At the welcome party, a wolfsbane-laced arrow tore through my shoulder and buried itself close to my heart. Before the healers could act, the healer on duty looked between the two men who had rushed in and asked for next-of-kin to authorize emergency treatment. Both men shoved forward at the same time, nearly coming to blows. One was my mate. One was my brother. “I’ll authorize — but first you consents to the severance. Say the words in front of me, Elaine. Wren needs to hear the bond is broken before she’ll calm down.” “Authorize it or don’t. I’m authorizing.” “Elaine.” Cole’s voice dropped. “All you have to do is swear before the Pack that you won’t pursue the arrow incident. Wren panicked after you cornered her. It wasn’t intentional.” I laughed, though it cost me everything I had left. I used my last thread of strength to pull the healer close. “Don’t treat me.” Alive or not, it didn’t really matter anymore. …… The argument outside the infirmary doors wasn’t about who had the right to authorize as next of kin. It wasn’t about the fact that I was bleeding out and needed treatment immediately. Evan Holt and Cole Voss stood on either side of the gurney. Each had planted a hand on one of the wheels, stopping it from rolling forward. The infirmary doors were one step away, and yet they might as well have been across an ocean. I was never going to make it through. The arrow that had entered my right shoulder was no ordinary piece. It was wolfsbane-laced, barbed, fitted with five curved hooks along the shaft. It had driven clean through my body and come to rest near my left shoulder, dangerously close to my heart. The healer was sweating through his clothes. He knew better than anyone what every passing second was costing me. With wolfsbane flooding my bloodstream, my body’s ability to heal itself had been stripped away completely. He opened his mouth to intervene, and nearly got himself destroyed by both men at once. Miserable as it was, no matter how much his healer’s instincts screamed at him, there was nothing he could do. This was Holt Pack territory. No one dared act against the next Alpha’s will. Evan wanted me to speak the words of severance to dissolve our bond before the Pack’s law made it binding. Cole wanted me to swear a public oath of pardon, witnessed and irreversible. Both of them were waiting for me to open my mouth. Like a competition, each desperate to hear his demand from my lips first. So they could run back to Wren and claim their prize. Looking at the two of them looming over me, I smiled — weak, hollow. Then I asked them something that had nothing to do with any of it. “Tonight you threw a welcome party for Wren.” “Why did it have to be tonight?” It could have been a day earlier. A day later. To them, the number was meaningless either way. So why did it have to be tonight? The wolfsbane was spreading. Every word I spoke drove the hooks deeper. But I lied to myself anyway. One more gamble. Just one more. Maybe — maybe one of them still remembered what today was. Evan said nothing. Cole’s fist dropped to his side, clenching and unclenching. A million shades of impatience. “We wanted Wren to be happy. That’s all there is to it.” “Can you stop stalling? What’s the point?” The laughter from that party. The blinding lights. The way my mate and my brother had smiled — warm, indulgent, unguarded. That was what broke me. I had stormed the party. Torn apart every moment of it. Everyone called me feral. Evan and Cole had stepped in front of Wren, shielding her with their bodies. “If you want to lose control, do it somewhere else! Stop embarrassing yourself!” I looked straight at Wren’s triumphant face. “You planned this, didn’t you?” “How pathetic.” She turned to face them without missing a beat, her expression collapsing into grief. “Why — why would she say that to me.” “Is it wrong to want to be with the people I love?” Both men’s ears went faintly red at being claimed so openly. “I thought I finally had a family. Why does she still reject me — why!” After that, using her breakdown as cover, she raised the ceremonial bow and loosed the wolfsbane-laced arrow straight at me. Even as the poison tore through my shoulder, Evan pinned me down. He was afraid I’d lunge at her. Afraid I’d hurt the one he treasured. He looked at me, and his eyes were full of disappointment. “Why.” “When did you become this kind of person.” “Disgusting.” When they lifted me onto the gurney, Wren insisted on coming to see me. What she actually did was lean close to my ear and laugh, soft and quiet. “Elaine. Today was actually a celebration for you.” “One year since yours and Evan’s pup died.” “It’s a shame they’ve both forgotten. Only I remembered — you should be thanking me.” I couldn’t lift my hand anymore. So I used the last thing I had left and bit down on her ear. Evan nearly crushed my jaw getting me off her. And that became the justification they used now, pressing me to speak the words, for why I deserved everything that was happening to me.
