of for a mated wolf to request time apart. Bonds were sacred and unbreakable, even the ones like hers, which were only in name. Yet it had never bothered her husband to disappear for weeks, sometimes an entire lunar month, with no word of where he had gone. She had stopped questioning him. She had ceased to see it as strange and was resigned to suffer through the separation pangs after eight years with him. Her wolf nudged her consciousness, lending resolve.

Her palms were damp against her skirt, but her voice did not falter. "It's only for a season. I give my word that I will come back."

Gasps whispered through the chamber, mutters of disbelief from neighbours and strangers. Physical separation from one’s moon-blessed- there was no telling what would happen.

Her sister leaned forward, surprise flashing in golden eyes exactly like hers, and then—worse—slow sadness creeping in, as if only now she realized what had been there all along. They were twins, and yet how blind she had been, wrapped up in her own mate bond and rise to prominence.

"My husband leaves as he pleases. This time, he has been gone a month. He is still wed to the ghost of his late beloved," Faelynn continued, forcing steadiness into her words. "And his children, after eight years under my care, have made it clear—many times in front of the pack—that I am unnecessary."

The sting of it still clung to her, the laughter in the training yard when the boy had shrugged off her presence, the girl's careless words comparing her to a servant, worthless and overshadowed by the ghost of their mother. It had been easier for the pack to nod and look away.

There was also the one who had crept into their lives. And Blaidd was enchanted ever since he bought her back after a trip to the neighbouring pack. She couldn't fight the one who reminded him of the face of his beloved.

She consciously unclenched her sweating fist. She was vaguely aware of the murmur of the crowd as she struggled to reveal the final piece which had carved out the last ounce of her soul—a thin, precise rune carved into Blaidd’s flesh. She painfully thought back to when she saw it for the first time, its glow faint, but unmistakable in the darkness.

The alpha's expression flickered with indecision. Her sister moved restlessly. Her brother growled low, anger flashing in his eyes as he realized all was not as it seemed.

"He has a rune on carved into his arm," she said, her voice unsteady for only a second. "To make certain I could not carry his child. It is old and faded, not new. He bound my future before I could even dream of it. What life is that? Half a life. I am a woman in the shadow of another; a ghost without a mate because I came second."

She did not see her brother's fists curl at his sides, the warrior in him ready to strike at the injustice. Sion’s face, so often hard and immovable, had shifted as the truth dawned on him. For once, the strength he carried wasn't aimed at an enemy across the border, but at the realization of how carelessly he had failed her.

The alpha's voice growled through the silence. "And where is Blaidd? Has he no opinions on the matter?" The question was heavy, sharp-edged, demanding.

She swallowed, though her throat was already raw. "I have spoken of this to him just before he left this last time." A partial truth was not a lie, she told herself and her wolf huffed with agreement. Every word rang clear in the silent chamber. Drama like this had never happened in this pack. Noone wanted to miss a word. "He signed the paperwork without looking. It is in front of you."

No one spoke. The admission was more damning than any accusation. Truth had always been her nature—she had never twisted it, even to protect herself. She stood there, the rune burned into her memory, her hands clasped before her, eyes lifted to the alpha who was watching her every move, trying to detect a lie.

The corner of her lips lifted in an ironic smile. There was always a first time for everything. The truth was she saved the papers for the moment that Blaidd was about to walk through the door and he had barely glanced at it before signing.

Deep pools of golden brown, once warm, once alive with laughter when she taught the pack's children, were now dull and worn thin by years of being nothing more than a placeholder in another's life.

The silence that followed in the great hall was deeper than shock; it was the shame for not recognizing one of their own had been suffering for so long. Her sister's eyes glistened, lips trembling with words that would not come.

She lifted her chin, the tremor gone. "If he refuses to grant me a full life, then I ask for the right to claim one of my own. Not as his mate or that of another, not as anyone's shadow, but on my own."

The alpha slowly rose from his chair, his gaze steady, unreadable, the weight of his responsibility to the pack pressing down on his shoulders. "You have been wronged," he said at last, his voice carrying through the chamber like a verdict. "And you will not be bound to half a life any longer. You have my leave to find your path."

Chapter 2

Her pace was brisk, almost punishing, her steps striking the earth as though she meant to leave an imprint behind. She ignored the stares of her beautiful stepchildren—almost sixteen now, all sharp limbs and incredulous eyes at her audacity. They watched her as if she were doing something unfathomable, unforgivable. They hated her for taking their mother's place, but they were unwilling to let her go.

"Heathwitch," they would spit behind her back, for a witch was to be feared and reviled, while a heathwitch was despised and considered the lowest of the low, because a heathwitch had the disgusting witch-blood in her veins but no powers beyond maintaining a house. "Homewrecker" was another favourite insult they hissed behind her back, though she made her appearance weeks after Isolde had passed. They knew there was no denying the bond. How could she have been a homewrecker when she had only come of age weeks before the tragedy?