Chapter 2: Strange Reflection
Nora's Point of View
I retreated back into the shadows, my heart racing in my chest. The golden-eyed Alpha tilted his head, weighing the spot where I'd stood. His nostrils pinched tightly, testing the scent.
He could smell me.
"I know you're there," he said softly. "Come out. I won't hurt you."
His voice had the command of a man accustomed to being listened to, but beneath it was something more. Softness. That caught me off guard more than it ought to have.
I braced my spine against the rough bark of an oak, fighting the need to run. This wasn't the way I'd planned my return. I was meant to be a spy first, get intel, observe who held power now that Marcus was dead.
I'd wandered into the new Alpha's patrol route like a moron instead.
"Your scent is. unusual," he continued, taking a step closer to where I crouched. "Moon-blessed, but there is another thing as well. Something I just can't place."
My own breathing froze. He could smell the Moon blessing? Few wolves could unless they themselves bore the gift. Elena had always been able to smell it, and because of that, she'd fought so hard to hide it.
Alpha strode with predator-like calculation, each step firm and deliberate. "I'm Kai Blackwood. This is Silverback territory. You're a trespasser."
Blackwood. Not Silverstone like Marcus. This must be Marcus's son, the one Marcus had always talked of bringing home from his schooling with the northern packs. But Marcus was dead five years ago, according to what I'd perceived earlier. Kai must have taken things over early.
I closed my eyes and let Aria's memories surface, seeking out any detail about him. Images danced in my head like the pages of a book. A serious boy with gold-colored eyes, summers spent at the pack house. Always watching, always learning. Never as cruel as his father, but distant. Unapproachable.
Aria had glimpsed him once before, years ago, when she was still working with a group of thieves. They'd seen the Silverback patrols far off, and she'd seen how the young Alpha walked. As if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"I can hear your heartbeat," Kai spoke now, closer. "You're afraid, but not of me. What are you fleeing from?"
Everything. Everyone. The past that refused to stay buried.
But I couldn't tell him that just yet.
I stepped out from behind the tree, keeping my head lowered so my silver hair fell in a veil across my face. The moon highlighted the strands, causing them to glint almost white.
Kai froze entirely.
When I finally lifted my head, meeting his golden eyes, something remarkable happened. Identification flashed upon his face, but not the kind that signaled he recognized me as someone. It was something more than that. Instinctual.
His wolf reacted to mine.
"What is your name?" he breathed.
"Aria." The lie so effortlessly slipped off my lips. It wasn't so much of a lie any longer, was it? Nora Silverback was dead and buried. I was someone different now.
"Aria." I tried the name out, and I tried not to shiver at the sound of it when he whispered it in his low voice. "You're alone."
It was a statement, but I nodded anyway.
"How long have you been rogue?"
Aria's flashbacks provided me with the reply. "Three years."
"That's a long time to be surviving without anyone's help." His gaze drifted over me, noticing my bare toes and the simple dress I'd woken up in. "You're hurt."
I looked down at myself, confused. I was fine. Fine plus, actually. But then I realized what he was implying. Aria's corpse still retained the impressions of her final fight. Scratches on my arms. A yellow-green bruise on my ribs that had had time to heal.
"It's nothing," I said.
"Silver poisoning." His jaw locked. "Hunters."
The term came out of my mouth as an oath. I nodded again, letting him make his own conclusions. Better he think that I fled from humans than learn the truth of what I truly was.
"My pack does not turn away wolves in need," Kai said after a long silence. "We have healers. Food. A place to rest."
The offer hung between us like a bridge I wasn't sure that I was ready to cross. Approaching that pack house would mean facing Elena. It would mean pretending to be someone I wasn't in front of wolves who could possibly sense something familiar in me.
But it would mean being close to my target.
"Why?" I demanded. "You don't know me."
Something malevolent flickered across his expression. "Let's just say I've experienced the pleasure of inheriting another person's mistakes."
I didn't have time to press him on what he said before a recollection of Aria crossed my mind. She'd heard rumors while she'd been a rogue. Rumors about the ancient Alpha Marcus and the horrors he'd performed. The wolves he'd killed. The packs he'd claimed for himself.
And the Luna he'd murdered.
My throat was dry. People were aware. Not perhaps the details, perhaps not the true tale concerning Elena's involvement, but they knew Marcus had killed me.
"The old ways died with my father," Kai continued. "I'm attempting to build something superior."
The sincerity in his voice brought a hurt to my chest. This was not the evil, power-hungry heir I had expected. This was an individual genuinely striving to make amends for his father's sins.
Someone who hadn't known one of those sins was standing directly in front of him.
"I don't have anywhere else to go," I admitted. That at least was honest.
"Then go home with me."
Home. The word hit me like a body blow. The Silverback pack house had been my home. Where I'd been loved and cherished as the mate of the Alpha. Before it was where I'd died.
I strolled with Kai across the clearing, my feet bare and silent on the grass. Remembrances appeared with each step. Playing here as a cub with Elena. Sparring with the pack warriors. Trudging this very path on my wedding day, thinking I was the luckiest she-wolf alive.
The pack house stood in front of us, just as I recalled. Blazing stone walls heavy with ivy. Windows radiating soft light. The giant oak door Marcus had inscribed with the symbol of the pack in his first year as Alpha.
Kai moved to grasp the handle, then hesitated. "Aria?"
"Yes?"
"Whatever you're fleeing from, it cannot harm you here. My word on it."
If only he knew what I'd been running from was already inside.
He shoved open the door, and I was greeted with the familiar odors spilling out. Pine smoke from the fire. The lavender soap packet women used. And underneath it all, the unmistakable smell of home.
But something else, something that made my wolf snarl. Elena's scent, overwhelming as it shouldn't have been. She wasn't here just living anymore.
She was in charge.
"Elena!" Kai called out. "We have a visitor."
Light, hurried footsteps came from the main room. My sister entered the doorway, and I had to suppress a gasp.
She was as young-looking as the day she'd killed me. Not a wrinkle in her skin. Not a hint of gray in her lustrous black hair. She ought to have aged ten years, yet she appeared stuck in time.
Impossible. Unless.
Elena's emerald eyes ran over me, and for a moment I thought she'd recognize me. But her eyes glossed over my face without a flicker of awareness.
"A second rogue, Kai?" she said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "You know I'm not fond of taking in rogues."
"She's hurt," Kai said firmly. "She needs help."
Elena took another step forward, and I caught the scent that had been irritating me. Magic. Dark magic, twining around her in invisible strands.
My sister had been experimenting with things she shouldn't. Things to keep one young and steal from someone else.
"What is your name, sweetie?" Elena asked sweetly.
I met my killer's gaze and smiled.
"Aria," I answered. "And I think I'm going to get along here."