Frozen Bonds, Broken Heart Chapter 05
Chaos engulfed the entire Blackwood Pack.
Pack members scoured every street, motel, and abandoned warehouse across Aspen.
But they were searching all the wrong spots.
I wasn’t hiding in a five-star hotel or staying with a friend. Thirty blocks out, I’d leased a tiny apartment above a local laundromat.
Back at the pack house, Blackwood’s elder Alpha and Luna arrived within hours, beside themselves with worry over their missing future Luna-in-law.
“Damon Hale!” Luna Jessie shrieked, her eyes blazing with fury. “What have you done to my Elena?!”
She spotted Sarah cowering behind him and curled her lip in disgust. “I warned you to keep your distance from that viper! How could you let her settle inside the pack house? It’s no wonder Elena
took off.”
Mom, it’s not how it looks,” Damon snapped, his voice hoarse. “Elena agreed to let her stay.”
“Agreed?” Luna Jessie snarled, her tone sharp enough to slice steel. “You’re such a fool. You don’t know the first thing about how women’s minds work. Women are possessive by nature. If Elena suddenly started agreeing with everything, it means she’s already checked out.”
Damon shook his head, refusing to believe it. “She’s just tired. She’ll come back.”
But I had no intention of coming back.
While Damon tore through the city in a rage, I was meeting with the pack’s elder council.
My parents had died in a border war, leaving me an orphan. Then the Hales stepped in out of nowhere, took me in, and renamed my father’s pack-once called Bloodfang Pack-as Blackwood
Pack.
They tied me to Damon with a mate bond, thinking a pack house and a ring would buy my loyalty.
They were wrong.
The spirit beneath the ice had taken my heart, but it had also cleared my eyes.
I was going to take back my legacy. My pack.
One afternoon, I stepped out of a witch’s tent and nearly ran into Sarah.
She looked far healthier than she should have, but there was still poison glinting in her eyes.
“Elena,” she gasped, pretending to be surprised. “You’re still in the pack? Why are you hiding?”
I met her gaze coldly. “Hello, Sarah.”
She smiled and looped her arm through mine like we were best friends. “I’m so glad I found you dear Luna. I wanted to talk to you. About the baby.”
She handed me a folded piece of paper.
“I’m pregnant, Elena.” Her long lashes fluttered, her voice sickly sweet. “It’s Damon’s. He’s going
to be a father.”
I unfolded the paper.
The typed results read like a verdict set in stone:
[Patient: Sarah Vance.
Status: Pregnant.]
In Blackwood Pack, that meant everything.
An heir mattered more than a mate.
If she gave birth to a pureblood pup, I would become utterly obsolete within the pack.
“Since you canceled the mating ceremony,” she continued, her fingers brushing lightly over her stomach, “it only stands to reason Damon and I build our life together. You get where I’m coming from, right?”
I looked at her.
What came back to me was the feeling of icy seawater flooding my airways while she stood on the shore, smiling as I sank.
“Of course,” I said softly.
And then I pushed her.
