JAMIE POV
The spectators shifted like a restless sea. Rumors spread from mouth to mouth, yet all eyes stayed fixed at the center where Andrew stood, tall, calm. Enigmatic.
I couldn't look away.
He hadn't blinked. Not when Elder Oona pointed at him with something almost bordering on arrogance. Not even when one dared ask the question everybody else was dancing around:
"Alpha Andrew, is it true what the Elders stated?"
My breath stopped.
He did not even look in my direction.
"I need to quell the rumours," he began, his tone uncompromising. "There's no truth in them. Now, never."
A sigh of silence swirled through the square as if a blade had been stabbed into it.
I do not know what I was anticipating—gasps? Cheers? Outrage?
All that I heard was the irregular beat of my own heart.
Something in my chest caved, cold and aching.
I knew it. I knew it wasn't safe for him to tell the truth. But it still hurt worse than I thought.
He didn't mean it, did he?
He couldn't.
But still, I couldn't suppress the sting behind my eyes. I blinked hard, pushing it back down.
"Lies," Grandma whispered beside me, folding her arms in disdain. "That boy's lying for your sake."
I glared at her. "You think so?
She nodded. "It's written all over his face, Jamie. The agony of it."
I spun around again, catching only the end of his closing argument. His jaw was set, his face proud. But his eyes.
His eyes were searching for something.
For me.
And at that moment, I knew.
He had lied to the world for me.
And I was angry that it had to be like that. Suchen HateIt HateItIt.
At my side, Ann was so frozen in place, you'd wonder if she were even breathing. Her hands wrapped around the cuff of her sweater like a claw, and I saw the tense muscle in her jaw working.
"He didn't mean it," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Then why'd he say it?" My breathless whisper made it out barely from between my lips.
Ann looked at me. "Because you're not prepared for what the truth includes."
I blinked, my throat tightening. "Or he's not."
Grandma clicked her tongue on the other side of me, eyes on the stage where Andrew stood like one of the statues carved out of guilt. "Boy's looking out for you. That's what he's doing. And lying through his teeth to do it."
I didn't answer.
Instead, I watched him. The tension in his shoulders. The loose way he had his hands, now clenched at his sides as if grasping something inside of him. Or himself up.
I wanted to think he was lying to me.
But a voice that I did not like spoke—what if he wasn't?
"What are you thinking?" Ann's voice was softer now, softer. She always knew when to let the sharp edge.
"I don't know where he is," I admitted. "What if his wolf is drawing him to me? What if he doesn't—" I paused. Swallowed hard. "Want me?"
Ann waited for a heartbeat, then took my hand in hers. "Then you will. With or without him. But Jamie," she squeezed my hand gently, "I have seen the way he looks at you. He's not faking.".
I looked at the place where Andrew had been just a few moments ago, now engulfed by pack warriors and restless mutterings.
My heart was not sure.
But I had to be.
*****
ANDREW POV
I hardly had time to go back to the main house when the walls started closing in on me.
The truth lay like a boulder in my chest.
I told them, didn't I? Spewed the words they wanted to hear. Did what a good alpha would do. What a good son should do.
But everything inside me screamed like that was all wrong.
My wolf hadn't stopped growling since the moment I looked Jamie in the eye and turned him into a secret.
A sin.
A shame.
I thumped my back against the door and let out the wind.
I sensed Caroline's presence before I heard the sound of her voice. "That looked painful."
"I think I broke something inside," I grumbled.
She came into the room and offered me a glass of water. I did not drink.
"You did what you had to do."
"No, I did what they made me do."
I paced and ran a hand through my hair. "He looked at me like he thought it. Like I meant it.
Caroline's voice dropped. "Did he? Or did he see how your hands trembled?"
I went still.
I had not known they did.
"I just. I could not do it," I panted. "Not with Oona and Maelin watching. Not with the pack about to burn upon the saying of Lunaris's name."
"And yet still they will," she whispered. "Because they are afraid. Not one of you. Of the unseen."
I let silence reside between us.
A knock at the door.
Caroline arched an eyebrow. "You waiting on someone?"
"No."
She cautiously opened the door.
There, eyes cast down, grim-faced, was a warrior. "Alpha, there's. Something you need to see."
I went after him in silence.
What I saw outside sent a chill down my spine.
Election onto one of the old trees lining the front of the square had the following scrawled upon it:
"The Moon sees all. Traitors will fall."
Recently carved. Still seeping sap.
A message.
From the Elders?
Or someone worse?
I turned my gaze to the moon rising over the trees. The coldness in the pit of my stomach bloomed into something else.
Determination.
If they thought they could scare me into silence. They'd forgotten who raised me.
And more importantly, who I'd burn the world for.