It sounds almost funny, looking back. Wren Voss was my twin, the sister who had been seized by a rival Pack at birth and only recently returned to us. Our parents had spent half their lives tracking her down. They died still searching, and from their deathbeds they made Cole and me swear an oath. If we ever found her, we would spend the rest of our lives making it up to her. When we finally brought Wren home, that was exactly what I intended to do. She had suffered so much. I would give her everything I had. But she looked at me with hostility from the very first moment. In the beginning, Evan had seen it clearly enough. Every time I asked him to come with me to visit the Voss house, he’d drag his feet — sullen and reluctant, needing three rounds of coaxing before he’d agree. And when we got there and Wren was in the room, he wouldn’t spare her a glance. “Baby, I’m not going to waste a good mood on someone who doesn’t like my mate.” Cole caught in the middle, always awkward, always smoothing things over. Then somewhere along the way, it became — “Elaine, Cole and I are taking Wren on a run through the Cascades for a few days. You’ve been through that territory so many times — maybe just stay home this trip?” “You know how sensitive she is. She’s always felt like you don’t like her. You’ve been too hard on her — if you come, she won’t be able to enjoy herself.” “Cole feels the same way. He didn’t want to upset you, so he asked me to say it.” “I honestly don’t understand you. You got a sister back — that should be a good thing. But you act like you’d rather she’d never been found.” “If Wren hadn’t told me, I never would have believed you’d been treating her like that in private. Telling her to go back where she came from.” “I’m leaving. Think about what you’re doing.” When Evan walked out, his eyes were full of the same disappointment he always wore when he looked at me now. I held myself together anyway. I didn’t pull all four of them into a room and demand Wren explain exactly how I had supposedly mistreated her in private. Let it go. Don’t ruin the mood. Just endure it. It’ll pass. I never forgot the oath my parents had made me swear alone, separate from Cole’s. Wren had suffered. I had been given twenty years she hadn’t. I owed her. If I couldn’t give way for her, my parents would never forgive me. These were small things. What did it cost me to give way? Then one day, I walked in and found her in bed with Evan. The blood drained from my body. The room tilted. I was beyond rage. I slapped her across the face. What came back was one slap from Evan, and one from Cole, who had come running at the sound. Cole was the angriest. “Wren told me from the beginning — that you’d been tormenting her in secret, shutting her out, making sure she never got any of my attention. I didn’t believe her.” “Guess today you finally showed your real face.” “She survived twenty years of suffering and finally made it home, and the first thing she gets is a sister like you. Elaine — aren’t you afraid of what Mom and Dad would think if they could see this?” “If I could go back — I’d rather it had been you they took.” I stood there and couldn’t move. The tears wouldn’t stop. Evan was holding Wren, murmuring gently, calming her down. He glanced at my tears, his expression completely cold. “Stop crying.” “Wren isn’t crying. What gives you the right.” “The bond between us was never real — I see that now. We were placed together young and I mistook closeness for fate.” “If it had been you who was taken and came back — I still wouldn’t have bonded with someone like you.” “So don’t blame Wren.” “She did nothing wrong.” “I should be grateful I finally saw who you really are.” I watched Wren’s eyes find mine — that flicker of victory she couldn’t quite hide — and suddenly I understood. She didn’t love Evan. She didn’t love Cole. She just hated me. She hated that it hadn’t been me who was taken. She hated that I’d had twenty years she hadn’t. My pain was the only thing that made her happy. And she had the most powerful weapon in the world, their guilt. I had no right to fight back. So on that day, I lost my mate and my brother at the same time.
If tonight hadn’t happened, I probably would never have seen the two of them argue over me again. Though the old arguments were about who got to spend time with me. Now they were arguing over which oath they could press out of me first — so they could get back to Wren faster. Both their phones went off at the same time. “Evan. Cole.” Her voice came through the speaker, trembling. “I’m so scared. The blood got on me and I can’t get it off—” “I wanted to come with her when they put her on the gurney, but Elaine said the moment she recovered she’d kill me first. I don’t know what to do. I really didn’t mean to hurt her. I’m so worried about her—” She cried herself breathless, then caught herself — put on a show of pulling it together, just in time for the two men on the other end of the line who were already aching to shift and run back to her. “Sometimes I think Elaine is so lucky. Evan and Cole care about her so much. I don’t have anything. And whenever I get even a little — she finds a way to take it back.” “It’s okay. You don’t have to rush back. I’ll be fine on my own—” “I’m going to prepare a hundred arrows for when I accidentally hurt Elaine. She said when she recovers she wants every one of them loosed into me. If that’s what it takes to make her feel better, then that’s what I’ll do.” By the time the call ended, both Evan’s and Cole’s expressions had gone dark enough to draw blood. Cole was the first to break. Without any warning, he wrapped his hand around my throat. “Why. Just — why.” “Why can’t you just let Wren be?” “It was an accident. A hundred arrows — do you want her dead?” “Elaine Voss. How did I end up with a sister like you? How did our bloodline produce something like you?” The pressure shifted the arrow inside me. The hooks turned. The wolfsbane surged with every movement, coursing deeper through my veins. This was no ordinary ceremonial arrow. I choked up blood. Evan reached over and stopped Cole’s hand. “Calm down.” “Were you actually going to choke her out?” Something in my chest, something that had already gone cold and dark — flickered with a secret, shameful hope. Maybe. Maybe he still couldn’t let go of me. Maybe his wolf still recognized mine. “If you kill her now, she can’t speak the oaths.” “Were you planning to go back to Wren or not?” “If she dies here, Wren will blame herself. You want her carrying that for the rest of her life?” Once he’d talked Cole down, Evan finally spared me a glance. I was still coughing up blood. It had spread across half my face. The blood was clotting in my throat, and every cough dragged the hooks further, the wolfsbane burning through every attempt my body made to close the wound. Over and over. Relentless. He frowned. His voice went flat. “Enough.” “Stop performing.” “Is that a blood pack you’re hiding?” “I inspected those arrows with Wren myself. They’re thin. Flexible. She’s a kind girl — she specifically ordered them that way so no one would get seriously hurt.” “The impact drove it into your shoulder, that’s all. Your wolf should be able to handle a graze like that.” “Stop being so dramatic. We’re not idiots.”
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