Not out of service. Not disconnected. Blocked.
FIA
I stared at the screen. Tried again. Same message.
My father wouldn’t block me. He barely knew how to use his phone. I’d watched him struggle to figure out texting for years. There was no way he’d gone into his settings and blocked my number.
Which meant someone else had done it for him.
Hazel or Isobel. Had to be. They’d probably convinced him I was dangerous. That I’d tried to hurt Hazel. That I needed to be cut off completely for everyone’s safety.
The phone died in my hand. The screen went black, and I was alone again.
I shoved it back in my pocket and kept walking.
The plan was simple. Get back to Silver Creek. Find my father. Make him listen. He’d believe me if I could just talk to him face to face. If I could explain what really happened. Hazel and Isobel could spin all the lies they wanted, but I was still his daughter. That had to count for something.
It had to.
The forest got denser the farther I walked. The trees grew closer together. The underbrush got thicker. My feet were bleeding from a dozen small cuts, and the wedding dress was in tatters. I’d torn off most of the skirt just to make walking easier. The bodice was still intact, but barely.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time felt strange in the forest. The sun moved across the sky, filtering through the canopy in shifting patterns of light and shadow.
I should have found a road by now. Or a stream. Or some sign of civilization.
Instead there was just more forest. More trees. More endless walking.
My head started to hurt. Just a dull throb at first. Then sharper. Like someone was pressing their thumbs into my temples.
Dehydration probably. I hadn’t had water since the wedding. Since before the wedding actually. I’d been too nervous to eat or drink anything that morning.
I needed to find water soon. A stream or a pond. Something.
The dizziness hit me without warning. One second I was walking fine. The next the world tilted sideways. I stumbled. Caught myself against a tree trunk. Pressed my forehead against the rough bark and waited for everything to stop spinning.
Something was wrong.
This wasn’t just dehydration. This felt different. Worse.
I looked down at where I was standing. The ground was covered in small purple flowers. They had five delicate petals each, pale lilac at the edges but darkening toward the center, and they swayed slightly even though the air was still. For a moment I stared at them, dazed. They were pretty in an odd way, soft against the harsh browns and greens of the forest floor. Then something sharp flickered at the back of my mind.
Recognition.
I blinked, trying to focus through the fog pressing in on my skull. Mourning moon. The name crawled up from memory like a snake out of a hole. I’d seen it before, in a dusty field guide Thomas kept locked in his old shed, the kind of book he never wanted me touching. Poisonous carnivorous blooms, rare but dangerous, their pollen hung heavy in the air, sweet and faint, designed to lull prey into confusion before they realized they were being hunted.
My chest tightened. My breath came shallow. This wasn’t just a headache. This was poison. It had been seeping into me for miles, and I hadn’t even noticed.
This was Tracker 101. A basic trap, one I should have recognized instantly. How had I not realized? How had I missed it until now, when my vision was already blurring and my legs felt like they belonged to someone else?
My stomach lurched. How had I been so stupid? The dizziness wasn’t dehydration. It was the flowers. I’d been walking through them for Goddess knew how long, inhaling their poison with every breath. The headache, the spinning world, the strange sense of time slipping past me, all of it made sense now.
I staggered back from the patch, but it didn’t matter. The flowers weren’t just here. They were everywhere. Dotting the moss, tucked beneath ferns, lining the narrow path I’d been following for hours. Their pollen clung to the air like mist. Every inhale burned a little more. My throat felt tight.
Panic jolted me awake like a slap. I turned and started running. Branches whipped against my arms and snagged the shredded skirt of the wedding dress. I yanked at the fabric, tore more of it away, and kept going. My lungs burned. My heart slammed against my ribs. All I could think was get out. Out of the trees, out of the flowers, out before it was too late.
The forest blurred past me, trees dissolving into streaks of green and brown. My breath came in ragged gasps. The path dipped and rose and twisted, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. If I stopped now, I’d never get up again.
Somewhere in the chaos of running, hope sparked. There was a break in the canopy ahead. A sliver of something gray between the trunks. Not sky. Not more trees. Pavement. A road.
I pushed harder, legs shaking. My vision tunneled. The edges went black, but the gray strip stayed ahead, beckoning. Just a little farther. Just one more step.
My foot caught on a root. I went down hard, hands scraping against the dirt. The impact knocked the breath out of me, but I crawled forward anyway. The scent of mourning moon clung to me, sweet and sickening. My fingers brushed gravel.
The road.
Relief hit me so hard it felt like another blow. Someone would find me here. Someone had to. A car, a truck, anything. I just had to stay awake long enough to be seen.
I tried to lift my head, to drag myself farther onto the asphalt, but my arms gave out. The sky tilted overhead, a bright slash of blue through the trees. My eyelids fluttered.
Then everything went dark.
CIAN
The bond snapped back into place like a rubber band pulled too tight and released.
One second there was nothing. Empty space where she should have been. The next second, panic slammed into me so hard I couldn’t breathe. Not my panic. Hers. Raw and animal and drowning in something that felt wrong. Felt like poison.
My body moved before my brain caught up. I shoved Garret aside, yanked open the door, and dragged him out of his seat. He hit the ground with a grunt. I didn’t care. I couldn’t.
I was already behind the wheel, throwing the limo into drive.
“Alpha Cian, what – “
“Shut up.”
Garrett’s voice died in his throat. Smart man.
I slammed my foot on the gas. The limo surged forward. Too slow. This thing was built for comfort, not speed, but I pushed it anyway. The engine roared. Trees blurred past the windows.
The bond pulled at me like a fishhook lodged in my chest. This way. Faster. She’s dying.
I should have felt satisfaction. Should have felt vindicated. This was exactly what she deserved, wasn’t it? She’d schemed her way into my life. Hurt her sister. Manipulated everyone around her. And now she was facing the consequences of her own stupidity despite the chance that I had given her.
But the bond didn’t care about any of that. It just screamed danger, danger, danger with every pulse of my heartbeat.
How the fuck did she even harm herself so quick? Was she a fish out of water?
My knuckles went white on the steering wheel. The speedometer climbed. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty on a private road that wasn’t meant for this kind of driving.
I took a curve too fast. The tires squealed. The back end fishtailed, but I corrected and kept going.
Then I saw it.
There. A white shape on the side of the road ahead. Too still. Too crumpled.
I hit the brakes. The limo skidded to a stop sideways across both lanes. I was out of the car before it finished moving.
She was face down in the gravel. Her wedding dress was shredded. Covered in dirt and blood. Her feet were bare and torn up. Dark hair spread around her head like a funeral shroud.
I dropped to my knees beside her. Grabbed her shoulder and rolled her over.
Her face was pale. Lips tinged blue. She wasn’t breathing right. Shallow gasps that barely moved her chest.
That’s when I saw the flowers.
Purple petals stuck to her dress. Caught in her hair. Ground into the fabric like they’d been growing on her. My stomach dropped.
Mourning moon.
“No. No no no.”
I knew these flowers. I’d ordered them planted along the borders of my territory four years ago after a rival pack tried to send assassins through the forest. The flowers were perfect for what I needed. Beautiful. Deadly. Their pollen would incapacitate anyone who didn’t know to avoid them. Made you dizzy first. Then sick. Then it shut down your organs one by one until your heart just stopped. My pack members knew. Everyone who had legitimate business on Skollrend land knew.
But she didn’t know.
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