Chapter 2

Corvina's POV

The thing is, Hesper worked hard to win me over in the beginning.

When I was fifteen, the mate bond between my parents broke.

A werewolf’s mate bond is supposed to last a lifetime. Theirs snapped clean in two. Before long, they’d each found new mates and started new families.

Neither of them wanted me.

I became a lone wolf. I lived in a group home for packless pups until I aged out, worked my way through college, then landed a job at an architecture firm and rented a top-floor studio in Old Town, out on the edge of Celandine territory.

I wanted nothing to do with love. Even less with family.

So Hesper asked me out six times, and six times, I turned him down.

Not long after the sixth time, I was walking home from a late night at the office when a rogue picked up my scent.

Old Town runs right along the river levee, and half the streetlights there were out. He followed me the whole way, then dragged me down into the brush below the levee. He beat me like he meant to kill me. He tore at my clothes.

Right when I was sure I was going to die down there, Hesper showed up.

He took the rogue down, but by the end he was covered in blood, bite wounds all over him.

While I was bandaging him up, his eyes suddenly went red.

“Corvina, why do you always have to act so tough? Why won’t you just let me protect you?”

And just like that, something in me gave way.

I thought maybe being with someone like this—someone this steady, this gentle—wouldn’t be so bad.

That same night, he took me to Mirror Lake.

Back then, the shore was nothing but a wild, grassy slope. The moon sat on the water, so bright it almost hurt to look at. He stood there in the moonlight and asked me a seventh time.

When I said yes, Hesper—who was always so composed—scooped me up like an overgrown kid and spun me around and around.

Until we were both so dizzy we went tumbling down into the grass.

He wrapped himself around me the whole way down so I wouldn’t get so much as a scratch.

Afterward, we sat by the water. He fastened a moonstone pendant around my neck and made me a promise, right there under the moon:

“As long as I’m around, you’ll never be an orphan again. Nobody is ever going to leave you behind again.”

Later, on that same grassy slope, he built the house I’d walked into tonight.

But the old wound I’d worked up the courage to show him—the one that had finally, finally scabbed over—he’d just torn it open again with his own hands. Right in the same spot. And then driven the knife in deep.

I laughed at myself, a little bitterly. I stopped by the lakeshore and opened my email.

A week ago, the real estate design division at Hawthorn Group had sent me a job offer. The deadline was tomorrow.

I wrote back:

I am pleased to accept the position. —Corvina Hale

Funny. Those few words weren’t so hard to type after all.

I looked up. The moon over the lake had slipped behind a thin veil of cloud.

The truth is, Hesper, I was never easy to smooth over.

And from now on, you won’t need to bother.

I booked a flight to Hawthorn Pack for the afternoon after next. That didn’t leave me much time.

Back at the apartment we shared, I rinsed off the mud and started packing.

Not much in that place belonged to me. It went fast.

Seven years of my life, and it all fit in two suitcases.

At three in the morning, I booked a hotel room to tide me over until my flight. I was just wheeling my suitcases toward the door when I ran right into Hesper coming in.

He was carrying Myrtle in his arms, dead drunk. Her arms were looped around his neck, and she was mumbling, “Hes, don’t go...”

He laid her gently on the couch and tucked a blanket around her. Only then did he turn and casually hand me a bag of fresh ginger and a jar of honey.

“Good, you’re up. She had way too much. Make her some ginger tea, or she’s gonna be a nightmare in an hour.”

I didn’t move.

When we’d first moved in together, he came home drunk from a client dinner and spent half the night throwing up.

I felt so bad for him that I got up in the middle of the night to make him soup.

The glass pot shattered right there on the burner. Scalding broth and shards went everywhere—all over me.

The second he saw, he sobered right up.

Werewolf burns heal fast. By the next morning, you couldn’t even tell. But he fussed over me for weeks.

After that, he never let me set foot in the kitchen again.

To this day, a wooden sign he’d carved himself still hung on the kitchen door:

KITCHEN CLOSED. NO CORVINAS ALLOWED.

The rule he’d made to protect me—he was breaking it himself now, for Myrtle.

I smiled, lifted the sign off its hook, and dropped it in the trash.

“Sorry, not my job. If she wants some, you make it. We both know you'd set me on fire just to keep her warm.”

I grabbed my suitcases to leave.

He caught my wrist and pinned me back against the door.

“Okay, Corvina, that’s enough. Say whatever you want, but you’re actually packing? I told you, it was just a game. Don’t take it so seriously.”

“I know you want to get married. So do I. Next year. I’ll propose next year, I swear. Okay?”

His breath, thick with alcohol, landed hot against the side of my neck.

But I wasn’t going to melt from a few sweet words anymore. Not like before.

I shoved him off and slapped him hard across the face.

“Hesper, I couldn’t have been clearer. We’re done. I am not going to marry you!”