The words hung in the suffocating heat of the pavilion. I felt the air completely abandon my lungs.
Marcus ran. He didn't stay to fight for his people. He didn't barricade his beloved pack to protect them from the monsters on the mountain. He loaded them up like cattle and dragged them into the toxic, dead lands of the east rather than face the Lycan King's wrath. Every single excuse I had ever made for him, that he was a stern leader, that he made hard choices for the good of his people, that he belonged to the noble traditions of the wolves, all incinerated into ash.
He was nothing. He was a pathetic, terrified coward who wore a crown of lies. And he had used my blood to buy his ticket out, leaving me behind in his cowardice.
"He left the territory," I whispered, the final, festering
