Five Years Dead While My Alpha Hated My Name

Chapter 3

Lydia's POV:

Lance snatched the petition and crushed it in his fist. "Even you think I wrongly accused her?"

"I just want to know if Lydia's remains are really buried there."

The warriors at the end of the corridor stopped walking, but Darren held his ground. Lance stared at him, his gaze growing colder by the second. "Turn in your badge. From now on, your deputy commands the warriors."

Darren went pale, his disappointment plain on his face. He slowly took off his badge and set it on the windowsill, then glanced back at the crumpled petition. "If she really is buried there, every day we wait is another day she's branded a traitor."

Back in the car, Lance sat for a long time without starting the engine. He pressed a hand to his forehead and sank wearily into the seat. When someone walked past the window, he immediately straightened. After the footsteps faded, he closed his eyes again.

"What are you so afraid of?" I asked, unable to stop myself.

Was he afraid of finding me, or of proving that he had been wrong for four years?

He couldn't hear me. He just took out his phone and opened the thread he'd always kept pinned at the top. My profile picture was still the photo taken after training. My ponytail was crooked, and I was holding the birthday cake Harold had forced into my arms.

Lance had never deleted it. Even the last message I sent before leaving was still there.

Lydia: When I get back, let's go see the house by the lake together.

Below it were all the messages he had sent over the years. At first, they asked where I was. Later, they ordered me to come back and stand trial. After that, there were only insults accusing me of betraying the pack. Sometimes months passed before another one appeared.

He began typing again.

Lance: Lydia, how much longer are you going to keep this up?

Lance: You can hate me, but you don't get to make a mockery of Harold's death.

At Harold's name, he paused for a long time before adding one more line.

Lance: Just tell me you didn't do it, and I'll believe you one more time.

It was so unfair I wanted to cry. I reached out and touched the screen anyway.

It hadn't been me. It had never been me.

I had never broken the vows I made before the Moon Goddess. Our mating vow still held my soul captive at his side, yet he had been sure for years that I'd betrayed him. But the thread held only his messages. No reply from me would ever appear.

Harold's name on the screen made my chest ache.

Four years ago, it was Harold who had secretly sent me into the Ash Pack to gather evidence of Roderick's wolfsbane smuggling. Before I left, he placed an obsidian pendant in my palm, his face grave. "The recordings are hidden in here. A courier will collect them every new moon. Don't contact anyone but me."

To pass as a banished rogue, I severed my mind-link with Silvermoon, hid my pack scent, and cut off the bond through which I could have called my mate for help.

When my cover was blown, they injected me with drugs laced with silver. I could no longer shift, and my wounds could no longer heal on their own. Harold was my only contact, but he walked into an ambush when he came to extract me.

The last time Harold held my hand, his grip was already weak. "Hold on, Lydia. Get the intelligence back to them. Don't let our warriors walk into another ambush."

After Harold died, nobody was left who could prove I had stayed in the enemy camp on a mission.

The rustle of paper pulled me from the memory. I looked down and saw Lance pick up the crumpled petition. He glanced once more at the unanswered messages on his phone, hesitantly smoothed out the creases, and uncapped a pen. "Maybe I should see it for myself."

My head snapped up, my eyes fixed on his hand. If he signed, someone would find me. I could never come back, but at least he would finally know I had done none of those things.

Before the pen touched the page, Miranda called.

"Lance, my stomach hurts."

His face tightened. He sat straight up and asked urgently, "Has the doctor arrived?"

"I don't want a doctor. I want you." She was crying softly. "I just watched the news about the trial. Hearing that man bring up Lydia made me think of the fire at the docks." The pen stopped in Lance's hand. I stared at the unsigned petition as her sobs grew clearer over the phone. "That time, it was a phone call, too. Someone said Lydia was being held in a dockside warehouse, and you rushed there. Two warriors died in the explosion, and you barely survived. When I dragged you out of the fire, you couldn't even hear my voice. That scar still aches every winter. Now they've given you another location and want you to go there, too. Aren't you afraid? What will happen to me and the baby?"

Her words made him go pale. His hand tightened around the pen.

Panic hit me. I threw myself in front of him, desperately trying to grab that hand. "It wasn't me! Lance, please go and look. Just once. Please?"

But the flicker of doubt vanished from his face. He slowly capped the pen and softened his voice to reassure her.

"I won't go."

After ending the call, he drove back to the council hall. Darren and the warriors were still waiting for his decision. The moment they saw him walk in with the smoothed petition in his hand, several of them stood.

I followed him inside, somehow still hoping he would nod and let them search for me.

Instead, he threw the petition onto the table in front of everyone.

"Have you all forgotten the warehouse at the docks four years ago? This is the same trap. They say Lydia is there, lure us to the site, and then set off silver-laced explosives to kill us all."

One warrior instinctively touched the burn scar on the side of his neck and swallowed what he had been about to say.

Lance summoned the demolition contractor. The abandoned building had long been scheduled for demolition; work had simply been delayed.

"Evacuate everyone nearby and bring it down tonight. Take out Foundation 9, too. I won't give them another chance to ambush us."

"Alpha, that could be—"

"Give it to me. I'll sign. If anything happens, I'll answer for it."

The contractor uneasily handed him the demolition order. Lance's face was hard as he signed at the bottom.

He had finally agreed to sign something: an order to blow apart the foundation where my body lay.