Chapter 3

Every step toward the stage was a journey through a nightmare. The grass felt like broken glass under her thin shoes. The pack members parted for her, their faces a mixture of pity, scorn, and morbid curiosity. She was the spectacle. The sacrifice. Before she reached the steps, her gaze drifted upward. She noticed the massive decorative arch framing the stage had been erected in a hurry. One of the main support joints looked strained, the wood around it splintered slightly, as if the crossbeam had been settled too forcefully.

A pack worker below it gave a large bolt a final, cursory turn with a wrench before scurrying away. The whole structure seemed to groan under its own weight.

She came to a stop before Ryker and Cassia, the bright stage lights making her dizzy. Ryker stared down at her, his handsome face tight with an emotion she couldn't place. It looked like anger, but there was something else there, too. A flicker of frustration. He wanted a reaction. He wanted tears. He was being denied his final victory.

"I, Ryker Blackwood, Alpha of the Blackwood Pack," he began, his voice a solemn, powerful declaration that echoed across the silent lawn, "do hereby declare..."

*CRACK.*

The sound was sharp, unnatural, a gunshot of splintering wood. It came from above.

Instinctively, everyone looked up. Dust and woodchips rained down, catching the stage lights like malevolent confetti. A massive crack spiderwebbed across the main beam of the decorative wooden arch that framed the stage. The heavy, ornate crossbeam, weighing hundreds of pounds, groaned with a sound like a dying beast and began to tilt.

It was falling.

Directly toward the center of the stage. Directly toward them.

Time slowed to a thick, syrupy crawl. Cassia let out a terrified shriek, her legs giving out from under her. Elara just stood there. A strange sense of peace washed over her. Perhaps this was it. An end. A release from the Goddess herself.

Her mind was empty, a void. But deep in her soul, where the tattered bond still pulsed, a primal instinct screamed a single, stupid expectation: *He will save me.* It wasn't hope. It was a reflex, the last dying twitch of a severed nerve.

Ryker moved. A blur of black fabric and raw power.

His trajectory was a brutal, undeniable truth. She felt the air shift as he launched himself past her. He didn't even brush her arm. He moved as if she were nothing more than air, a ghost already gone. The faint scent of his cedar and rain washed over her one last time, a final, cruel goodbye.

He slammed into Cassia, wrapping his powerful body around her, shielding her completely as he drove them both off the side of the stage, rolling them into the relative safety of the grass.

He made his choice.

Elara watched him go.

And then the world exploded in a shower of wood and pain.

*BOOM.*

The beam shattered on the stage floor. She wasn't directly under it, but a huge, splintered piece of timber, the size of a man's leg, flew through the air like a spear.

It hit her.

The impact was a white-hot agony that ripped a silent scream from her throat. It struck her shoulder and the side of her leg, and she heard the sickening crunch of her own bones breaking.

She collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. Her grey dress, her mourning dress, began to bloom with a dark, spreading stain of red.

Dust and screams filled the air. Chaos erupted. The festive music died, replaced by a chorus of panicked shouts. Through the haze, she saw him. Ryker was on his knees, his hands moving frantically over Cassia, his voice a low, desperate rumble. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" he was saying, his voice thick with panic.

"I'm fine, Ryker, you saved me..." Cassia sobbed into his chest, a masterful performance of a damsel in distress.

He didn't look back. Not once. He didn't look at the woman he was supposedly fated to, lying broken and bleeding just a few feet away.

That was the moment.

The moment the last, frayed thread of the mate bond finally snapped. The pain of it was a soul-deep agony that dwarfed the physical torment of her shattered bones.

"ELARA!"

A raw, animalistic roar cut through the noise. Her brother, Finn, barrelled through the panicked crowd. He dropped to his knees beside her, his face a mask of horror. "Elara," he choked out, reaching for her but pulling back, terrified of causing more damage to her mangled shoulder.

Her vision was tunneling, the edges turning black. But she forced her eyes open for one last look. One last look at the man she had loved for eight years.

He was helping Cassia to her feet now, his attention finally turning toward the commotion around the wreckage. But his focus was on his "mate," his arm wrapped protectively around her.

A faint, broken smile touched Elara's lips. The darkness was welcoming.

*It's over,* she thought, as unconsciousness finally claimed her. *It's finally over.*