I died loving Him. Now I'm back

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."