Chapter 45

Logan

I hadn’t come to Emma’s quarters to fight. For once, that wasn’t the plan. It was time we moved past that if we wanted to maintain any sense of civility. Or we at least tried to work toward that for everyone’s sake.

I told myself I just wanted to talk. To put the last few weeks behind us. I was prepared to move past her drama and her schemes and restart on neutral ground. I could even work past the engagement stunt. All of it.

If Evelyn could move on and push forward, then so could I.

Maybe we could finally bury the hatchet instead of driving it deeper between us. I owed her that much, didn’t I? Or maybe I didn’t owe her that, but I certainly owed it to myself to try.

But when I knocked on her door, there was no response. I knew that she often ignored unexpected visitors, so I tried using the special knock we had decided on years ago to let each other know it was the other visiting. Two knocks and a flick of the wood.

But there was still nothing.

I had asked others about where she was before seeking her out and had been directed to her quarters. She had to be here.

“Emma,” I said quietly as I eased her door open.

But when I stepped inside, I immediately noticed that the room was empty.

The curtains stirred with a soft breeze, and the scent of her floral perfume still lingered in the air like a ghost. I suspected that she had just been there but had left moments before I arrived.

Everything in the room was meticulously arranged, like the space wasn’t even lived in. Around me, the air was too quiet.

There was only one thing out of place, not tucked away and neatly organized.

Her journal.

Open. On the desk at the far side of the room.

I paused at the threshold. I knew I shouldn’t. It wasn’t my place to read her private thoughts.

But there was a strangeness to it being set there, like it had been left on display, beckoning me toward it. My feet brought me to the desk before I could critically interrogate the instinct.

It was a slim, leatherbound journal opened to the last page she had been writing in before being pulled away.

My eyes scanned the page it was open to, skimming quickly as my heart pounded against the risk I was taking.

"Logan doesn’t see me anymore. Not really. Now, I have to wonder… Maybe he never did. I think he still believes I’m the girl from the woods, but sometimes I wonder if he’s forgotten about everything we were together. I just wanted to matter to him, longer than a moment. Longer than a memory. I don’t feel like I even belong here anymore."

My chest tightened. My hand hovered over the page, then curled into a fist before dropping back to my side. I didn’t turn to another page. This was already an incredible invasion of Emma’s personal thoughts. Besides, I didn’t need to go on.

That one passage was enough to punch a hole right through my resolve.

Damn it, Emma, I thought. I cursed myself for intruding, for bringing this realization upon myself.

I stood there, rubbing my temples, letting the guilt bleed in. I hated how easily it had happened. In just a few words, everything was rewritten. The apology I had come in to express was now soaked in newfound guilt.

I was hurting her. I was making her feel as unwanted as she had made Evelyn feel. And that wasn’t right.

Maybe I’d been too hard on her. Too quick to assume the worst.

I turned before I could think better of it and left without reading another word, and wishing I hadn’t read any to begin with.

The next day, I buried myself in work.

War was simpler than women. At least for me, that was the case. War was more concise. You could boil it all down to orders, strategy, and structure. These things had boundaries and expectations that I could handle.

Most of the time. However, recent developments in the war were challenging me more than usual.

I raked a frustrated hand over my face and sighed loudly into the vacant office.

In front of me was our recent scouting report and an unopened letter. The sealed envelope glared at me, daring me to open it, but admittedly, I was too nervous. I had a horrible idea of what I might find inside.

Throughout the past week, reports from the rogue territories had grown thin, which was never a good sign. I preferred knowing where they were at all times. If they were hiding and laying low with their attacks, it meant they were preparing something. I feared learning what it was.

Days ago, I sent two of my best scouts into the outer fringes to gather intel, look into things, and seek out answers to this newfound lull in activity. They had returned with nothing but the old write-up in front of me that I was reviewing, which didn’t reveal anything that I hadn’t already known or assumed.

I sent them back out promptly and told them not to return until they had something of substance to report.

Until those recent weeks, the rogues had been restless. They were often disorganized on the surface, but something told me that wasn’t the full story. Especially in light of the rogue interrogation death and this newfound silence.

So, this new silence was especially eerie. This was particularly true given the fact that earlier that day, one of the scouts I had sent to investigate had returned, looking worse for wear.

His name was Hayden, and he had staggered back into camp just hours ago, holding the envelope that was now on my desk, barely keeping himself upright. His skin had been pale, veins livid with sickly green lines. His breathing was shallow, and he flinched at every touch. No matter how hard he was pressed, he was unable to form the words of what had happened to him in his delirious state.

The healers confirmed what I suspected at a glance.

Wolfbane. He had been poisoned.

We nearly lost him. When I visited him in the medical wing, he was clammy and mumbling softly to himself. Evelyn had been bent over him, brow creased in concentration as she worked to get him an antidote, but it might have been too late. Only time would tell if Hayden would make it.

The rush of medics kept him tethered to life, just barely conscious in the medical wing. I trusted Evelyn especially to do all that she could, but inwardly, I worried that the damage was done.

Another man sacrificed for the cause. Another soldier the rogues might claim.

I swallowed dryly. I had to open the letter. I had no excuse for not seeing the message Hayden had risked his life to return with.

But still, I couldn’t deny my fears. I had a suspicion of what I might find inside. I feared the confirmation it might outline and how it would change everything.

But I had to know. Slowly, I opened it, and my eyes ran across the scrawled writing.

“We have your second spy in our custody. Retreat and draw back your armies, or his fate will mirror the first. The wolfbane is ready. He’ll die slow, Alpha. You know how this works. You’ve seen what we can do with this first scout. Don’t force our hand.”

The handwriting was clean and confident.

But it was the signature at the bottom that stopped my breath cold.

—Jesse

And there it was. The confirmation I had feared.

My hand tightened around the paper until it crumpled in my fist. So it was true.

It was him.

Jesse.

I should have known. Maybe a part of me always had, but didn’t want to confront or believe it.

I hadn’t heard that name spoken in years. My mother never mentioned him. My father sure as hell never claimed him openly. He was the secret we all shared and never discussed.

The rogue leader wasn’t just some angry outsider. He wasn’t some stranger to me.

He was Jesse.

He was my half-brother.