Chapter 2

Footsteps echoed outside the door.

A few elders walked in, with Jackson, the gray-bearded elder who oversaw the Sacred Spring, leading the group.

Vera suddenly took a step back, her eyes rimmed with red. "Mr. Hill, I just wanted to organize the mate bond files.

"But Evelyn wouldn't give them to me. She said I wasn't good enough to even touch anything she'd written."

I froze.

Jackson frowned at me. "Evelyn, Vera is about to become the Luna of Northland.

"Why is a no-wolf scribe like you holding onto the Alpha's mate bond files?"

I opened my mouth to explain, but before I could say anything, the bells tolled from the direction of the Sacred Spring. Once. Twice. Three times.

Three tolls meant only one thing: the Sacred Spring had been tainted.

Vera turned to look at me.

Tears hung from her lashes, but her lips curved into a faint smile.

She said, "Who else would resent me for becoming the Luna, except Evelyn?"

*****

When the Pack Council interrogated me, Ryan sat in the head seat.

Behind him, the wolf-head banner hung down, its black velvet trimmed with silver.

I knelt in the center of the Council Hall.

The floor was cold beneath me.

A sample of water from the Sacred Spring, tainted with raw silver powder, was set in front of me.

Jackson said, "Unpurified silver powder harms all werewolves.

"Most of all, it weakens the fated mate mark."

Vera sat below Ryan, her face pale, looking genuinely shocked.

She said softly, "I know Evelyn doesn't like me, but I never thought she'd actually target the Sacred Spring."

I lifted my head. "I didn't do it. I've got detailed records of the Sacred Spring's daily flow, and a list of everyone who was on duty last night."

I held out the scroll with my notes, but Jackson didn't take it.

He stared at my wrist, where the fated mate mark had cracked, leaving nothing but a pale, faded scar.

"Records from a no-wolf like you don't count as evidence," Jackson said.

I looked up at him. "The Pack Council is happy to use my records when they're judging others. But when it's my turn to defend myself, now I'm just a no-wolf to you?"

Someone in the hall let out a low chuckle.

I heard it, and I felt my knuckles clench, one by one.

I looked at Ryan. "You know I'd never taint the Sacred Spring."

For the past three years, every Sacred Spring log was written by me.

When Ryan lost control during the full moon, I was the one who washed his wounds with water from the Sacred Spring.

He knew. He knew that better than anyone.

Ryan's fingers rested on the armrest of his throne.

His knuckles stood out, and there was an old scar on the pad of his finger.

That scar was left from the first time he lost control and scratched me.

I remembered. And he should, too.

But he just lowered his gaze to me. "Evelyn, and over the files."

My throat felt clogged with snow. "What if I refuse?"

Ryan didn't answer right away.

Vera let out a soft cough.

Ryan's gaze slid away from my face. "Then I'll have to suspend your record-keeping rights as a priest."

I let out a soft, almost inaudible laugh.

It turned out that when pain cut deep enough, one could still laugh.

Jackson brought his silver staff down with a heavy thud. "Evelyn Lorne, you're accused of tainting the Sacred Spring, hiding the mate bond files, and conspiring with the vampires.

"From this moment on, you're exiled from the Northland Pack."

*****

As the guards dragged me out of the Council Hall, Ryan remained seated.

Vera sat beside him, her fingers resting lightly on his sleeve, like she was the real Luna.

Night had already fallen when they threw me out of the Northland barrier.

The rain came crashing down, each drop stinging my face worse than the silver staff ever did.

Clutching the last copy of the Sacred Spring records that escaped their search, I stumbled back to the old cabin my mother left behind.

The lock had been broken a long time ago. Inside, it was as cold as a grave.

I braced myself against the doorframe, and the mate mark on my wrist tore open again. The pain was so sharp that my vision blurred to black.

Just as I was about to collapse, a shadow fell across the doorway.

A black umbrella loomed in the rain. Beneath it stood a figure with silver hair and crimson eyes, his skin cold and pale. He looked like a ghost out of an ancient legend.

It was Sevian Knox, the Lord of the vampires.

He stood outside the threshold and didn't come in.

Rainwater trickled down the ribs of his umbrella.

He fixed his gaze on me, his voice low and steady. "Evelyn Lorne, I can't walk in without your invitation."

I gripped the doorframe, gasping for breath. "What are you doing here?"

His crimson eyes flashed in the rain. "The black mirror at the Blood Court border just lit up.

"An Alpha rejected his fated mate in front of everyone, and the echo of that rejection crossed the border.

"I'll protect the mate whom the werewolves threw away."