The Banned Daughter

Starlight

By the time dinner starts to wind down, my plate is still nearly full.

I’ve spent the last forty minutes pretending to listen while Rowan tells a story about some legal case he and his father are working on. Everyone laughs in the right places. Even Jace does, though the sound is quiet and wrong coming from him. It sets my teeth on edge, because I remember that laugh and it does something to me to hear it after all this time. It draws my gaze to him. Every time I do, his attention is already on me.

It should make me angry.

It does make me angry.

But it also makes something inside me ache in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.

Rowan’s hand settles against my knee beneath the table, warm and steady. His thumb brushes once over my skin.

“Starlight,” he murmurs, low enough that no one else can hear. “You’re pale. Do you want to go upstairs?”

The nickname hits me exactly the way it always does.

Rowan only calls me Starlight when it’s just us. When he wants me to remember that before he is Alpha Dunn, before he is the man everyone here trusts with their safety, he’s mine. My boyfriend. The man who waited patiently while I figured out how to love him.

The man who stayed.

“I just need the bathroom,” I say after a moment.

His gaze searches mine, and I know he wants to ask more questions. Wants to know why I’ve barely touched my food. Why I’ve gone quiet. Why I keep looking at the man sitting across from us like I want to claw his eyes out and kiss him all at once.

Instead, he squeezes my knee. “Okay. Take your time. I’m here when you’re ready.”

The gentleness in his voice nearly breaks me.

I push back from the table before anyone can see it on my face and hurry toward the powder room near the front hall. I barely make it inside before my stomach twists hard enough to drop me to my knees.

Nothing much comes up. Just water and the bitter taste of panic.

When it passes, I stay on the cool tile floor with my back pressed against the cabinet beneath the sink. My hands shake in my lap.

This is ridiculous.

I have bigger problems than Jace Weaver.

My mother is recovering from surgery. My father sent me away from the only home I’ve ever known. I’m supposed to become another pack’s Alpha female while half the wolves in this house probably wonder if I’ll wake up one morning and decide to sink my claws into one of them.

And somehow, one look at Jace has turned me into a sixteen-year-old girl again.

I force myself to stand and splash cold water over my face. When I lift my head, my reflection looks back at me from the mirror—too pale, too wide-eyed, too much like someone I don’t recognize.

For a second, something flashes above my head.

Silver.

Curved.

Almost like the points of a crown.

I spin around so quickly my hip catches the edge of the counter.

The bathroom is empty.

My pulse thunders in my ears.

“Get it together,” I whisper.

A quiet knock sounds against the door.

“Libbie?”

Jace.

Every muscle in my body goes still.

I stare at the lock.

“Go away.”

The silence that follows is so complete I can hear the faint hum of the light overhead.

Then, quietly, “Okay.”

His footsteps retreat down the hall.

Something twists in my chest.

Of course he leaves now.

When I ask him to.

Not seven years ago. Not when I needed him to stay. Not when one phone call could have changed everything.

I wait another minute before I unlock the door and step back into the hallway.

Dinner is over by the time I return. Most of the pack has drifted away from the table, leaving only Rowan, Jace, and a pile of dishes waiting to be cleared.

Rowan stands the second he sees me.

“Hey, Starlight.” His voice stays low. Gentle. “Do you want to talk?”

Not with Jace standing ten feet away.

Not when I still don’t know what I would say.

I shake my head. “I just need something to do.”

His gaze flicks toward the dishes, then back to me. He understands immediately.

“You don’t have to clean up.”

“I know.” I manage a small smile. “But I want to.”

For a moment, he looks like he might argue. Then he leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead.

“Okay. But don’t stay up too late.”

I nod.

As Rowan heads toward the hall, Jace watches him go. His expression is unreadable, but his jaw is tight.

The second Rowan disappears around the corner, I pick up the nearest plate and carry it into the kitchen.

Jace follows.

“You don’t have to help,” I say without turning around.

“I know.”

I stack plates beside the sink and reach for the silverware. Jace moves around me with quiet efficiency, carrying glasses from the dining room and setting them carefully on the counter.

For several minutes, the only sounds are porcelain clicking together and water rushing over dishes.

Then he says, “You really barely know me?”

I freeze with a fork in my hand. It takes a second for the question to land. Then I remember the words I gave Rowan at dinner.

He doesn’t look at me. He keeps his attention on the plate beneath the water, but his shoulders have gone rigid.

I set the fork down too hard. My heart thumps wildly in my chest.

A thousand answers crowd my throat. I give him only two words.

“I don’t.”