Chapter 19

Killian & Elena

Killian

I couldn’t believe that Elena had thrown away my gift.

The jewelry I’d given her before the auction was one thing—she had made a good case for selling the items, and just as she’d predicted, it had been good for our reputation—but throwing away this necklace entirely? It was not only disrespectful, but downright wasteful!

“Has she gone mad?” I whispered, my voice trembling with barely controlled rage. My fist tightened around the box, slightly crushing the cardboard, and all I could think of doing was storming off to find her right now to confront her.

But before I could go, Maeve’s soft voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “It wasn’t her fault, Sir. It was mine.”

I looked up to see the maid wringing her hands nervously, her green eyes darting around. I frowned, not buying the act for a second.

“How do I know you’re not covering for her?” I growled. “You and Elena are friends, aren’t you? I don’t think you’ve just been a maid to her for a long time.”

“It’s true, Sir. I was cleaning this morning and picked it up thinking it was empty. Lady Elena always cherishes your gifts. I don’t think she would have intentionally had me throw it out.”

I stared at Maeve for a moment longer, studying her face, trying to sense a lie there. While she looked frightened, she did seem to be telling the truth.

My eyes flicked back down to the rose-pendant necklace in my hand then, and I sighed, some of my fury cooling. Maeve was right; Elena did always cherish my gifts, and what was more was that she loved roses above all other flowers. She always kept a vase of them on the dining room table, and frequently wore a sweater in the colder months with rose embroidery around the sleeves.

She wouldn’t have thrown my anniversary gift away. She loved me and roses too much for that.

I arrived at the Council hall a short while later in a better mood than before, although my high spirits guttered slightly when I entered my office to find Elena sitting in one of the armchairs across from my desk. She seemed to have been waiting for some time, judging from the way she was tapping her foot impatiently and glared at me as I entered.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She turned to look at me in her chair, and the expression she gave me implied that she thought I might be stupid. “I thought you wanted me to work alongside you. To improve my skills as Luna?”

“Ah. Right.” I supposed I did say that, and she didn’t exactly seem keen on taking me up on it, but I wasn’t about to argue. “Let’s get started, then.”

I took a seat behind my desk, and, just to get some kind of happy reaction out of her, I pulled out the pen she had given me and used it to write in my ledger. When I chanced a look up at her, however, her expression hadn’t changed.

A fresh surge of frustration coursed through me, but I contained myself.

Instead, I cleared my throat and said, “By the way, the opening banquet for the campaign is the day after tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Since you sold the last set, I was hoping you would wear the other necklace.”

There was no response. This time, when I looked at Elena, her expression had shifted from cool detachment to confusion. “Which necklace?” she asked, tilting her head. Her umber eyes blinked slowly, and I knew in an instant that she wasn’t messing with me.

She really didn’t know what I was referring to?

Had she not even opened the box yet?

The pang of frustration returned once more, twice as strong this time, but I once again willed it into submission. Surely Elena was just confused because I had given her so many necklaces in the past.

The Elena I knew wouldn’t have completely ignored an anniversary gift from her mate.

…

Elena

Assuming everything that had happened in my past life would still be the same this time around, the attack should be tomorrow—precisely during Killian’s speech at the opening election banquet.

I had made all of the preparations I could by now, but the worry still twisted in my gut like an ugly thing. All I could think about was the horror of the last attack, which we had been wholly unprepared for: the blood, the screaming, the casualties…

The two dead, innocent civilians, leaving behind their families and children…

Maybe that was why I hardly noticed when Killian pulled out Jaxon’s pen and began to use it. But when he looked up and stared at me, as if searching for a reaction, I knew he was doing something deliberate.

Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure. But it left me somewhat unsettled.

After I completed my work for the day, I went home early to rest before the event. The house was blissfully quiet when I arrived.

I went straight to the kitchen, where I gobbled up two sandwiches and a plate of chips—all this hard work lately had jump-started my appetite, and I couldn’t seem to get enough. I grabbed a cup of coffee and a couple of oatmeal cookies before I headed up to my room, and was already halfway through the second cookie when I opened my bedroom door and found a little silver box with a red bow sitting on the coffee table.

“Maeve?” I turned around to see if my friend had pulled some kind of a prank on me, but she wasn’t around. I thought I’d asked her to throw it away, but… I supposed she realized what was happening and felt guilty, or maybe didn’t want to be wasteful.

I had half a mind to toss it directly into the fire this time, but eventually, my curiosity won out. Finally, I sighed and set my coffee aside, licking the cookie crumbs off my fingers, and untied the bow.

And then it hit me: “Since you sold the last set, I was hoping you would wear the other necklace.”

There was a dainty silver necklace inside the box with a beautiful rose pendant—the exact sort of thing I loved to wear and would have cherished with my entire heart in my past life. I loved roses, thorns and all.

But now, all I felt when I looked at the gift was disgust.

So he did have an ulterior motive after all: to buy me another piece of jewelry to wear specifically in public. We had to maintain the image of a loving couple for his upcoming election, after all.

I tossed the box aside and huffed, sinking down into my armchair. If there was any doubt in my mind when he had given me the gift last night, it was gone now—Killian didn’t have any feelings for me.

He never had.

…

“Thank you all for coming to show your support today…”

Killian’s voice rang out across the crowd as he leaned into the microphone, but it all turned into a dull hum in my ears. My eyes scanned the audience for the attackers, every movement setting off the alarm bells in my head.

I willed myself into calmness, waiting until just the right moment. The memories this far back were faint, but I vaguely recalled the moment it had begun: a tall man had stood up in the back and pointed at the front of the crowd, and then…

“It is with great pleasure that I announce my intention to run as Alpha Council Leader in this election. As leader, I vow to serve…”

Movement caught my eye. I whipped my head toward the tall man, shrouded in shadow, wearing a brimmed hat that covered his face.

I clenched my fists behind my back, waiting. I had to wait for the first shout, had to wait until just the right moment—

Suddenly, the first scream rang out as a man at the front of the audience shifted into his wolf form and howled. Killian stumbled back, caught off guard, his voice lost amongst the chaos.

But it was I who stepped forward and commanded: “Stop the attackers!”