Chapter 3
Elena's POV
I returned to the servants' quarters and pulled the old suitcase out from under the bed.
There were no clothes inside.
Only a backup phone, a fake ID card, and a vial of scent-suppressing medicine.
Using the backup phone, I dialed a familiar number. "Dad."
"Elena, sweetheart, have you really decided to leave the Blade Pack?"
No one in the pack knew that my biological father was the Alpha of the Bloodclaw Pack, or that I was his only heir. I had left my own pack in the name of true love. I had been too unwilling to give up my fated mate, and in the end, I lost both my dignity and my strength.
Some fates exist only to teach you how to end a foolish hope with your own hands.
"Yes, Dad. I'm ready. I'm leaving tomorrow," I said.
"I've prepared all the evidence you asked for. It will be made public tomorrow morning at 10:10."
Half an hour after Zack and Shari finished their mating vows, I would give them a precious wedding gift.
After I hung up, I hid the backup phone inside my uniform.
Then I lay back down on the bed and waited for dawn with my eyes open.
The afterpain of the silver still churned through my body.
But strangely enough, I was no longer afraid.
Because I knew that after tomorrow, everyone would think I was dead.
And the dead do not remain trapped in the Blade Pack.
Zack and Shari's mating ceremony was scheduled for nine o'clock the next morning.
I was allowed to stand in the back row, an Omega the Alpha had "mercifully spared," there to witness the rise of the pack's new mistress.
The main hall had been lavishly decorated.
White roses, silver ribbons, a champagne tower, and laurel wreaths flown in from the most expensive florist in the city. Everything was dazzlingly expensive.
Shari stood on the steps in a white gown, like a bird that had finally flown onto a throne. Zack stood at her side.
The head of the elders sat in the front row, his expression dark. By pack law, an Alpha needed the elders' approval to formally change his mate's status. But Zack clearly had no intention of waiting.
When Shari turned around, her gaze passed through the crowd and landed on my face with perfect precision.
She smiled.
Then she said to Zack, "I'm a little nervous."
Zack took her hand.
"I'm here."
The words slipped into my heart like a fine needle.
Once, he had said the same thing to me.
Before the vows began, Shari suddenly lifted her skirts and walked over to me.
Everyone turned to look.
Her face wore a perfect mask of gentleness.
"I know today must be very hard for you," she said softly. "But I hope you can bless us. After all, we'll still be living in the same pack from now on."
Living in the same pack?
That was never going to happen. But I couldn't expose my plan, so I only looked at her in silence.
Shari seemed to finally enjoy my silence enough.
She raised her voice, and her eyes suddenly reddened.
"I only wanted to say goodbye properly. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Zack came over at once.
His eyes moved from Shari's reddened gaze to my face, and his brows drew together.
"What did you say to her this time?"
I looked at him and suddenly found the whole performance absurd.
"I didn't say anything."
"That's enough." Zack's voice turned hard and cold. "After today, you'll be sent to the border forest. You are not to return without my permission."
A shocked breath swept through the crowd.
The border forest.
That was where the Blade Pack exiled werewolves who had committed offenses.
Remote, freezing, lawless, and close to neutral territory, where feral rogue wolves often roamed.
For someone like me, stripped of her wolf, being sent there was almost the same as a death sentence.
In a low voice, Shari said, "Zack, maybe there's no need to be so harsh..."
"This is what she deserves."
He did not hesitate.
I looked at him.
Looked at the man I had once loved enough to throw everything away for.
I wanted to ask him, Zack, did you ever think, even for a second, that I could hurt too?
But in the end, I only smiled.
"All right."
He froze for a moment.
As if he hadn't expected me to be so calm.
