THE CLIFF
WREN
Branches tore at my arms as I ran, my bare feet finding every root, every jagged stone the dark could hide.
Behind me, the howls were closing in-not the wild, chaotic sound of a wild boar or bear, but something worse, my own pack’s warriors, moving like a net being drawn shut.
I knew these woods. I’d grown up chasing rabbits through them as a little girl, had my first shift beneath that crooked oak two miles back, had kissed a boy I thought I loved against the lichen-covered rocks by the creek.
My wolf clawed at the inside of my chest, desperate, screaming at me to shift, to fight, to do *something* other than run toward a dead end.
But she was weak.
We both were.
Three days without a full moon to heal from what they’d already done to me, and the silver steel sat lodged beneath my ribs where Lila’s claws had found me in the chaos.
I broke through the treeline and the world just-stopped.
Rock beneath my feet, and past it, two hundred feet of nothing before the river that cut through the valley like a vein.
The moon was full and merciless, lighting up every face of the half-circle that emerged from the trees behind me.
Twelve warriors, my warriors.
Or so I thought when I married him.
And in front of them, breathing hard, his eyes the colour of a winter I no longer recognized, was my husband.
“Kade.” His name came out cracked, more wolf than woman. “Please.”
“Vesper is dead, Wren.” His voice came out quietly “She drank from your cup.”
“I never poured her a cup.” My claws were lengthening without my permission, my wolf done waiting for my consent.
“Where's Vera? Ask your precious fated mate’s twin where she was standing when Vesper collapsed. Ask her why there’s no poison in my chambers if I’m the one who-“
“Enough.”
No it isn’t.
I’m the one who’s had enough of their treatment for the past three years.
“I never betrayed this pack,” I said, to him, because some idiot, hopeful part of me still needed him to be the one who heard it.
“Not once. Not ever. You’re about to kill the only person who never lied to you.”
For a moment-one single moment-I thought I saw it land.
Then he stepped aside, and let his warriors come.
I didn’t fight them. Not really. What was the point, with silver in my blood and my own mate looking at me like a stranger?
I jumped off.
The fall lasted longer than I expected. Long enough to see Kade’s face one last time, far above me, already turning away.
Like the past ten years of our marriage meant nothing.
And I meant nothing.
In the end I should’ve just never married him.
The fall lasted longer than I expected. Long enough to see Kade’s face one last time, far above me, already turning away.Branches tore at my arms as I ran, my bare feet finding every root, every jagged stone the dark could hide.
Behind me, the howls were closing in-not the wild, chaotic sound of a wild boar or bear, but something worse, my own pack’s warriors, moving like a net being drawn shut.
I knew these woods. I’d grown up chasing rabbits through them as a little girl, had my first shift beneath that crooked oak two miles back, had kissed a boy I thought I loved against the lichen-covered rocks by the creek.
My wolf clawed at the inside of my chest, desperate, screaming at me to shift, to fight, to do *something* other than run toward a dead end.
But she was weak.
We both were.
Three days without a full moon to heal from what they’d already done to me, and the silver steel sat lodged beneath my ribs where Lila’s claws had found me in the chaos.
I broke through the treeline and the world just-stopped.
Rock beneath my feet, and past it, two hundred feet of nothing before the river that cut through the valley like a vein.
The moon was full and merciless, lighting up every face of the half-circle that emerged from the trees behind me.
Twelve warriors, my warriors.
Or so I thought when I married him.
And in front of them, breathing hard, his eyes the colour of a winter I no longer recognized, was my husband.
“Kade.” His name came out cracked, more wolf than woman. “Please.”
“Vesper is dead, Wren.” His voice came out quietly “She drank from your cup.”
“I never poured her a cup.” My claws were lengthening without my permission, my wolf done waiting for my consent.
“Where is Vera? Ask your precious fated mate’s *twin* where she was standing when Vesper collapsed. Ask her why there’s no poison in my chambers if I’m the one who-“
“Enough.”
No it isn’t.
I’m the one who’s had enough of their treatment for the past three years.
“I never betrayed this pack,” I said, to him, because some idiot, hopeful part of me still needed him to be the one who heard it.
“Not once. Not ever. You’re about to kill the only person who never lied to you.”
For a moment-one single moment-I thought I saw it land.
Then he stepped aside, and let his warriors come.
I didn’t fight them.
Not really.
What was the point, with silver in my blood and my own mate looking at me like an enemy?
No family.
No pack.
I had nothing except this one last choice. To die by the hands of people I trusted or jump and this quickly.
I jumped off.
The fall lasted longer than I expected. Long enough to see Kade’s face one last time, far above me, already turning away.
Like the past ten years of our marriage meant nothing.
And I meant nothing.
In the end I should’ve just never married him.
