Selene's POV

I don't even remember walking home. One second I was standing against that tree trying not to breathe, and the next I was in my room with the door locked, shaking so bad I had to sit down before my legs gave out.

Before she remembers everything.

Four words. Whoever said that knew exactly what I was. Not guessed. Knew.

Damon said it. Kellan's own beta. The guy who's stood next to him my whole life, basically, close enough to hear everything and never say a word about any of it.

I used to think that made him loyal. Now I don't know what to think.

I decided two things that morning. One, I wasn't telling Mara yet. Two, I wasn't going anywhere alone again until I figured out who else knew what I was.

Eleven days until the dinner.

Breakfast was rough. My dad kept talking about treaty stuff like it was nothing.

"You're quiet again," he said, not looking up from his tea.

"Just tired."

"You said that yesterday too."

"It's been a tiring week."

"Selene." He set his cup down. "Is this about the wedding, or is this about something else."

I almost laughed, not because it was funny, but because he had no idea how big that question actually was.

"It's about the wedding," I said, which was technically true.

He studied me a second longer than I liked, then let it go, the way he does when he decides pushing won't get him anywhere. Theo, across the table, was not nearly so polite about it.

"You've been weird for weeks," Theo said around a mouthful of toast.

"I've been weird my whole life, according to you."

"This is a different weird. This is 'my sister is planning something and won't tell me' weird."

"I'm not planning anything," I said.

"You're clenching your jaw right now," Theo said. "You always clench your jaw like that right before you lie to me about something."

I hadn't even noticed I was doing it until he said it. I forced my jaw to relax, on purpose, trying to prove him wrong.

That was the mistake. The second he watched me catch myself doing it and stop, his grin got even bigger, because now I'd basically just admitted he was right without saying a single word.

"Ha. Knew it," Theo said.

"You didn't prove anything," I said.

"That right there just proved my whole point." He reached over and took a piece of bacon straight off my plate, not even a little bothered by the look I gave him. "You've got a tell. Everybody's got one. Yours is the jaw thing. You'll tell me what's going on eventually, you always do."

I hoped he was wrong about that, for his own sake more than mine.

I went back to the papers Theo gave me and read every little note twice. Damon's name kept showing up in weird spots. Boundary deals. Trade stuff that moved things away from smaller packs up north and toward some Alpha I'd never heard of before in my old life.

Elias Kane.

I sat with that name a long time, turning it over. It didn't match anything I remembered, and that scared me more than a name I recognized would have. At least with a familiar threat I know what I'm dealing with.

I sent Mara out to the border markets to ask around. She came back that night looking rattled, and Mara doesn't rattle easy.

"People talk," she said, sitting down next to me, keeping her voice low even though nobody else was around. "About the fire that killed Kellan's dad."

"What do they say?"

"That it started in the wrong part of the house. That Damon found the body, and he was already dressed like he was about to leave town."

My mouth went dry. "When exactly did that fire happen?"

"Same week Kellan rejected his fated mate." Mara looked at me funny. "Why does that matter to you?"

"I don't know," I said. "It just feels important."

"You always say that when you actually do know."

"Mara."

"Fine. Fine. I'm dropping it." She held her hands up. "For now."

"Thank you."

"I said for now. Don't get comfortable."

She sat there a second, studying me the way she does before a fight, like she's mapping out where I'm weak. "You know I'd help you with whatever this actually is, right? You don't have to solve it alone just because you're used to solving things alone."

"I know."

"Do you, though?"

I didn't answer that one either, and she sighed like she'd expected as much.

"There's something else," she added. "The guy who moved the dinner up wasn't sent by Kellan. His advisor's office sent him. No order from Kellan at all."

"How do you even find stuff like that out?"

"I ask the right people the right questions." She shrugged, though I could tell it had cost her something to get that answer. "People tell you a lot if you look impressed enough by their job. It's genuinely embarrassing how easy it is."

Somebody moved that timeline on purpose. I sat with that thought a long time after Mara went to bed.

I was still awake when someone knocked on my door, way past midnight. Too late to be Theo. Too quiet to be my dad.

