Chapter 4: The Bonding Gifts He Refused to Believe Were Mine

The humiliation he predicted never came. Before the banquet had officially begun, a splash sounded from the lake. The new moon was close, and a werewolf's strength ran at its lowest then. Lydia claimed her old silver wound had flared, and after she fell into the frozen spring, she barely struggled.

Council medics and skilled swimmers already lined the shore, but Keller plunged in first. He burst from the water with Lydia in his arms and crushed her soaking body to his chest to warm her. Their scents tangled in full view of the crowd, turning every claim that they were "like siblings" into a joke.

Lydia looked back at me just before Keller carried her away, triumph glittering in her eyes. The faint scent of wolfsbane clung to her cuff, and I finally understood why her old injury always flared at such convenient moments. None of it mattered to me anymore.

A few days later, the Grey family arrived in Silver Fir with a formal mate request. Ronan did not use his rank to force me, nor did he claim I was his fated mate. He kept the choice in my hands and brought a Council-notarized pledge: after the bond was sealed, I would keep my family name, my vote in territory matters, and my patrol post. No marking would happen without my explicit consent.

My mother, Helen Hall, read the terms and accepted on the spot. My younger brother, Noah Hall, opened the oath chest out of curiosity. An obsidian wolf's head etched with the Grey Ridge crest rolled through the courtyard gate, where Keller happened to pick it up as he passed. He refused to return it to the guards unless I came out to see him.

My mother had already forbidden him from setting foot on our grounds again. I took a breath and told the guards to let him through. The courtyard was filled with Grey Ridge's winter medicines, border-crossing permits, and ceremonial gifts. Surely that would force him to see the truth.

Instead, Keller walked in smiling and offered his congratulations. "I had no idea your younger sister Nora was old enough to choose a mate. Which family is he from? I might know them."

He actually thought the gifts were for my sister. I took the obsidian wolf's head from his hand and said each word slowly. "You're mistaken. This token is mine."

Shock lingered in his eyes for only a second before it softened into guilty reassurance. "Evelyn, I know you're doing this to provoke me. What happened at Cold Spring was my fault. Carrying Lydia out in front of everyone damaged her reputation, so I agreed to give her a consort oath under the old law. But don't worry. Blackwood's primary mate will always be you. Once you move in, you'll still be in charge."

A consort oath was a relic of archaic pack law. It allowed an heir to claim and protect a lower-ranking wolf while taking someone else as his primary mate. Nausea twisted my stomach, and I understood why my mother had kept the news from me.

I went inside, returned with an old leather pouch, and threw it at Keller's feet. It held everything he had given me over the years: a leather cord braided when we were pups, a tuft of black fur from his first shift, a moonstone hairpin from his coming-of-age ceremony, and twin-ring pendants engraved with our names. They had once carried his most earnest promise: he would never betray me.

The sharp clatter of the tokens hitting the ground cut off his rambling. Keller's face darkened, but he still refused to believe me. "I know I owe you an apology. I've already replaced the bonding gifts. As soon as I take Lydia home to visit her father's grave, I'll come back and complete our formal bond."

He sounded as though he were granting me a favor, as if his willingness to take me was the greatest mercy imaginable.

I told him one last time, "The bonding gifts in this courtyard are for me. You and I are over."

Keller pushed the pouch back toward me, utterly certain of himself. "Stop this, Evelyn. Be a good girl and wait for me."

He left in a hurry. I did not follow. I dropped the pouch into the pine-resin brazier. Years of keepsakes, and every ounce of devotion I had wasted on him, burned to ash.