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This hurt in the same vast, incomprehensible way that seemed beyond any capacity to endure. That it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening. That any moment, it would end, or it would make sense.
But it never ended. And it never made sense.
None of it seemed to be real, except in the moments when it hit me, itwasreal, like when Marcella had come for the umpteenth time to survey the dye job on my hair.
“I want to see Sterling,” I always told her.
And she always replied, “Put him from your mind.”
Mint had always said he could turn me into a gothic beauty if he’d wanted to. AmberHowl hadn’t gone that far, but between the silver and being damn near bitten in two, I looked gaunt and a bit like death, and my red hair had been dyed a deep auburn brown.
“Keep the silver scar hidden,” Sarah added.
“You can’t expect me to stay in human form the rest of my life.” This entire Werewolf Witness Protection Plan was not much of a plan. They could faithfully hand me a box of hair dye every four weeks, but they couldn’t change my scent or dye my white pelt or cover up the obvious silver burn on my shoulder. Even a half-brained observer was going to be likegee, who is that little white wolf with the FrostFur sigil silver-scratched into her shoulder?
The very elite of AmberHowl—along with the handful of warriors who had been present when I’d been at the heart previously—knew who I was and what was going on. The rest had never met me or only met me in passing. Unless FrostFur regularly carved up random wolves with silver and branded them like so much livestock, it would take less than a microsecond for everyone to figure out who I really was.
Sarah nodded towards my side. “You aren’t going to be shifting for a while.”
“But shifting can heal injuries,” I said waspishly. I wasn’t in immediate danger of rupturing something and bleeding to death, but it’d take a while for everything to regrow, re-attach, toughen up.
Her expression went up another notch on the stern scale. “You also have an underlying silver exposure that is going to hamper your healing and make you prone to blood vessel dissections and ruptures. You willnotshift until you have permission to do so.”
I grumbled something under my breath.
“If this is going to be a problem, you will be given MoonDark,” Sarah added.
I was already being given MoonDark. A strong tincture under my tongue while I’d been wit-wandering to make certain I didn’t shift. But Sarah meant I’d be held down while it was poured down my gullet.
Maybe, though, if this was how I feltwithMoonDark in my system, I wanted more of it. To dull my senses.
Sarah gestured for me to follow her.
They’d let me out of the clinic a few times over the past week, letting me adjust to the cold late-winter/early-spring misery of a Virginia hillside. This time, I left it permanently, but by the time I got up the stairs and outside into the cold, the main house looked very far away.
“Come on,” Sarah said with something like sympathy. She took my arm. “It’s not far. You can make it.”
I was drained by the time we got up the porch steps, across the mud porch, and into the kitchen. The house was warm, smelled of wolves and cinnamon. I caught myself on the back of a chair and instinctively put a hand over my aching side.
Marcella, barefoot and in jeans and a comfortable-looking sweater, padded across the kitchen nook to get a look at me. “Sarah explained everything?”
“Yes.”
Marcella was no small little Luna—she was an Elder Luna, and she hadmadeAmberHowl Elder. She had scratched and clawed andtakenit from the maw of the other Elders. I’d scratched and clawed scraps from her, but the Luna watching me now expected to be obeyed—and that she already knew every resistance I’d throw at her, flinging myself around at the end of a chain.
“You’re educated and experienced enough to grasp the challenge facing you,” she said without pity. “You’re also smart enough to understand the political chessboard. Focus on yourself. I’ll deal with my pack. I do not require your assistance, advice, or opinions. You aren’t a Luna any longer, you aren’t Rodero’s daughter acting as his assistant or the de facto dominant female of a dying Elder Pack. The detail of this house, this pack, and how either are run do not concern you.”
“Except I’m the First Beta’s mate.” I was now inner circle of Elder Pack AmberHowl. The detailswouldconcern me sooner or later, unless they didn’t. “I want to see him.”
And I didn’t mean Searle.
Marcella dismissed this without so much as a flick of her brow. “That is not possible, and it is time for you to stop asking. I am not bringing him to the house. There is no excuse to bring him here. It will create a trail of coincidences for curious wolves to follow.Set him from your mind. He is not your mate.”
I clenched my fingers into fists. She was leaning into this long-term plan and shoving me in front of her like I was caught on a cattle-catcher. “Heis,and in private, I’mnotinsulting us with this farce!”
Marcella gripped my chin and yanked. Pain lashed through my side and I winced. Theweightall pressed down, suffocating and grinding. “Act defiant and petulant and unhappy and rude. It will just feed the story that you are, in fact, a low-bred, nothing-pedigreed lone wolf who finds herself the mate of the First Beta of an Elder Pack and has no idea how to behave properly. You arenotseeing him. You arenotspeaking to him. He is no one to you now. Winter of SnowFang isdead.”
Anguish soaked my soul.