I opened it and found one of our guards standing there, pale, holding out a folded note with a wax seal the color of dried blood.

"This came for you," he said. "The guy who dropped it off wouldn't give a name."

"What did he look like?"

The guard hesitated. "Ordinary, my lady. That's the weird part. I couldn't even tell you his hair color. It's like my brain just slid right off him."

"That's not creepy at all," I said, mostly to myself, and he gave me a look like he agreed completely but wasn't paid enough to say so.

"Should I wake your father, my lady?"

"No." The word came out faster than I meant it to. "No, that's all. Thank you."

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't. He just nodded and left, and I stood there in the doorway a moment longer than I needed to, note still unopened in my hand, already dreading whatever was inside it.

I should have been more worried about that. But my hands were already moving, already breaking the seal.

Inside, in handwriting I didn't know, were six words that felt like ice going down my back.

I know what you remember, Selene.

My hands went cold around the paper. I read it again, and again, like the sixth time might make it mean something less terrifying than it did the first.

Then I turned it over, and my whole body went still.

Pressed into the corner, almost hidden in the fold, was the shadow of a second seal underneath the first one. Vance crest wax. Not the plain kind couriers use. The expensive kind. The kind that's kept locked in a cabinet inside the estate itself, handed out to exactly nobody who doesn't already have a reason to be trusted in that house.

My stomach dropped somewhere past the floor.

Whoever sent this note hadn't been hiding outside the walls I was about to marry into. They were already inside them.

I shoved the note under my mattress and blew out the candle.

That's when I heard it. The door handle, turning.

Barely a sound at all, like whoever was doing it was trying hard not to be heard.

I grabbed the blade from under my pillow and pressed my back against the wall.

I felt the handle finish its turn.

And the door opened.

A voice came out of the dark before I could even raise the blade. Quiet. Almost gentle. Close enough that I felt it more than heard it.

"You weren't supposed to come back.”

Selene's POV

I read it four times before the words stopped moving around on the page.

I know what you remember, Selene.

No name on it. No mark. Just six words and a guy who disappeared before anybody could get a good look at him.

I stood there in my doorway holding a note that had basically ruined my whole month, and I felt every bit of control I'd built up over the last two weeks just walked right out the door.

Someone knew. Not guessed. Knew.

I turned the paper over twice, looking for anything else. A mark. A smudge. Something. There was nothing. Whoever sent it was either very careful or very confident, and neither option made me feel better about my odds.

I didn't sleep. I sat by the window with a blade across my knees, watching the trees until the sky turned gray, and by morning I'd gone through every option twice and landed on the same two names both times. Damon, who said basically the same thing in that clearing two nights before. Or Camille, who I hadn't even met yet in this life, but who once told me, pretty gently, that I wasn't needed anymore right before she killed me.

I told Mara everything that morning. Not all of it, but the note, the clearing, the four words on the wind.

"Someone knows," she repeated, reading the note again like the words might change if she looked hard enough. "Someone actually knows what you remember, which means you have to actually tell me what that means, Selene, because I'm done guessing."

"I can't. Not yet."

"You said ‘soon’ two days ago."

"I know what I said."

"So?"

"So I need a little longer."

"That's not an answer, that's a stall tactic. I've known you for nineteen years, Selene, I know the difference."

"Maybe it's both."

"It's definitely both." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose the way she does when she's trying not to lose her temper with me. "Fine. But when you finally do tell me, I get to say I told you something was going on weeks ago and you get to admit I was right."

"Deal."

"I want that in writing eventually."

She folded the note and put it in her own pocket instead of handing it back, which is basically Mara's way of saying I'm keeping this and you don't get a say.

"You should tell your dad," she said.

"And say what? That someone sent me a note about a memory I can't explain?" I shook my head. "He'll lock me in this house until the wedding. I need to actually be at that dinner, Mara."

"You need to not get yourself killed before it."

"I'm being careful."

"You were alone in the woods at midnight two nights ago. That's not careful, that's the opposite of careful, that's practically an invitation."

I didn't have a good answer for that one.

