Chapter 3

He turned, dug a tube of salve from his pocket, and tossed it to me.

The rarest kind, made from moonflower.

Celina watched him toss the precious salve at me, and something jealous flickered behind her eyes, there and gone.

I caught it. My fingertips were still bleeding.

“Sweetheart.” Caine turned to Celina, and his voice went tender in an instant. “Don't worry about the embroidery. I've already brought in Madame Lilian to do it herself.”

Celina's eyes lit. “Really?”

“She's the finest needleworker in the world,” he said. “A lot better than these clumsy hands.”

A quick flash of triumph crossed Celina's face, almost too fast to catch, and then she was beaming, throwing herself into his arms.

“Thank you, Caine. You're so good to me.”

I looked down at the salve in my hand, then at the cluster of needle marks on my fingers, and the bloodstain on the gown that would never wash out.

I let out a bitter little laugh and turned to leave—and the whole villa erupted with a shrill alarm.

“Ambush—” a guard screamed, and the rest was lost in the noise.

Then dozens of rogue wolves poured in, huge, eyes burning red.

Gunfire followed.

Not ordinary rounds.

A silver bullet whipped past my ear and struck the wall, and the silver dust it kicked up left the air scalding.

“Celina!” Caine's roar came from the living room, carrying a panic I'd never heard from him.

I ran toward it and saw he'd already shoved Celina behind him, using his own body to shield her from the front.

A rogue lunged for Caine. I didn't think—I threw myself in to intercept and opened its throat with a backhand swipe of my silver dagger.

After all these years, protecting Caine had become instinct.

Blood sprayed across me.

The next second another wolf came from the side, fangs sinking into my shoulder.

Pain detonated. I grunted and flung it off, blood pouring from the wound.

It flung a handful of silver dust onto the wound, and the burn drilled down toward the bone.

“Caine—” The cry tore out of me before I could stop it.

He didn't look back.

He was retreating toward the safe room, Celina shaking in his arms.

A third wolf came at me. I twisted aside, but my foot caught on a shard of glass and I went down hard.

Its claws raked across my stomach. I grunted, and blood soaked through my clothes in seconds.

I tried to push myself up, and my vision started to black out.

The last thing I saw before I went under was Caine carrying Celina through the safe room door.

The moment it shut, he didn't so much as glance back at me.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a bed in the healing center.

The silver dust on my shoulder and stomach hadn't been cleaned out. The wounds were still burning.

But there wasn't a single healer in the room.

A nurse came in to dress them, sloppy and quick.

“Where are all the healers?” I rasped.

“Reassigned to look after Miss Celina,” she said, not lifting her head. “She scraped her hand. The Alpha said every healer was to focus on her first. Not a moment's delay.”

She paused, envy plain in her voice.

“He really does love her, doesn't he. Who wouldn't want to be treated like that.”

I closed my eyes and didn't answer.

She scraped her hand.

I was lying here with a bite to the bone in my shoulder and silver caked in my stomach, and they couldn't spare me one healer.

Then a commotion broke out in the hallway, the noise swelling.

The nurse hurried off to see.

I braced my shaking legs, pulled out the IV line, and forced myself off the bed.

Every step felt like the wounds tearing open all over again.

Bracing on the wall, I dragged myself, inch by inch, into the corridor.

A crowd had gathered in the center of the hall, the murmuring thick in the air.

I pushed through, and saw it—

Caine on one knee, a velvet box in his hands, and inside it an enormous diamond ring.

Celina stood in front of him, both hands clapped over her mouth, on the verge of tears.

“Marry me,” Caine said, his voice so tender it left me cold all over. “Not for the alliance. Not for anyone. Just because I love you.”

I stood at the edge of the crowd, covered in blood, and no one noticed me.

“Yes,” Celina cried, shocked and overjoyed.

He slid the ring onto her finger and kissed the back of her hand.

Watching it, every wound on my body stopped hurting.

It was as if my heart had simply shattered.

So he knew how to say I love you.

He'd always known.

He'd just never said it to me.