Chapter 3 I'll Protect You
1227 Words
Iris' POV:
My father's quarters sat at the highest point in Blue Lake territory, its windows overlooking the pack like a kingdom laid out beneath the dark.
At three o'clock in the morning, I stood before him, my eyes swollen from crying.
"Father, I want every one of Dane's privileges revoked."
Layton had been bent over a defense map when I spoke. He finally looked up, and the weight of his gaze on my face made my chest tighten.
"Have you thought this through?"
I nodded. There had been a time when my father had tried over and over to convince me to leave Dane.
Back then, I had convinced myself my father simply did not understand love. I thought he was trying to tear us apart because he did not trust my feelings.
Now I knew better. It was not that he had failed to understand. It was that I had been a fool.
I did not tell him that Dane was a spy.
If Dane had managed to stay hidden for three years, then Blood Moon Pack's reach into Blue Lake Pack ran far deeper than we had imagined.
If he sensed that I knew, he would move before we were ready. I could not afford that.
I needed him to be careless, confident, and blind enough to show me where the cracks were.
Layton was silent for a long time. Then, at last, he gave a single nod. "I'll have it done first thing in the morning."
"Thank you, Father."
I turned to leave, but before I could take another step, my phone buzzed in my hand.
It was a message with a photo attached.
The number was unfamiliar.
The moment I opened it, my fingers went cold.
In the photo, Dane had his head tilted, feeding a strawberry from his mouth to hers.
The she-wolf was the same one I had seen kissing him at the tavern.
She leaned against his shoulder with a winner's smile, and a silver bracelet I had never seen before gleamed on her wrist.
There was a message beneath the picture.
Unknown Number: Thanks for taking care of him for me, Iris. Every sweet thing he ever told you, he told me first. Blue Bay Café. Tomorrow at three. Come alone.
I stared at the screen for a long moment. Then I locked my phone and said nothing.
The next day, at exactly three in the afternoon, I walked into Blue Bay Café.
She was already there, seated by the window in a fitted red dress, her makeup flawless and perfectly done. She looked nothing like the heavily made-up woman I had seen at the tavern the night before.
"Iris. Have a seat." She smiled at me with a familiarity so deliberate it made my skin crawl.
"Who are you?"
"Elsa Jenkins." She lifted her coffee with unhurried grace and took a small sip before setting it down again. "My mother is Brennan Gilmore's cousin. But I'm sure you already know who Brennan is."
"Dane and I grew up together." Elsa set her cup down slowly, arrogance written into every careful movement. "He promised me that once he finished his mission and came home, he would claim me properly."
I felt something inside me go still. "Do you know why he got close to you?" she asked, tilting her head as though I were the punchline to a particularly stupid joke. "Because your eyes look like mine. They're brown, with that same touch of amber. Even your scent is close to mine, or close enough for him."
Something sharp twisted in my chest. Her eyes were far too close to mine in color, and then her scent reached me. Her perfume was tangled with the lingering trace of Dane on her skin, and nausea twisted sharply in my stomach.
"Three years ago, when he first met you, I had just been sent away on a mission. He told me about you afterward. He said there was a she-wolf in Blue Lake whose eyes reminded him of me, and whose scent was close enough to drive him crazy."
Then she reached into her bag and drew out a necklace. The pendant was silver, shaped like a rose.
My breath caught, and my eyes widened.
I knew that necklace.
There was one exactly like it in Dane's drawer. He had once told me it was his mother's keepsake, the only thing she had left him, and he had never once allowed me to touch it.
"This one was my eighteenth birthday gift," Elsa said, turning the pendant between her fingers. "Later, he had an identical one made for you."
Her eyes lifted to mine, bright with satisfaction. She smiled. "Iris, you didn't actually believe that story about it being an heirloom, did you?"
Cold spread through me until I could not move.
"He used to talk about you to me." Elsa sneered, mockery threaded through every word. "He said you were easy. He said if someone treated you well for long enough, you would hand over your whole heart. He said you were just a stand-in for me, and that once everything was over, he would come back to me."
A stand-in. The words hit me with such force that I could barely breathe.
"And there's more." Elsa pulled out a photograph and slid it across the table toward me.
In it, Dane had one arm around her waist. They were standing beneath a cherry tree, smiling as though the future had never held anything cruel in store for them.
On the back, Dane had written three words.
Dane: Wait for me.
"He wrote that before he left Blood Moon Pack," Elsa said as she took the photo back. Then the softness vanished from her face, and something colder came through. "Iris, I didn't come here to gloat. I came to warn you. If you know what's good for you, then once this alliance is settled, leave Blue Lake and leave Dane behind with it."
I held her gaze, my nails digging into my palm beneath the table.
"I understand," I said.
Elsa blinked. She had come prepared for tears, rage, maybe even a scene she could carry back to Dane. She had not come prepared for my calm.
"You..."
"I said I understand." I rose slowly from my chair and looked down at her. "You don't have to worry. Dane and I are over. But when I walk away from him, I want your word that Blood Moon Pack leaves Blue Lake Pack alone."
By the time I stepped out of the café, the air felt too thin to breathe. Memories came at me with brutal clarity. I remembered the way Dane had looked at me the first time he said, "I'll protect you."
I remembered the fire and the crushing heat of his body wrapped around mine while the world burned around us.
I remembered the nights he had run a fever and muttered a name in his sleep.
I had always believed he was saying Iris.
Now, with Elsa's voice still in my ears, I could hear it clearly for what it was. It had never been Iris. It had been Elsa.
By then, tears were already streaming down my face.
Then a low, familiar voice came from behind me, "What happened? Who made my mate cry?"
- Writer