"Whatever this is," she said, quieter now, "I hope you know I'd believe you. Whatever it turns out to be."

I almost told her right then just to see if that was true. I didn't.

The next few days blurred together. I trained until my arms hurt and Mara stopped going easy on me. Theo came back from his own digging looking pale.

"Kane's land borders three packs," he said, dropping into the chair beside me. "All three lost their leaders in the last ten years. Fires. Accidents. Real good timing, if you ask me."

"That's not a coincidence."

"No kidding. I've been saying that for the last hour, keep up."

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"About what?"

"Nothing important."

"You say 'nothing important' the way other people say 'extremely important, do not ask me again.'"

I didn't argue with that, mostly because he wasn't wrong.

"You know," he added, tapping the papers against the table to straighten them, "you've been disappearing a lot lately. Long walks. Weird hours. If I didn't know better I'd think you were meeting someone."

"I'm not meeting anyone."

"I didn't say who. I just said someone."

"Theo."

"I'm just saying. If you were meeting someone, now would be a really strange time to start, considering you're two weeks from a betrothal dinner."

"I'm not meeting anyone," I said again, which was technically true, since nothing about the clearing had been planned on my end.

He shrugged like he didn't fully believe me but wasn't going to push it further, and went back to sorting his papers.

Six days before the dinner, a second note showed up. This one came in daylight, hidden inside a basket with the seating charts. My hands went cold seeing the same handwriting again.

You are not the only one who remembers. Watch her eyes at the table. She is more frightened of you than you are of her.

Watch her eyes. That had to mean Camille. But if Camille was writing these, why warn me instead of just finishing what she started?

Unless it wasn't her at all. Unless it was someone who knew both of us well enough to see things neither of us could see in ourselves.

Two nights before the dinner, I went walking again, close to the house this time. I made it about halfway across the yard before a shape peeled off the wall in the dark, and my blade was half out before the moonlight hit his face.

Damon.

"You shouldn't be here," I said in a calm tone.

"You say that like you have any room to talk. You're the one standing outside at midnight for the second time this month."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

"I'm not the one sneaking around."

"No. You're the one following people into the woods and then acting surprised when they notice." He glanced at the blade like it was mildly interesting instead of dangerous. "If I wanted you dead, Selene, you'd already be dead. I've had my chances. I'm not here for that."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"It's supposed to make you think." He paused. "Which you clearly are."

"Why do you even care whether I think or not?"

"Because the next move is you walking into that dinner blind, and I've watched that particular mistake get made once already. I don't feel like watching it twice."

My heart raced at a faster pace. "What does that mean?"

"It means we're out of time for tonight." He nodded toward the house behind me. "Go inside before someone notices you're gone."

He didn't come any closer. Just looked at me for a while then turned to leave, and for a second I thought that was it. Then he stopped.

"One more thing," he said, in a low tone that I had to lean in to hear. "The fire wasn't the only thing I lied about."

And then he was gone.

Selene's POV

I didn't lower the blade. "What did you just say to me?"

"You heard me. I don't have time to explain tonight, and even if I did, you wouldn't believe me yet. Just know this. Not everyone circling you wants you dead. Some of us are actually trying to keep you alive long enough to matter."

Then he was gone, melting back into the shadow of the wall like he'd never been standing there at all.

I stood alone in the training yard, heart pounding, with about a hundred new questions crowding out all the old ones.

I didn't tell Mara. Not this time. Not the second time sat too weird in my chest to hand over before I even understood it myself.

Two days went by in a blur of fittings and rehearsed speeches. My dad kept practicing the formal words of the alliance out loud at breakfast, like saying them enough times would make them feel less hollow.

"To unity," he said, testing the phrase. "To peace between our packs."

"You've said that four times now."

"I want it to sound natural."

"It sounds like you're reciting something. Which you are."

"Helpful, Selene."

"I will try."

Theo, buttering toast beside me, didn't even look up. "For what it's worth, you both sound insane right now."

"Nobody asked you," my dad said, without any real heat behind it.

