ELENA.
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe.
The knife is still raised in my hand, its blade catching the thin sliver of moonlight bleeding through the gap in the curtains.
My wolf, who has been silent and wounded for so long she has practically forgotten her own voice, lets out a sound so broken, so raw, I feel it in my teeth.
Dominic.
Alpha Dominic Ashford.
Thirty-four years old.
Grey eyes.
Six-foot-three of raw supernatural power.
The man who was reported dead less than twenty-four hours ago on every major news channel is standing in the doorway of my cabin, soaking wet from the rain, wearing clothes two sizes too small and caked in dried blood.
He looks terrible.
He also looks alive.
“Don’t scream,” he says quickly, hands raised.
“And please put the knife down.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“Because I came here to help you.
And because the last person who tried to use that knife against me is currently zip-tied to a chair on the mainland.”
“Who?”
His jaw tightens.
“One of Catherine’s men.
I’ve been tracking them for three days.”
“Three days.” My voice is dangerously flat.
“You’ve been alive for three days.
Every wolf on the western seaboard thinks you’re dead.
I thought you were dead.”
Something moves across his face.
It looks almost like guilt.
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“Elena?”
“GET OUT.”I yelled at him the moment he tried calling my name.
He doesn’t move.
Of course he doesn’t.
He is, infuriatingly, still an Alpha, and Alphas do not retreat simply because someone tells them to.
“I can’t,” he says carefully.
“Because if I leave, you’re dead by morning.
Catherine sent four wolves to this island.
I’ve already dealt with two of them.
There are two more in the tree line on the eastern shore.”
The silence stretches between us like a wire pulled too tight.
Slowly, I lower the knife.
Not because I trust him.
Because I am not stupid enough to die for the sake of pride.
He comes inside.
The cabin suddenly feels half its size.
I keep the kitchen island between us a laughably inadequate barrier, but it’s what I have.
“Sit down,” I say, because someone has to be in charge of this situation, and it is not going to be him.
“Start talking.”
Dominic pulls out a chair and sits, elbows on his knees, eyes on me.
He looks exhausted in a way I’ve never seen him before.
The Alpha certainty he always carries like armour is cracked at the edges, and underneath it is something I don’t have a name for yet.
“The suicide note,” he says.
“I didn’t write it.”
“Obviously.”
“The body they found at my house.”
“Wasn’t you?” I finish the sentence before he can.
I’ve had twelve hours alone in this cabin to put the pieces together.
“Which means someone helped you stage your own death.
Who?”
He hesitates.
“Dominic.
Who.”
“Jiang.”
I stare at him.
“Jiang works for Alexander.”
“Yes.”
“And Alexander is?”
“Your distant brother from the few information I was able to gather.” He holds my gaze.
“Elena, I need you to listen to me without interrupting, because what I’m about to tell you is going to sound impossible, and I need you to believe me anyway.”
“You have approximately five minutes before I decide my odds with Catherine’s wolves are better than this conversation.”
“Three months ago,” Dominic begins, “I found evidence that my mother has been laundering pack money through shell companies for twenty years.
I was going to take it to the council.”
“I know this part.”
His eyes sharpen.
“How?”
“Vivian told me.
In the car, right before Catherine rammed us into the guardrail.”
A muscle in his jaw jumps.
“When I found the evidence, Catherine didn’t threaten me.
She did something worse.
She sat me down and explained, very calmly, that if I exposed her, she would ensure that you took the fall for everything.
She showed me documents already prepared.
She’d been building the case against you for two years.
Your signatures.
Your accounts.
Your name woven through every illegal transaction she ever made.”
The air goes out of the room.
“Two years,” I repeat.
“She needed a scapegoat.
Someone whose reputation she could destroy without it reflecting on the Ashford name.” His voice drops.
“She chose you before we were even mated.
The moment she decided I would marry you, she started building the trap.”
“So your entire marriage to me was for what?”
“It was her plan from the beginning.
She selected you.
She arranged the alliance with Nightshade.
She knew your brother would object and that you’d choose me anyway.” He exhales slowly.
“She read you perfectly.
A young Omega in love, too trusting, too good.
She needed someone exactly like that.”
I am going to need something significantly stronger than what’s available in this cabin.
“And Vivian?”
Something complicated moves across his face.
“Vivian and I… my feelings for her were real.
I won’t lie to you about that.
But Catherine cultivated them.
Encouraged them.
Kept us in proximity for years before Sebastian mated her.
She wanted me to be obsessed with something I couldn’t have.
Wanted me distracted and guilty enough that I’d never look too closely at the family finances.”
“She weaponised your feelings for Vivian to keep you in line.”
“Yes.”
“And used your guilt toward me to keep me in line.”
“Yes.”