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He searched my eyes for long, painstaking seconds, as if he were trying to see inside me. Finally, he pushed away with a vicious growl and strode to the other side of the room. When he turned and walked back, those fists were still clenched tight. He looked at me once more, then paced to the window and stared out into the night.

He was quiet so long, I thought he was done talking, then finally, “You say she’s dead?”

Had I gotten through to him? “Yes,” I whispered, afraid to shatter this moment of sanity. Draven was broken and, unbelievably, blamed Selene for causing that damage. “She died when she was sixty-eight years old. She was one of our Keepers. She passed her task, and her magical combat trial, and ensured we retained our magical gifts and succeeded in acquiring more power for our coven. The markings I’m sure you saw on my leg, she had something similar on her face.”

His gaze moved over the side of my face to the black mark there caused by Brody. “She wouldn’t tell me what it was.” His lip curled. “Then she left.”

“In 1692, she left Salem after completing her trial and moved here to Roxburgh. She married and had three daughters. Our line came from the youngest of them. Selene died of influenza and was laid to rest in our family burial grounds.”

His gaze moved over my face again before catching and holding mine. His nostrils flared, and he dragged in a sharp breath. He cursed so loud I jumped. Then he spun and slammed his fist into the stone wall.

I watched in silence, afraid to move, to speak. His back heaved with his labored breaths.

It took time, but eventually, he had himself back under control, and though it was probably a terrible idea, I dared to speak. “What did she do to you, Draven?” I had to know.

He snarled, and the sound was filled with loss and anger, with hatred. “She fooled me into believing I cared for her, loved her, then she bound me to a dark and cold place, tethering me to a fucking rock, forcing me and my warriors to guard one of your family relics. For over three hundred years we were stuck there. Two of my warriors died of starvation, and one of them lost their mate. Many others, including my grandparents, my parents, died while I was stuck there.” His eyes flashed brighter, his wolf coming to the fore, and I braced for him to shift, but again, he pulled it back, regaining control. “That’s what she did,” he finished.

Horror rocked through me. Selene had always been a heroine in our family’s eyes. What Draven was saying didn’t match up with all the good we’d read. “She was revered by her coven, by her family. No…I can’t believe she would do that…why would she…”

“Yes,” he roared, looking as unhinged as I’d believed him to be when I first met him. “Witches have used my kind for centuries. But instead of making a fucking deal, as is custom, between wolves and witches, she fed me a love draft, lied to me, trapped me, and walked away. She did it for herself, for her coven, and spared no thought to me or my pack, or to our families that we’d never see again. My pack was vulnerable, and with its strongest warriors gone, we lost people, good fucking people because you…” He snarled again, chest heaving. “Because Selene was a selfish, evil, cunning bitch. She sacrificed us and never looked back. I don’t give a fuck what was written about her. I knew her. I know her for what she truly was. She was a fucking monster, that’s what she was.”

Tears stung my eyes. What he said, it cut me to the bone. But I believed him. It was all there in his voice, in his posture, in the pain and fury in his gaze. That she had done that…Oh goddess. I felt sick to my stomach. He had suffered so much, and Selene had caused his pain, and the pain of his people. How did you make that up to someone? Somehow Draven and his warriors had been freed, but there was no way to give them back time that was lost or the loved ones they never got the chance to say goodbye to.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to fucking hear it. It’s meaningless coming from your lips.”

I shoved back the covers, about to go to him—I don’t know why, what it would achieve, I just needed to get closer to the male. I froze in place when I remembered I was naked. Nakedness didn’t bother me, a lot of our spells required it, and shifters were used to it, but we didn’t just walk around like that unless it was necessary and neither did they.

His gaze sliced down my body and he hissed.

“Draven…”

“If you have not bewitched me, then why—” He stopped himself and the blood drained from his face.

“What is it?”

His chest heaved. “Just…stay the fuck away from me,” he said and walked out the door, slamming it behind him so hard the sound bounced off the stone walls.

Draven

I strode from my room and down the hall, not sure where I was going. My mind spun, and my lungs ached from my desperate fucking breaths.

Asher blocked my path.

“Not now, Ash,” I said and tried to walk past.

She planted her ass in front of me and wouldn’t move. “I want her dead as well, but killing the witch won’t change anything,” she said. “Selene broke one of her own covenants. Approach the witch’s council, let them deal with her. We’ve only just claimed this territory. We take out this female, we’ll start a war with the hellhounds and the witches. Are you ready for that? For what that will do to your people? We finally have a home, they have you back, don’t allow your pride and thirst for vengeance to destroy everything we’re trying to build here.”

“It’s not her,” I said, knowing it for the truth as the words left my mouth.

“What?”

“She is not Selene.” I was about to walk past but stopped myself, and instead, pulled my fiercest warrior into my arms and hugged her, pressing my mouth to her dark hair. “I’m fucking sorry, Ash, for bringing up Boone, when you were just trying to do right by the pack. I know how much his loss cost you.”

She thumped my back. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t.