Chapter 9

Elena & Killian

Elena

A rabbit had walked right into my snare.

Yesterday, when I called Lucas to my room, I began to hatch my plan. I told him that I had noticed jewelry going missing recently, and that I suspected a member of the household staff was stealing it from my jewelry box when I wasn’t around.

Lucas brought me what I requested: a scentless plant extract known as nightseed oil, which was derived from a nightblooming plant that was common in our part of the territories. The extract had no smell or color until it came into contact with the oils in skin.

Then, the extract would turn a bright red color that could not be washed off easily.

Knowing that my locket would be stolen and left by Natalie’s dug-up grave, I knew I had to act—not just to keep my jewelry from being left at the scene, but to catch the person who would frame me.

So last night, after Lucas left, I put the nightseed oil on every piece of jewelry I had, including the locket. Then, when I left to go to my adoptive parents’ cottage, I deliberately kept my bedroom door open—essentially inviting the thief to enter my room and take the necklace.

And lo and behold, the thief was caught quite literally red-handed.

A few minutes after Lucas informed me that the thief had been found, a maid was brought into Killian’s study. I recognized her immediately—her name was Ruby, and she was one of the staff who had always hated me.

No wonder she had framed me. Was she working with Natalie, I wondered? She had always been a part of the group who felt that Natalie would make a better Luna than I. Perhaps, being one of Natalie’s biggest supporters, she had taken the order to frame me for the crime that would ultimately get me out of the picture so Natalie could take her “rightful place”.

Ruby didn’t look at me as Lucas brought her into the room. Killian stood by the window with his arms folded, and I couldn’t decide if he was frustrated by my scheme or intrigued. But that didn’t matter.

“You stole this locket, didn’t you?” I asked, holding up the necklace my father had given me when I was a child.

The maid glanced at the locket, then down at her red-stained hands. To my surprise, she willingly admitted, “Yes. I stole it.”

I curled my lip and tossed the locket by her feet. “Did someone pay you to leave it by the grave you dug up?”

Ruby didn’t try to deny her scheme. “I did dig up the grave and leave your locket there,” she said, lifting her chin. “But I worked alone.”

I blinked, shocked, and glanced at Killian, whose surprise mirrored my own. It didn’t make any sense that a maid—a member of mine and Killian’s household staff, who relied on being paid by us—would choose to incriminate herself like this. And so easily, too. She hadn’t even tried to deny it!

“Why?” Killian pushed away from where he was leaning against the window and stormed over to her. “You know that framing anyone for a crime like this, especially the Luna, could result in severe punishment.”

The maid simply shrugged. When she glanced at me, there was pure hatred in her eyes.

“She is no Luna to me,” she hissed, nostrils flaring. “She was always cruel to me. She should have died, not Natalie.”

I held back a gasp, refusing to let her see that her words affected me. Killian’s face, however, turned into a mask of fury. He snapped his fingers at Lucas. “Take her into custody. I won’t stand for my Luna being framed.”

As Lucas took the indignant maid away, I watched the scene with a cold, detached feeling in my chest.

For a moment, just a moment—when Killian called me his Luna—I felt a flicker of something tender in my heart. But I quickly pushed it back down, because I wasn’t the same weak girl anymore who would let myself believe he had said it out of any kind of love for me.

He was just angry that Natalie’s grave had been disturbed and the culprit had been caught. He didn’t actually care whether I was framed for it or not.

Without another word, I stormed out, leaving Killian behind. He didn’t call after me or follow me, and by the time I returned to my room, I had completely come to the conclusion that he cared only for Natalie, not for me.

Once I was alone, I slipped the small scrap of paper I’d found in Natalie’s desk out of my pocket. The strange golden crest with three slash marks stared up at me, glinting in the dim light.

Despite my intensive studies regarding all of the territories’ packs, including their crests, this one was unfamiliar to me—which meant that it was likely unfamiliar to most people. In fact, when I called Maeve to my room to show her, she didn’t know what it was, either.

“I’m sorry, Elena,” she said quietly, handing the paper back to me. “I’ve never seen that symbol before.”

I chewed my lip with frustration. “I guess I’ll have to do some more digging, then,” I mused.

Maeve hesitated, then whispered, “There might actually be someone who can help…”

…

Killian

As I watched Elena leave my study, her spine rigid, a strange feeling came over me—one that I hadn’t felt before.

Guilt.

I had wrongly accused her of a heinous crime, only to find out that she had indeed been framed by a member of our very own household staff. I hadn’t even given her a chance to explain herself before I threatened to lock her up in her own home.

“You should apologize,” my wolf snarled.

I sighed, scratching my head. I supposed I should, shouldn’t I? Maybe it would make her stop resenting me so much, too—something that I couldn’t risk right now with the election coming up.

Swallowing my pride, I made my way up to her room. When I entered, Elena was alone. She was sitting in front of her fireplace, which was lit, warming her hands. She didn’t look up at me.

For a moment I just stood there, taking in the sight of her. In the flickering light of the fire, her white hair almost seemed translucent. Her side profile was slender and delicate, her nose daintily swooped up into a curve at the tip, freckles dotted across her pale skin.

Elena was always beautiful in an exotic sort of way, but there was something different about her lately—a haunted look to her reddish eyes, a hard set to her small mouth. Like she had made a harsh decision on her own, although what or why, I wasn’t sure.

“Elena, I…” I took a step forward, but the words wouldn’t come. I wasn’t used to apologizing to anyone, especially not her. She had certainly never expected apologies before.

Rather, I did the next best thing: I approached her, pulled her to her feet, and kissed her. She stiffened in my arms, but allowed me to touch her.

Elena always loved it when I provided her with intimacy, the one thing she always craved the most. I never wanted to admit it, but I enjoyed it, too; it was the one time I could feel close to her, the one time when I felt the fated mate bond we shared, that primal drive that pulled us together like an invisible thread.

She had been inexperienced when I married her, but the sex eventually got better, more passionate and intimate. Even now, I found myself falling into our usual routine.

My hands slipped up her shirt as my mouth slanted across hers. Her slender waist was cool and smooth beneath my touch, her breasts supple, nipples peaking when I brushed my thumb across them.

I heard her moan softly into my mouth, a sound so faint I almost didn’t hear it, and it made me stiff with arousal already. If she was so hateful of me, then I would change her mind with one good night in bed.

Maybe we both needed that.

But before I could lift her into my arms and carry her to the bed, she pushed away. I blinked, surprised, as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stepped back, seemingly unaffected by my touch.

“There’s no need for that,” she said curtly. “Our marriage is only for appearances. I don’t want to pretend in private anymore.”

Her words stung more than I wanted to admit, and when she simply took her seat again and pretended I wasn’t even there, I decided not to give her the satisfaction of the argument she clearly wanted so badly.

So I left, and a little while later, I found myself at the Silver Ale—a seedy tavern by the outskirts of the village, where the lighting was dim and the air filled with cigar smoke. The type of place where no one would care if the Alpha was drinking his sorrows away.

I was halfway through my second glass of bourbon when I noticed a slender figure in a cloak enter the bar—not out of the ordinary for a place like this, but a flash of white hair from beneath the hood made me look up.

Elena?

The figure was already gone, and I shook my head.

No. The Elena I knew would never come to a place like this.