"I'm just saying. If I have to hear 'to unity, to peace' one more time before we even leave the house, I'm going to start reciting it back at both of you every time you ask me to pass the salt."

"Please don't," I said.

"No promises."

My dad actually laughed at that, and for a second the whole table felt almost normal, almost like a family getting ready for an ordinary dinner instead of whatever this actually was.

Then, way too fast, the night of the dinner showed up.

The ride over felt endless and instant at the same time. I sat across from my dad, running through everything one more time. Damon's warning. The two notes. Elias Kane's name is buried in old paperwork.

"You're quiet," my dad said.

"Just nervous."

"That's normal. I was nervous the day I married your mother too."

"Did it go away?"

"Eventually." He smiled a little, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Mostly."

The Vance estate looked exactly like I remembered it. Stone walls, old iron gates, windows lit up gold in the dark.

The dining hall was already half full when we got there. This time I looked everyone in the eye as I walked past. Memorizing faces.

Then I saw him.

Kellan stood near the head of the table, dressed in dark colors, wearing that same cold, controlled look I remembered from three years of marriage. When his eyes found mine across the room, I felt that same weird jolt I always used to feel.

"Selene," he said, when I reached the table, like he was testing how the name sounded out loud.

"Kellan."

"You look well."

"You sound surprised."

Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I know," I said, though I wasn't sure I did.

"How is your father finding the negotiations?" he asked, the kind of question people ask when they've run out of anything to say.

"Thorough. He reads every line twice."

"Smart man."

"He raised me, so I'd hope so."

That earned the smallest hint of a smile, there and gone so fast I almost missed it, and for one strange second I saw a flicker of the boy I used to know before the wedding turned him into someone colder.

I took my seat, and it was only once I sat down that I saw who they'd put almost right across from me.

Camille.

My whole body went cold and still, that old feeling of being hunted kicking in before I could stop it.

She gave me a polite little smile, the same one she wore the night she killed me, and I made myself smile back.

"Selene Hart," she said, testing my name the way Kellan had. "I've heard so much about you."

"All good things, I hope."

"Mostly."

There was something underneath that word I didn't like at all. I filed it away, the way I've been filing everything away lately, useful or not, until it made sense.

So I watched her. Watched her eyes, the way the note had told me to.

And almost stopped breathing.

She wasn't looking at me like a predator looks at prey. She was looking at me like you looked at a ghost. Pale under all that composure, her hand shaking just slightly around her wine glass.

Dinner went on forever, slow and formal, plates coming and going, treaty talk passed low between my dad and Kellan's advisors.

"Your father tells me you've taken an interest in the treaty negotiations," Kellan said at one point, mostly to fill the silence between us.

"Someone has to."

"That someone used to be me."

"Things change."

He studied me a beat too long after that, like he was trying to work out a math problem he couldn't quite see all the numbers for.

Near the end of the meal, an old advisor stood up to give the traditional toast. The exact one I'd heard word for word at my own wedding. Unity. Peace. Both packs are finally coming together. I lifted my glass along with everyone else, stomach twisting at how familiar it all felt, and right at that moment, glass raised, candles flickering, Camille's composure finally broke completely.

Her glass slipped and shattered on the floor.

The whole table went quiet. She stood up so fast her chair almost tipped over.

"You," she said, voice cracking wide open, loud enough for the whole room to hear. "You're supposed to be dead. I watched you die. I felt the knife go in myself."

The room exploded into noise.

Kellan's eyes locked onto mine across the table.

Dark. Stunned. And, somehow, full of memory that shouldn't even be there.

I opened my mouth, even though I had no idea what I was about to say, and that's when I noticed Camille wasn't even looking at me anymore. Her eyes had moved past my shoulder, toward the doorway at the end of the hall, and whatever she saw there drained every last bit of color out of her face.

I turned to see what she was looking at.

A man stood just inside the entrance, calm, like the chaos happening in this room didn't bother him at all. I didn't know his face. I didn't know his name. But the whole room went quiet around him in a way that had nothing to do with Camille's confession and everything to do with him.

Camille's confession had scared everyone at that table.

Whoever this man was, he scared Camille.