FREYA
We leave at first light, the two of us, in a plain car with no markings and no escort.
The pack thinks we are going east to the spirit springs. That is the story Eli put out, and it is a good one, because it is exactly the kind of thing an Alpha and his Luna do when a pack is grieving and afraid. A quiet pilgrimage to the old water, to pray for the dead and ask the moon's favor for the hard days ahead. A week, perhaps two. No escort, because it is private, the kind of journey a couple makes alone. No one questions it. No one knows that the springs are a story, and that the truth is a man my husband swore he would never look at again.
And so we drive.
For the first hour neither of us says a single word.
This is the thing I did not let myself think about before I climbed into this
